Josef Mengele

(Redirected from Mengele) Nazi SS doctor at Auschwitz (1911–1979) "Mengele" redirects here. For other uses, see Mengele (disambiguation).

Josef Mengele
Mengele at Solahütte in 1944
Birth name	Josef Rudolf Mengele
Nickname(s)	Angel of Death (German: Todesengel) White Angel (German: der weiße Engel or weißer Engel) Wolfgang Gerhard (burial name)
Born	(1911-03-16)16 March 1911 Günzburg, German Empire
Died	7 February 1979(1979-02-07) (aged 67) Bertioga, São Paulo, Brazil
Allegiance	Nazi Germany
Service / branch	Schutzstaffel
Years of service	1938–1945
Rank	SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain)
Service number	NSDAP #5,574,974 SS #317,885
Awards	Iron Cross First Class Iron Cross Second Class War Merit Cross, 2nd class with Swords Black Badge for the Wounded Medal for the Care of the German People
Alma mater	University of Bonn University of Munich (PhD) University of Frankfurt (MD)
Spouse(s)	Irene Schönbein (m. 1939; div. 1954) Martha Mengele (m. 1958)
Children	Rolf Mengele
Signature

Josef Rudolf Mengele (German: [ˈjoːzɛf ˈmɛŋələ] ; 16 March 1911 – 7 February 1979) was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and physician during World War II at the Russian front and then at Auschwitz during the Holocaust, where he was nicknamed the "Angel of Death" (German: Todesengel). He performed deadly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp, where he was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be murdered in the gas chambers, and was one of the doctors who administered the gas.

Before the war, Mengele received doctorates in anthropology and medicine, and began a career as a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II, then transferred to the Nazi concentration camps service in early 1943 and assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on twins, with no regard for the health or safety of the victims. With Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland, Mengele was transferred 280 kilometres (170 miles) from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz.

After the war, Mengele fled to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a network of former SS members. He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires, then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all while being sought by West Germany, Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal, who wanted to bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by the West German government and clandestine operations by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad. He drowned in 1979 after suffering a heart attack while swimming off the coast of Bertioga, and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard. His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985.

Early life

Mengele was born into a Catholic family in Günzburg, Bavaria, on 16 March 1911, the eldest of three sons 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 an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study philosophy in Munich, where the headquarters of the Nazi Party were located. He attended the University of Bonn, where he took his medical preliminary 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. In January 1937, he joined the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, where he worked for Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, a German geneticist with a particular interest in researching twins.

As Von Verschuer's assistant, Mengele focused on the genetic factors that result in a cleft lip and palate, or a cleft chin. His thesis on the subject earned him a cum laude doctorate in medicine (MD) from the University of Frankfurt in 1938. (Both of his degrees were revoked by the issuing universities in the 1960s.) In a letter of recommendation, Von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published works were in keeping with the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany. On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schönbein, whom he had met while working as a medical resident in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944.

Military career

The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism, racial hygiene, and eugenics, and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more Lebensraum ("living space") for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and the Soviet Union, intending to deport or murder the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered by the Nazis to be inferior to the putative "Aryan master race".

Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the Schutzstaffel (SS) in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the Gebirgsjäger (mountain light infantry) and was called up for service in the Wehrmacht (Nazi armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS-Untersturmführer (second lieutenant) in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in Poznań, evaluating candidates for Germanization.

In June 1941, Mengele was posted to Ukraine, where he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. After rescuing two German soldiers from a burning tank, he was decorated with the Iron Cross 1st Class, the Wound Badge in Black, and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was declared unfit for further active service in mid-1942, when he was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don. Following his recovery, he was transferred to the headquarters of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in Berlin, at which point he resumed his association with Von Verschuer, who had become director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS-Hauptsturmführer (captain) in April 1943.

Auschwitz

In 1942, Auschwitz II (Birkenau), originally intended to house slave laborers, began to be used instead as a combined labour camp and extermination camp. Prisoners were transported there by rail from all over Nazi-controlled Europe, arriving in daily convoys. By July 1942, SS doctors were conducting selections where incoming Jews were segregated, and those considered able to work were admitted into the camp while those deemed unfit for labor were immediately murdered in the gas chambers. Those selected to be killed, about three-quarters of the total, included almost all children, women with small children, pregnant women, all the elderly, and all of those who appeared (in a brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor) to be not completely fit and healthy.

In early 1943, Von Verschuer encouraged Mengele to apply for a transfer to the concentration camp service. Mengele's application was accepted and he was posted to Auschwitz, where he was appointed by SS-Standortarzt Eduard Wirths, chief medical officer at Auschwitz, to the position of chief physician of the Zigeunerfamilienlager (Romani family camp) at Birkenau, a subcamp located on the main Auschwitz complex. The SS doctors did not administer treatment to the Auschwitz inmates but supervised the activities of inmate doctors who had been forced to work in the camp medical service. As part of his duties, Mengele made weekly visits to the hospital barracks and ordered any prisoners who had not recovered after two weeks in bed to be sent to the gas chambers.

Mengele's work also involved carrying out selections, a task that he chose to perform even when he was not assigned to do so, in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments, with a particular interest in locating sets of twins. In contrast to most of the other SS doctors, who viewed selections as one of their most stressful and unpleasant duties, he undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling. He was one of the SS doctors responsible for supervising the administration of Zyklon B, the cyanide-based pesticide that was used for the mass killings in the Birkenau gas chambers. He served in this capacity at the gas chambers located in crematoria IV and V.

