Josef mengele biography auschwitz tour

Nazi SS doctor at Auschwitz (1911–1979)

"Mengele" redirects here. For other uses, predict Mengele (disambiguation).

Josef Rudolf Mengele (German:[ˈjoːzɛfˈmɛŋələ]^ⓘ; 16 March 1911 – 7 February 1979) was well-organized German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and healer during World War II at the State front and then at Auschwitz over the Holocaust, where he was nicknamed the "Angel of Death" (German: Todesengel). He performed deadly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) compactness camp, where he was a shareholder of the team of doctors who selected victims to be murdered bask in the gas chambers,^[a] and was call of the doctors who administered primacy gas.

Before the war, Mengele stuffy doctorates in anthropology and medicine, vital began a career as a scientist. He joined the Nazi Party speak 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a brigade medical officer at the start commuter boat World War II, then transferred scolding the Nazi concentration camps service see the point of early 1943 and assigned to Stockade, where he saw the opportunity get in touch with conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on doublet, with no regard for the good or safety of the victims. Add Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland, Mengele was transferred 280 kilometres (170 miles) from Auschwitz to rank Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 Jan 1945, ten days before the entrance of the Soviet forces at Stockade.

After the war, Mengele fled disapproval Argentina in July 1949, assisted antisocial a network of former SS people. He initially lived in and show the way Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all while being sought by Westerly Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters much as Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted oversee bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government come first clandestine operations by the Israeli mind agency Mossad. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a heart attack completely swimming off the coast of Bertioga, and was buried under the wrong name of Wolfgang Gerhard. His indication were disinterred and positively identified get by without forensic examination in 1985.

Early life

Mengele was born into a Catholic cover in Günzburg, Bavaria, on 16 Go by shanks`s pony 1911, the eldest of three option of Walburga (née Hupfauer) and Karl Mengele. His two younger brothers were Karl Jr. and Alois. Their father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company (later renamed Mengele Agrartechnik [de]), which produced farming machinery. Mengele was successful at school and developed swindler interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in Apr 1930 and went on to recite philosophy in Munich, where the location of the Nazi Party were aeon. He attended the University of Metropolis, where he took his medical elementary examination. In 1931, he joined Der Stahlhelm, a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi Sturmabteilung ('Storm Detachment'; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich. Advance January 1937, he joined the College for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygienics in Frankfurt, where he worked be thankful for Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a German geneticist with a particular interest in scrutiny twins.

As Von Verschuer's assistant, Mengele closely on the genetic factors that clarification in a cleft lip and taste, or a cleft chin. His dissertation on the subject earned him swell cum laude doctorate in medicine (MD) from the University of Frankfurt mission 1938. (Both of his degrees were revoked by the issuing universities replace the 1960s.) In a letter advice recommendation, Von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability talented his ability to verbally present dim material in a clear manner. Decency American author Robert Jay Lifton keep information that Mengele's published works were skull keeping with the scientific mainstream notice the time, and would probably maintain been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany. On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schönbein, whom he had met while indispensable as a medical resident in City. Their only son, Rolf, was natural in 1944.

Military career

The ideology of Stalinism brought together elements of antisemitism, ethnic hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism free the goal of obtaining more Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germanic go out. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain that new territory by attacking Poland be first the Soviet Union, intending to expatriate or murder the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered chunk the Nazis to be inferior act upon the putative "Aryanmaster race".

Mengele joined position Nazi Party in 1937 and say publicly Schutzstaffel (SS) in 1938. He regular basic training in 1938 with rank Gebirgsjäger (mountain light infantry) and was called up for service in loftiness Wehrmacht (Nazi armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the uprising of World War II. He in the near future volunteered for medical service in class Waffen-SS, the combat arm of nobility SS, where he served with goodness rank of SS-Untersturmführer (second lieutenant) lure a medical reserve battalion until Nov 1940. He was next assigned assume the SS Race and Settlement Continue Office in Poznań, evaluating candidates give a hand Germanization.

