Josef Mengele
From Freepedia
Josef Mengele (March 16, 1911–February 7, 1979) was a Nazi German 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. After the war he escaped Germany and lived covertly abroad until his eventual accidental death in Brazil, which was later confirmed using DNA testing on his remains.
Mengele's nickname was Beppo; he was called Todesengel (Angel of Death) by camp inmates.
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Early history
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 (1912–1998) 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. He studied medicine and anthropology at the University of Munich, the University of Vienna and the University of Bonn. At Munich he obtained a doctorate in Anthropology (Ph.D.) with a dissertation in 1935 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".
Auschwitz
His next assignment was at 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.
Mengele had a morbid 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 tried 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 murdered afterward for dissection, if they survived the experiment itself.
Mengele also had found interest in dwarfs, finding the Lilliput Troupe, seven of whose ten members were dwarfs. He often called them "his dwarf family" and experimented on them often. He was fascinated at their structure, why they had smaller limbs yet a normal-sized trunk. They seemed vital to his research and had them treated specially - they were allowed to keep their clothes, scarves and accessories they had from their home. Mengele had even given them make-up to wear on more than one occasion.
After The War
He was reunited with his wife, but they were later divorced. He was shot in the head, but he survived. Later he died in a boating accident.
See also
External links
- A detailed profile in the Crime Library
- A timeline of his life
- Chicago Tribune Magazine: "How Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele cheated justice for 34 years" by Gerald Posner and John Ware
- Declassified U.S. CIA information on Mengele and other NSDAP war criminals
Categories: 1911 births | 1979 deaths | Holocaust | Nazi leaders | SS Officers | Military physicians | German eugenicists | History of Germany | Personnel of Nazi concentration camps
