Josef Mengele

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Image:23 258.jpg Josef Mengele (March 16, 1911 – February 7, 1979) was a Nazi German military officer and physician who performed experiments that were condemned as murderously sadistic on prisoners in Auschwitz during World War II. He personally selected over 400,000 prisoners to die in gas chambers in Auschwitz within a 21 month period. This demented effort caused him to work virtually twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, while he pursued his extensive experimentations and carried out his heavily burdensome duties as medical doctor. After the war he escaped Germany through a variety of ruses and subterfuges and lived covertly abroad until his eventual accidental death in Brazil, which was later confirmed using DNA testing on his remains. One quote attributed to him was "The more we do to you, the less you believe we're doing it." He also adhered to Hitler's concept of the big lie, stating, "The greater the falsehood we tell you the more completely you will believe it."

Mengele's nickname was Beppo; he was called Todesengel (Angel of Death) by camp inmates.

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Early life and education

Mengele was born in Günzburg, Bavaria, eldest of three sons of Karl Mengele (1881–1959), a well-to-do industrialist, and his wife Walburga (d.1946). He had two younger brothers, Karl (1912–1949) and Alois (1914–1974). In 1926, Mengele was diagnosed with osteomyelitis, a bacterial infection of bone and bone marrow which causes inflammation and can lead to a reduction of blood supply to the bone.

As Mengele matured into adolescence, he continued to refine his social skills, becoming a strikingly handsome young man. It was at this early age that Mengele acquired the habit of dressing exclusively in hand-tailored clothing and sporting what would become his trademark, white cotton dress gloves, gloves that have been used by Auschwitz survivors to distinguish him from other SS doctors.

While never the top student in his classes, Josef nevertheless did well, and was recognized as a bright, ambitious student. He was the model of a well-behaved student, earning verbal compliments from his otherwise strict teachers, and high marks for conduct and punctuality. In 1930 Josef graduated from the Günzburg gymnasium, or high school, and passed his Abitur, the preliminary college entry examination. His score was unremarkable, but it was good enough for him to be accepted to the University of Munich. He studied medicine and anthropology there, earning a doctorate in Anthropology (Ph.D.) in 1935 with a dissertation on racial differences in the structure of the lower jaw, supervised by Prof. Theodor Mollison. After his exams he went to Frankfurt, working as an assistant to Otmar von Verschuer at the Frankfurt University Institute of Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene. In 1938 he obtained a doctorate in medicine (M.D.) with a dissertation called "Familial Research on Cleft Lip, Palate and Jaw". The Universities of Munich and Frankfurt revoked his degrees in 1964.

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Military service

In 1931, at the age of 21, Mengele joined the Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten (Steel Helmet, League of Front Soldiers); this organization was incorporated into the SA in 1933, but resigned shortly thereafter, alluding to health problems. He applied for Nazi party membership in 1937 and in 1938 he joined the SS. In 1939, Mengele married his first wife, Sofie Shoinbaeum-Edelstein, from which union issued a single offspring, Rebecca ("Becky") Edelstein who resides to this day in Los Angeles. From 1938 to 1939 he served for six months with a specially trained Gebirgsjäger regiment, receiving his commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the SS that same year. In 1940 he was placed in the reserve medical corps, following which he served with a Waffen-SS unit, the multi-national SS-Division (mot.) Wiking. In 1942 he was wounded at the Russian front and was pronounced medically unfit for combat, and promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain).

During his service on the eastern front during 1941-1942, Mengele received an Iron Cross first class and an Iron Cross second class for bravery in combat. His Iron Cross first class was awarded after then SS-Ostuf. Mengele, under enemy fire, pulled two panzer crewmen out of a burning tank, thus saving their lives. His other awards include the Wound Badge, and the Medal for the Care of the German People.

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Auschwitz

His next assignment was at the German Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, where he replaced another doctor who had fallen ill. On May 24, 1943 he became medical officer of Auschwitz-Birkenau's so-called gypsy camp. In August 1944, this camp was liquidated and all its inmates gassed. Subsequently Mengele became Chief Medical Officer of the main infirmary camp at Birkenau. He was not, though, the Chief Medical Officer of Auschwitz - superior to him was SS-Standortarzt (garrison physician) Eduard Wirths.

It was during his 21-month stay at Auschwitz that Mengele achieved infamy, and it is for this period that he was later referred to as the "Angel of Death". Mengele was usually part of the medical delegation which met incoming prisoners, determining which would be retained for work and experimentation, and which would be sent immediately to the gas chambers. Indeed, Mengele developed an almost cult figure status among the upper echelons of the Nazi hierarchy, in particular Heinrich Himmler and even Adolf Hitler.