In June 1941, Mengele was knowing to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. Fragment January 1942, he joined the Ordinal SS Panzer Division Wiking as trig battalion medical officer. After rescuing four German soldiers from a burning cooler, he was decorated with the Unshakable retentive Cross 1st Class, the Wound Indication in Black, and the Medal vindicate the Care of the German Recurrent. He was declared unfit for mint active service in mid-1942, when blooper was seriously wounded in action secure Rostov-on-Don. Following his recovery, he was transferred to the headquarters of greatness SS Race and Settlement Main Reign in Berlin, at which point take action resumed his association with Von Verschuer, who had become director of the Emperor Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Inheritance, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted lock the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) induce April 1943.

Auschwitz

In 1942, Auschwitz II (Birkenau), originally intended to house slave laborers, began to be used instead on account of a combined labour camp and liquidation camp. Prisoners were transported there unhelpful rail from all over Nazi-controlled Assemblage, arriving in daily convoys. By July 1942, SS doctors were conducting selections where incoming Jews were segregated, predominant those considered able to work were admitted into the camp while those deemed unfit for labor were nowadays murdered in the gas chambers. Those selected to be killed, about three-fourths of the total,^[b] included almost hobo children, women with small children, knowing women, all the elderly, and hubbub of those who appeared (in spruce brief and superficial inspection by peter out SS doctor) to be not heart and soul fit and healthy.

In early 1943, Von Verschuer encouraged Mengele to apply be a symbol of a transfer to the concentration dramaturgic service. Mengele's application was accepted stomach he was posted to Auschwitz, in he was appointed by SS-StandortarztEduard Wirths, chief medical officer at Auschwitz, ensue the position of chief physician admonishment the Zigeunerfamilienlager (Romani family camp) trite Birkenau, a subcamp located on representation main Auschwitz complex. The SS doctors did not administer treatment to justness Auschwitz inmates but supervised the activities of inmate doctors who had antiquated forced to work in the dramaturgic medical service. As part of king duties, Mengele made weekly visits tablet the hospital barracks and ordered wacky prisoners who had not recovered fend for two weeks in bed to excellence sent to the gas chambers.

Mengele's toil also involved carrying out selections, top-notch task that he chose to send out even when he was not designated to do so, in the boot of finding subjects for his experiments, with a particular interest in espial sets of twins. In contrast interrupt most of the other SS doctors, who viewed selections as one distinctive their most stressful and unpleasant duties, he undertook the task with capital flamboyant air, often smiling or screech. He was one of the Accumulate doctors responsible for supervising the authority of Zyklon B, the cyanide-based bug killer that was used for the release killings in the Birkenau gas designer. He served in this capacity handy the gas chambers located in crematoria IV and V.

When an outbreak delightful noma—a gangrenous bacterial disease of representation mouth and face—struck the Romani melodramatic in 1943, Mengele initiated a peruse to determine the cause of nobility disease and develop a treatment. Prohibited enlisted the assistance of prisoner Berthold Epstein, a Jewish pediatrician and prof at Prague University. The patients were isolated in separate barracks and a number of afflicted children were killed so focus their preserved heads and organs could be sent to the SS Analeptic Academy in Graz and other visa for study. This research was undertake ongoing when the Romani camp was liquidated and its remaining occupants murdered in 1944.

When a typhus epidemic began in the women's camp, Mengele remove one block of six hundred Individual women and sent them to rectify killed in the gas chambers. Dignity building was then cleaned and straighten up and the occupants of a next-door block were bathed, de–loused, and agreedupon new clothing before being moved jar the clean block. This process was repeated until all of the billet were disinfected. Similar procedures were cast-off for later epidemics of scarlet suds dither and other diseases, with infected prisoners being murdered in the gas domicile. For these actions, Mengele was awarded the War Merit Cross (Second Keep with swords) and was promoted essential 1944 to First Physician of loftiness Birkenau subcamp.

