Josef Mengele

Josef Mengele (1911-1979) was a Nazi SS Hauptsturmfuhrer and physician at Auschwitz Concentration Camp, involved in direct killings and nonconsensual medical experiments on humans. He escaped prosecution and died, in 1979, while swimming in Paraguay.

Mengele has been described as supporting Nazi race and biological ideology, which variously categorized some people as "life unworthy of life", and also that the Jews and other groups needed to be physically exterminated. His questionable actions fell into three categories:

1. Participation in the established procedures of the Nazi genocide program, such as selecting camp arrivals for forced labor or immediate killing; these activities were under the immediate direction of camp Chief Medical Officer Eduard Wirths, who reported to camp commander Rudolf Hoess, and part of the overall program of the Final Solution.
2. Involuntary medical experiments, under the sponsorship of Otmar von Verscheur of the Kaiser William Institute of Anthropology, Human Genetics, and Eugenics
3. Killings and other actions that may have been for personal gratification

He was not a policy-making official, but committed individual crimes. Mengele was relatively little known immediately after the war, but an increasing body of historical writing drew attention to him. Lifton observes that he has acquired "mythic" proportions as a war criminal, and indeed conducted atrocities. Nevertheless, he was one of the Nazi doctors that took advantage of eugenic opportunities in the camps, and “[i]n ordinary times, Mengele could have been a slightly sadistic German professor.” Lifton emphasizes that von Verschuen had much influence on his actions.

Early life

Born in Guenzburg, Germany to a wealthy Roman Catholic family, he grew up under strict discipline. His father, Karl, owned a major manufacturing plant. Even today, Karl Mengele Strasse is one of the main streets of Guenzburg. His mother, Walburga (Wally) was the family disciplinarian, and the parents quarreled. In his autobiography, Josef called his father "cold", his mother "not much better at loving" although he though she had admirable decisiveness and energy. Warmth came from a nanny. He had two brothers, Karl Jr. and Alois. While there was sibling rivalry, especially with Karl, they were reasonably close.

Matriculating at the University of Munich in 1930, initially in the faculties of philosophy and medicine, later adding paleontology and anthropology. While considered a "loner", he appeared to enjoy parties.

In 1931, his father, joined the Nazi Party, and was a friend of the Nazi district leader (Kreisleiter), George Deisenhofer, a known anti-semite. Karl Sr. paid Deisenhofer a bribe for a seat on the town council, having earlier hosted Adolf Hitler to give a speech at his factory. Profits soared.

Josef's first foray into right-wing politics also came in 1931, when, at age 20, he joined the youth branch of the paramilitary Freikorps, the Stahlhelm. Thinking it more a wave of the future, he joined the SA in January 1934, but, after the June purge, he resigned in October, for reasons of "kidney trouble. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938, and the SS Medical Corps in 1940.

SS career

Joining the SS in 1940, he was assigned as a front-line physician to the SS Viking Division. After being wounded in action, his recovery was insufficient for him to be approved for front-line service.

Combat

Assigned to the SS Viking Division, he served as a combat physician and was wounded in action.

Staff duty

Before moving to concentration camps, however, he was assigned to the RuSHA in 1942. Von Verschuer wrote "my assistant Mengele has been transferred to a post in Berlin so in his free time he can work at the Institute."

Auschwitz

left to right are Richard Baer, Josef Mengele, Josef Kramer, Rudolf Hoess and Anton Thumann, July 1944, probably celebrating Baer replacing Hoess as Commandant of Auschwitz

He transferred, from RuSHA, to Auschwitz between May 1943 and January 1945, and both served as a general medical officer and conducting experiments under the sponsorship of von Verscheur.

Benno Muller-Hill, who had access to Mengele's private papers, speculated "I would almost bet it was von Verschuer who talked him into going to Auschwitz. He would have said, 'There's a big opportunity for science there. Many races there, many people. Why don't you go? It's in the interest of science."

Selections

Nazi selection was the process by which a camp physician made instant decisions as to whether an arriving prisoner would be killed immediately or sent to slave labor. Mengele did more selections than any other officer, and appeared to enjoy the duty. Survivors comment that he was always immaculately dressed, and often seemingly kind unless he broke into a rage.

Experiments

The full range of his experiments is not known, although a good deal was concerned with heritable traits among twins, human dwarfs and Roma. The latter is known because it was reported to van Verschuen.

Postwar

There is debate whether or not he spent any time in U.S. detention camps.

Other Nazi physicians, charged with equivalent acts, were sentenced in the Medical Case at the Nuremberg Military Tribunals. The chief research analyst of the U.S. Office of War Crimes recommened that he "...be placed on the wanted list and indicted for war crimes." The same analyst, however, did not list von Verschur.

The governments of Germany, Israel, and the United States agreed, in 1992, that he was dead.