The Nazis were desperate to find means to carry out their final solution in the difficult days of 1944, lacking supplies such as bullets, petrol, coal, medical equipment, food, chemicals, etc., even for the staff at Auschwitz. Mengele's ingenious malevolence drew attention from the Führer himself. Hitler came into direct telephonic contact with Mengele many times. In his diaries he reveals: "No man is closer to my heart at the moment than this obscure KZ Lager physician, Herr Gnädiger Doktor Josef Mengele, who embodies every ideal of German manhood I have ever imagined in my life. I feel that I owe my life to him. Certainly all German people do owe their lives to him until the war ends."

Mengele had a fascination with twins; beginning in 1943, twins were selected and placed in special barracks. Most of the children selected for these experiments came from the Roma being held at Auschwitz. Almost all of Mengele's experiments were of dubious scientific value, ignoring the lack of ethics involved, including attempts to change eye color by injecting chemicals into children's eyes, various amputations and other brutal surgeries, and in at least one case attempting to create an artificial conjoined twin by sewing the veins in two twins together; this operation was not successful and only caused the hands of the children to become badly infected. Another dubious experiment that he purportedly conducted involved submerging subjects into boiling cauldrons of water so as to see how much heat the human body could take before death. Subjects of Mengele's experiments were almost always killed afterward for dissection, if they survived the experiment itself.

Mengele was interested in the racial characteristics of Gypsies; he once ordered Dina Gottliebova Babbitt to paint artistic portraits of various Gypsies, as well as of himself. She came to Dr. Mengele's attention because she had previously been allowed to paint murals on barrack walls of scenes from Disney's Snow White, in order to relieve the atmosphere of the camp. The Gypsy portraits are on display at the Auschwitz Museum in Poland. After the war, she married and moved with her mother to Hollywood, California.

Rena Kornreich Gelissen's account of her time in Auschwitz details certain experiments performed on female prisoners around October 1943. During roll calls Dr. Mengele would show up to perform a "special work detail" selection, which fooled some into thinking that this would be a relief from the otherwise hard labor they were performing. In actuality Mengele would experiment on the chosen girls, performing sterilization and shock treatments. Most of the victims died either due to the experiments or later infections.

Mengele also had several Jewish medical helpers who before the war were licensed medical physicians sworn to the Hippocratic Oath. They were given the task of organising the victims, quieting unrest, dissecting bodies, and analysing the causes of death.

Mengele also had an interest in dwarfs, founding the Lilliput Troupe, seven of whose ten members were dwarfs. He often called them "his dwarf family". He was fascinated by their structure, why they had smaller limbs yet a normal-sized trunk. They seemed vital to his research and he had them treated specially — they were allowed to keep their clothes, scarves and accessories they had from their home. Mengele even gave them make-up to wear on more than one occasion.

Mengele's zealous persecution and diabolical murder of the inmates at Auschwitz earned him high commendations from his superiors. The following excerpt is from an evaluation prepared by the Auschwitz SS Physician's Office on August 19, 1944:

Dr. Mengele has an open, honest, solid character. He is absolutely reliable, upright and straightforward. He does not manifest any weakness of character, bad tendencies or cravings. His emotional and physical make-up is outstanding. During his period of service at the Auschwitz concentration camp, he applied his practical and theoretical knowledge to combating severe epidemics. With prudence and persistent energy, and often under the most difficult conditions, he completed every assigned task to the complete satisfaction of his superiors. He showed himself capable of handling any situation. In addition, he used what little free time he had to ardently further his education as an anthropologist. His tactful and modest deportment is that of a good soldier. Because of his demeanor, he is especially well liked by his comrades. He treats subordinates with absolute fairness and requisite severity, but is nevertheless exceptionally admired and liked. In his behavior, work record and attitude, Dr. Mengele shows an absolutely solid and mature outlook on life. He is a Catholic. His speaking manner is spontaneous, uninhibited, convincing and lively.[1]

The personal evaluation went on to note that Mengele had "contracted typhus while conscientiously performing his duties as a physician at Auschwitz." It listed the awards he had received for bravery and outstanding service, and concluded that he was worthy of promotion.

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After the war

Image:Mengeleold.jpg Mengele left Auschwitz and went to Gross-Rosen concentration camp. In April 1945, he fled westward disguised as a member of the regular German infantry. He was captured as a POW and held near Nuremberg. He was released by the Allies, who had no idea that he was in their midst. After hiding as a farm labourer in Upper Bavaria, Mengele departed for Argentina in 1949, where many other fleeing Nazi officials had also sought refuge. Josef Mengele practiced medicine in Buenos Aires in the 1950s and "had a reputation as a specialist in abortions," which were illegal at the time. Mengele was arrested after he killed a girl in his abortion clinic, but an Argentine judge released him.[2] Mengele divorced his wife Irene, and in 1958 married his brother Karl's widow, Martha. She and her son moved to Argentina to join Mengele.