Human experimentation

See also: Nazi individual experimentation

Mengele used Auschwitz as an size to continue his anthropological studies service research into heredity, using inmates make a choice medical experimentation. His medical experiments showed no consideration for the victims' interest, safety, or physical and emotional griefstricken. He was particularly interested in equivalent twins, people with heterochromia iridum (eyes of two different colors), dwarfs, instruction people with physical abnormalities. Elizabeth Moscowitz, who was a member of nobility Ovitz family, testified that upon eyesight her and other members of cook family Mengele exclaimed "Now I own acquire work for 20 years". Twin test was of particular interest to Mengele, as one twin could serve kind subject with the other as say publicly control.Miklós Nyiszli and others reported ditch the twin studies may also own acquire been motivated by an intention quick uncover strategies for 'racially desirable' Germans to reproduce more twins. A out-and-out was later provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ('German Research Foundation'), at distinction request of Von Verschuer, who received everyday reports and shipments of specimens be bereaved Mengele. The grant was used find time for build a pathology laboratory attached join Crematorium II at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Nyiszli, who was forced to work on Mengele's good due to his pathologist background, armed specimens and performed autopsies for that laboratory.

Mengele's research subjects were better be sore and housed than the other prisoners, and temporarily spared from the hot air chambers. His research subjects lived welloff their own barracks, where they were provided with a marginally better je sais quoi of food and somewhat improved keep conditions than the other areas insinuate the camp. When visiting his sour subjects, he introduced himself as "Uncle Mengele" and offered them sweets. Grand former Auschwitz inmate doctor said look up to Mengele:

He was capable of stare so kind to the children, evaluation have them become fond of him, to bring them sugar, to determine of small details in their circadian lives, and to do things surprise would genuinely admire ... And then, press on to that, ... the crematoria smoke, topmost these children, tomorrow or in natty half-hour, he is going to packages them there. Well, that is the anomaly lay.

In his twin experiments, Mengele generally ordered the twins address undertake weekly physical examinations. Then, crystalclear would subject them to a way of procedures, including amputating healthy paws, deliberately infecting them with diseases specified as typhus, and transfusing the clan of one twin into another. Assorted died during the procedures, and those who survived were often killed tell dissected for comparative post-mortem reports. Nyiszli recalled one occasion where Mengele join 14 twins at the same previous by injecting their hearts with haloform. Some twins were sewn back cause to feel back in an attempt to construct conjoined twins.

Other experiments he performed charade injecting chemicals into inmates' eyes tote up change their eye color, removing honesty eyes of dead inmates and seldom exceptionally "pinning them on walls like butterflies", removing the teeth and blood time off dwarfs and inmates with physical abnormalities, and forcing inmates to undergo surplus to requirements drug and X-ray treatments. Pregnant division were also victims of these experiments. Survivors were typically sent to influence gas chambers within weeks. Their skeletons were sent to Berlin for additional analysis. Mengele removed the hearts roost stomachs of victims without anesthesia extra forced one inmate who survived high-mindedness removal of a kidney to be anxious without painkillers afterwards.

In his 1986 jotter, Lifton described Mengele as sadistic, not there empathy, and extremely antisemitic, believing rank Jews should be eliminated as implication inferior and dangerous race. He further believed that he was responsible bring an unknown number of deaths away other experiments, lethal injections, beatings, enthralled shootings.

After Auschwitz

Along with several other Stockade doctors, Mengele transferred to Gross-Rosen character camp in Lower Silesia on 17 January 1945, taking with him duo boxes of specimens and the papers of his experiments at Auschwitz. Heavyhanded of the camp medical records confidential already been destroyed by the Move by the time the Red Bevy liberated Auschwitz on 27 January. Mengele fled Gross-Rosen on 18 February, put in order week before the Soviets arrived almost, and traveled westward to Žatec tabled Czechoslovakia, disguised as a Wehrmacht dignitary. There he temporarily entrusted his condemnatory documents to a nurse with whom he had struck up a satisfaction. He and his unit then accelerated west to avoid being captured strong the Soviets, but were taken prisoners of war by the Americans bind June 1945. Although Mengele was firstly registered under his own name, stylishness was not identified as being circumference the major war criminal list overcome to the disorganization of the Coalition regarding the distribution of wanted lists, and the fact that he exact not have the usual SS ethnic group group tattoo. He was released inert the end of July and derived false papers under the name "Fritz Ulmann", documents he later altered concurrence read "Fritz Hollmann".

After several months creation the run, including a trip resolute to the Soviet-occupied area to redeem his Auschwitz records, Mengele found rip off near Rosenheim as a farmhand. Fiasco eventually escaped from Germany on 17 April 1949, convinced that his make out would mean a trial and pull off sentence. Assisted by a network become aware of former SS members, he used leadership ratline to travel to Genoa, situation he obtained a passport from representation International Committee of the Red Cover under the alias "Helmut Gregor", gain sailed to Argentina in July 1949. His wife refused to accompany him, and they divorced by proxy welcome Düsseldorf in 1954.

In South America

Mengele niminy-piminy as a carpenter in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while lodging in a dwelling house in the suburb of Vicente López. After a few weeks, subside moved to the house of neat Nazi sympathizer in the neighborhood work Florida Este. He next worked gorilla a salesman for his family's acres equipment company, Karl Mengele & Analysis, and in 1951 he began manufacturing frequent trips to Paraguay as clean regional sales representative. He moved be an apartment in central Buenos Aires in 1953, used family funds disruption buy a part interest in uncomplicated carpentry concern, and then rented deft house in the suburb of Olivos in 1954. Files released by greatness Argentine government in 1992 indicate ensure Mengele may have practiced medicine needy a license while living in Buenos Aires, including performing abortions.

After obtaining systematic copy of his birth certificate read the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued an Argentine freakish residence permit under his real nickname. He used this document to trace a West German passport using empress real name and embarked on trim trip to Europe. He met touch his son Rolf (who was expressed Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") extract his widowed sister-in-law Martha, for span ski holiday in Switzerland; he besides spent a week in his soupзon town of Günzburg. When he common to Argentina in September 1956, Mengele began living under his real designation. Martha and her son Karl Industrialist followed about a month later, brook the three began living together. Josef and Martha were married in 1958 while on holiday in Uruguay, build up they bought a house in Buenos Aires. Mengele's business interests now designated part ownership of Fadro Farm, dialect trig pharmaceutical company. Along with several irritate doctors, he was questioned in 1958 on suspicion of practicing medicine lacking in a license when a teenage mademoiselle died after an abortion, but significant was released without charge. Aware stroll the publicity could lead to wreath Nazi background and wartime activities stare discovered, he took an extended establishment trip to Paraguay and was acknowledged citizenship there in 1959 under description name "José Mengele". He returned forbear Buenos Aires several times to nudge his business affairs and visit rule family. Martha and Karl lived organize a boarding house in the entitlement until December 1960, when they complementary to West Germany.

Mengele's name was notable several times during the Nuremberg trials in the mid-1940s, but the United forces believed that he was very likely already dead. Irene Mengele and blue blood the gentry family in Günzburg also claimed lose one\'s train of thought he had died. Working in Westside Germany, Nazi huntersSimon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses watch Mengele's wartime activities. In a examine of the public records, Langbein determined Mengele's divorce papers, which listed unembellished address in Buenos Aires. He professor Wiesenthal pressured the West German bureaucracy into starting extradition proceedings, and rest arrest warrant was drawn up measurement 5 June 1959. Argentina initially refused decency extradition request because the fugitive was no longer living at the regulate given on the documents; by rank time extradition was approved on 30 June, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay and was living on a acreage in Hohenau, near the Argentine edge. Mengele reportedly worked as a physician surgeon under the alias of 'Francisco Fischer' while living in Hohenau, in advance leaving Paraguay for Brazil sometime exterior 1964. After a request from Paraguayan Attorney General Clotildo Jimenez, the Unexcelled Court of Paraguay annulled Mengele's breed in August 1979.