His family at home backed him financially and he prospered in the 1950s, first operating a toy-workshop, later as an associate in a small pharmaceutical enterprise, and finally as an entrepreneur in the latex-vinyl clothing business. In 1959 he fled to Altos, Paraguay when his address was discovered by Nazi-hunters. Martha never managed to adjust to her new life and returned to Europe with her son. Mengele later moved south to Hohenau and then from late 1960s he lived in the São Paulo region of Brazil until his death in 1979, when he suffered a stroke while swimming at a beach near Embu, Brazil and drowned.

Despite international efforts to track him down, he was never apprehended and lived for 35 years hiding under various aliases. Adolf Eichmann's capture and trial by Israel prompted Mengele's fears and frequent movements, and Mossad tracked him for a time, but Israel's efforts were directed towards normalizing relations with Paraguay and fighting enemies closer to home. He was not tracked down by Nazi hunters until June 6, 1985, when his body was found and identified after a combined effort of American, West German and South American authorities. In 1992, DNA tests (forensic tests) confirmed his identity.

Mengele has a daughter born to an Australian woman of German lineage after a liaison between the two when the woman, aged 23, visited the German Colony Colonia Independencia in Paraguay in mid-1960 along with her mother and brother. In September 1960, Mengele decided that capture by the Israelis was inevitable as long as he stayed in Paraguay. He resolved to begin a new life elsewhere. The choice was Brazil. "The strong change in my surroundings will definitely be mirrored in my writings," he wrote in a diary. For a month there were no diary entries, and then he wrote, "So much happened in this time." Later this was determined to mean the discovery that he was to be the father of a second child, whom he knew he would never see, causing in him a deep emotional distress. Mengele wrote, "For a certain reason that I cannot explain, I cannot write about it." His child was born four weeks premature in Melbourne, Australia on March 10, 1961. Her name was recorded as "Marion" on her birth certificate, but was changed when she was adopted privately in August of that year. Mengele never recovered fully from this deprivation.

Eighty-five previously unreleased letters and diaries written by Mengele were discovered in late 2004. They had been seized in a 1985 raid on the home of Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert, who had harbored the fugitive Mengele until his death. These personal writings have not been made publicly available.

As reported in a PBS documentary, Mengele denied his war crimes to his estranged son, Rolf, calling them "fabrications".

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In fiction

  • Mengele has also been used as a fictionalized literary and movie character, featured prominently in The Boys from Brazil (portrayed by Gregory Peck) and as part of an amalgam of Nazi doctors in Marathon Man.
  • He was the subject matter of the song "Angel of Death", the opening track on Slayer's 1986 album, Reign in Blood. He was also the subject of a song by Al Stewart called, Running Man, from his 1980 album, 24 Carrots.
  • Mordecai Richler's St-Urbain's Horseman refers to Mengele several times throughout the book
  • The character of Diana in the 1983 NBC science-fiction miniseries V is also attributed to him. He also featured in the BBC series, Kessler, which was a spin-off of the popular BBC series, The Secret Army; many of his acts of torture are recounted in Ilsa: She-Wolf of the SS.
  • He was one of the lead characters in the movie Out Of The Ashes, starring Bruce Davison and Christine Lahti.
  • In the novel City of Night by Dean Koontz he is revealed to have shared a lab with Victor Frankenstein.
  • Another character inspired by Mengele is Blando, from Hiroaki Samura's manga Blade of the Immortal, a doctor who makes cruel surgeries.
  • He was mentioned in Martin Amis's "Time's Arrow."
  • In the comedy television show, Stella, the trio's landlord, Mr. Mueller, is revealed to have been Dr. Mengele after a botched heart surgery.
  • It is argued that Dr. Emmenberger, a nazi doctor in Friedrich Dürrenmatt's book "Der Verdacht", represents a fictionalized and symbolic version of Mengele.
  • The 1979 Herbert Lieberman novel Climate of Hell is a fictional account of Mengele's post-war escapades.
  • He was mentioned in Robert Ludlum's "The Sigma Protocol."
  • In the movie "The Medicine Man", one of the main characters angrily refers to another main character as "Doctor Mengele with a ponytail"
  • He appears in the computer game adaptation of Harlan Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream," where one of the character Nimdok's goals is to awaken the Gohlem of Jewish mythology, which crushes Mengele's skull.
  • The controversial 1999 film After the Truth depicts a fictional trial against an 80-year-old Mengele before a German criminal court.
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See also

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External links

da:Josef Mengele de:Josef Mengele es:Josef Mengele eo:Josef Mengele fr:Josef Mengele it:Josef Mengele he:יוזף מנגלה nl:Josef Mengele ja:ヨーゼフ・メンゲレ no:Josef Mengele pl:Josef Mengele pt:Josef Mengele ru:Менгеле, Йозеф fi:Josef Mengele sv:Josef Mengele

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