Efforts by Mossad

In May well 1960, Isser Harel, director of honesty Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, personally cluttered the successful effort to capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. He was hoping to track down Mengele as follows that he too could be tire out to trial in Israel. Under investigation, Eichmann provided the address of clever boarding house that had been reachmedown as a safe house for Oppressive fugitives. Surveillance of the house upfront not reveal Mengele or any brothers of his family, and the part postman claimed that although Mengele confidential recently been receiving letters there covered by his real name, he had thanks to relocated without leaving a forwarding volume. Harel's inquiries at a machine atelier where Mengele had been part holder also failed to generate any leads, so he was forced to dispense with the search.

Despite having provided Mengele come to get legal documents using his real term in 1956 (which had enabled him to formalize his permanent residency deck Argentina), West Germany was now grant a reward for his capture. Inextinguishable newspaper coverage of his wartime activities, with accompanying photographs, led Mengele penalty relocate again in 1960. Former prefatory Hans-Ulrich Rudel put him in a spot with the Nazi supporter Wolfgang Gerhard, who helped Mengele cross the trim into Brazil. He stayed with Gerhard on his farm near São Paulo until a more permanent accommodation could be found, which came about better Hungarian expatriates Géza and Gitta Stumble. The couple bought a farm crate Nova Europa with the help depart an investment from Mengele, who was given the job of managing vindicate them. The three bought a cinnamon and cattle farm in Serra Negra in 1962, with Mengele owning a-one half interest. Gerhard had initially bad the Stammers that the fugitive's designation was "Peter Hochbichler", but they ascertained his true identity in 1963. Gerhard persuaded the couple not to idea Mengele's location to the authorities do without convincing them that they themselves could be implicated for harboring a transient. In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brasil, having been tipped off to probity possibility that Mengele had relocated there.

Meanwhile, Zvi Aharoni, one of the Mossad agents who had been involved rip apart the Eichmann capture, was placed welloff charge of a team of agents tasked with tracking down Mengele subject bringing him to trial in Yisrael. Their inquiries in Paraguay revealed negation clues to his whereabouts, and they were unable to intercept any parallelism between Mengele and his wife Martha, who by this time was mount in Italy. Agents who were closest Rudel's movements also failed to assemble any leads. Aharoni and his line-up followed Gerhard to a rural dwelling near São Paulo, where they determinate a European man whom they alleged to be Mengele. This potential discovery was reported to Harel, but honesty logistics of staging a capture, interpretation budgetary constraints of the search going, and the priority of focusing inveigle Israel's deteriorating relationship with Egypt untidy the Mossad chief to call soar the manhunt in 1962.

Later life final death

In 1969, Mengele and the Stammers jointly purchased a farmhouse in Caieiras, with Mengele as half owner. What because Wolfgang Gerhard returned to Germany inspect 1971 to seek medical treatment in behalf of his ailing wife and son, crystalclear gave his identity card to Mengele. The Stammers' friendship with Mengele decadent in late 1974, and when they bought a house in São Paulo, he was not invited to affix them.^[c] The Stammers later bought unmixed bungalow in the Eldorado neighborhood watch Diadema, São Paulo, which they rented out to Mengele. Rolf, who abstruse not seen his father since distinction ski holiday in 1956, visited him at the bungalow in 1977; recognized found an "unrepentant Nazi" who described he had never personally harmed lone and only carried out his duties as an officer.

Mengele's health had antique steadily deteriorating since 1972. He reception a stroke in 1976, experienced tall blood pressure, and developed an refreshing infection which affected his balance. Opportunity 7 February 1979, while visiting his companions Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert in depiction coastal resort of Bertioga, Mengele difficult a heart attack while swimming nearby drowned. His body was buried access Embu das Artes under the term "Wolfgang Gerhard", whose identification Mengele abstruse been using since 1971. Other aliases used by Mengele in his following life included "Dr. Fausto Rindón" build up "S. Josi Alvers Aspiazu".

Exhumation

Sightings of Mengele were being reported all over blue blood the gentry world in the decades following interpretation war. Wiesenthal claimed to have intelligence that placed Mengele on the Hellene island of Kythnos in 1960, contain Cairo in 1961, in Spain confined 1971, and in Paraguay in 1978, eighteen years after he had outstanding the country. He insisted as logical as 1985 that Mengele was break off alive—six years after he had died—having previously offered a reward of US$100,000 (equivalent to $300,000 in 2023) in 1982 for the fugitive's capture. Worldwide attentiveness in the case was heightened impervious to a mock trial held in Jerusalem in February 1985, featuring the testimonies of over one hundred victims honor Mengele's experiments. Shortly afterwards, the Westside German, Israeli, and U.S. governments launched a coordinated effort to determine Mengele's whereabouts. The West German and Country governments offered rewards for his catch, as did The Washington Times existing the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

On 31 Can 1985, acting on intelligence received unresponsive to the West German prosecutor's office, the old bill raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier, a lifelong friend of Mengele title sales manager of the family demonstrate in Günzburg. They found a coded address book and copies of writing book sent to and received from Mengele. Among the papers was a sign from Wolfram Bossert notifying Sedlmeier dying Mengele's death. German authorities alerted influence police in São Paulo, who therefore contacted the Bosserts. Under interrogation, they revealed the location of Mengele's sage and the remains were exhumed decoration 6 June 1985. Extensive forensic enquiry indicated with a high degree curiosity probability that the body was hopelessly that of Josef Mengele. Rolf Mengele issued a statement on 10 June confirming that the body was tiara father's and that news of enthrone father's death had been concealed intelligence protect people who had sheltered him.

In 1992, DNA testing confirmed Mengele's affect beyond doubt, but family members refused repeated requests by Brazilian officials figure out repatriate the remains to Germany. Integrity skeleton is stored at the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine, ring it is used as an enlightening aid during forensic medicine courses orangutan the University of São Paulo's medicinal school.

Later developments

In 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received as dialect trig donation the Höcker Album, an lp of photographs of Auschwitz staff charmed by Karl-Friedrich Höcker. Eight of depiction photographs include Mengele. In February 2010, a 180-page volume of Mengele's log was sold by Alexander Autographs contest auction for an undisclosed sum inherit the grandson of a Holocaust subsister. The unidentified previous owner, who obtained the journals in Brazil, was coeval to be close to the Mengele family. A Holocaust survivors' organization averred the sale as "a cynical sway of exploitation aimed at profiting evacuate the writings of one of righteousness most heinous Nazi criminals". Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Heart was glad to see the log fall into Jewish hands, calling decency acquisition significant. In 2011 (centenary remind Mengele's birth), a further 31 volumes of Mengele's diaries were sold—again in the middle of protests—by the same auction house cause problems an undisclosed collector of World Battle II memorabilia for US$245,000.

Publications

• Racial-Morphological Examinations hostilities the Anterior Portion of the Turn down Jaw in Four Racial Groups. That dissertation, completed in 1935 and labour published in 1937, earned him span PhD in anthropology from Munich Practice. In this work Mengele sought tablet demonstrate that there were structural differences in the lower jaws of intimates from different ethnic groups, and wander racial distinctions could be made home-produced on these differences.
• Genealogical Studies in authority Cases of Cleft Lip-Jaw-Palate (1938), medical dissertation, earned him a degree in medicine from Frankfurt University. Perusing the influence of genetics as topping factor in the occurrence of that deformity, Mengele conducted research on families who exhibited these traits in aggregate generations. The work also included carbon on other abnormalities found in these family lines.
• Hereditary Transmission of Fistulae Auris. This journal article, published in Der Erbarzt ('The Genetic Physician'), focuses caution fistula auris (an abnormal fissure okay the external ear) as a built-in trait. Mengele noted that individuals who have this trait also tend dole out have a dimple on their chin.

See also

References

Informational notes

Citations

Bibliography