When an outbreak of noma—a gangrenous bacterial disease of the mouth and face—struck the Romani camp in 1943, Mengele initiated a study to determine the cause of the disease and develop a treatment. He enlisted the assistance of prisoner Berthold Epstein, a Jewish pediatrician and professor at Prague University. The patients were isolated in separate barracks and several afflicted children were killed so that their preserved heads and organs could be sent to the SS Medical Academy in Graz and other facilities for study. This research was still 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 cleared one block of six hundred Jewish women and sent them to be killed in the gas chambers. The building was then cleaned and disinfected and the occupants of a neighboring block were bathed, de–loused, and given new clothing before being moved into the clean block. This process was repeated until all of the barracks were disinfected. Similar procedures were used for later epidemics of scarlet fever and other diseases, with infected prisoners being murdered in the gas chambers. For these actions, Mengele was awarded the War Merit Cross (Second Class with swords) and was promoted in 1944 to First Physician of the Birkenau subcamp.

Human experimentation

After Auschwitz

Along with several other Auschwitz doctors, Mengele transferred to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia on 17 January 1945, taking with him two boxes of specimens and the records of his experiments at Auschwitz. Most of the camp medical records had already been destroyed by the SS by the time the Red Army liberated Auschwitz on 27 January. Mengele fled Gross-Rosen on 18 February, a week before the Soviets arrived there, and traveled westward to Žatec in Czechoslovakia, disguised as a Wehrmacht officer. There he temporarily entrusted his incriminating documents to a nurse with whom he had struck up a relationship. He and his unit then hurried west to avoid being captured by the Soviets, but were taken prisoners of war by the Americans in June 1945. Although Mengele was initially registered under his own name, he was not identified as being on the major war criminal list due to the disorganization of the Allies regarding the distribution of wanted lists, and the fact that he did not have the usual SS blood group tattoo. He was released at the end of July and obtained false papers under the name "Fritz Ulmann", documents he later altered to read "Fritz Hollmann".

After several months on the run, including a trip back to the Soviet-occupied area to recover his Auschwitz records, Mengele found work near Rosenheim as a farmhand. He eventually escaped from Germany on 17 April 1949, convinced that his capture would mean a trial and death sentence. Assisted by a network of former SS members, he used the ratline to travel to Genoa, where he obtained a passport from the International Committee of the Red Cross under the alias "Helmut Gregor", and sailed to Argentina in July 1949. His wife refused to accompany him, and they divorced by proxy in Düsseldorf in 1954.

In South America

Mengele worked as a carpenter in Buenos Aires, Argentina, while lodging in a boarding house in the suburb of Vicente López. After a few weeks, he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathizer in the neighborhood of Florida Este. He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, Karl Mengele & Sons, and in 1951 he began making frequent trips to Paraguay as a regional sales representative. He moved into an apartment in central Buenos Aires in 1953, used family funds to buy a part interest in a carpentry concern, and then rented a house in the suburb of Olivos in 1954. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license while living in Buenos Aires, including performing abortions.

After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain a West German passport using his real name and embarked on a trip to Europe. He met with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, for a ski holiday in Switzerland; he also spent a week in his home town of Günzburg. When he returned to Argentina in September 1956, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about a month later, and the three began living together. Josef and Martha were married in 1958 while on holiday in Uruguay, and they bought a house in Buenos Aires. Mengele's business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, he was questioned in 1958 on suspicion of practicing medicine without a license when a teenage girl died after an abortion, but he was released without charge. Aware that the publicity could lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship there in 1959 under the name "José Mengele". He returned to Buenos Aires several times to settle his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to West Germany.

Mengele's name was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials in the mid-1940s, but the Allied forces believed that he was probably already dead. Irene Mengele and the family in Günzburg also claimed that he had died. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses about Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein discovered Mengele's divorce papers, which listed an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured the West German authorities into starting extradition proceedings, and an arrest warrant was drawn up on 5 June 1959. Argentina initially refused the extradition request because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents; by the time extradition was approved on 30 June, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay and was living on a farm in Hohenau, near the Argentine border. Mengele reportedly worked as a veterinary surgeon under the alias of 'Francisco Fischer' while living in Hohenau, before leaving Paraguay for Brazil sometime in 1964. After a request from Paraguayan Attorney General Clotildo Jimenez, the Supreme Court of Paraguay annulled Mengele's citizenship in August 1979.

Efforts by Mossad

In May 1960, Isser Harel, director of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, personally led the successful effort to capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. He was hoping to track down Mengele so that he too could be brought to trial in Israel. Under interrogation, Eichmann provided the address of a boarding house that had been used as a safe house for Nazi fugitives. Surveillance of the house did not reveal Mengele or any members of his family, and the neighborhood postman claimed that although Mengele had recently been receiving letters there under his real name, he had since relocated without leaving a forwarding address. Harel's inquiries at a machine shop where Mengele had been part owner also failed to generate any leads, so he was forced to abandon the search.

Despite having provided Mengele with legal documents using his real name in 1956 (which had enabled him to formalize his permanent residency in Argentina), West Germany was now offering a reward for his capture. Continuing newspaper coverage of his wartime activities, with accompanying photographs, led Mengele to relocate again in 1960. Former pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel put him in touch with the Nazi supporter Wolfgang Gerhard, who helped Mengele cross the border into Brazil. He stayed with Gerhard on his farm near São Paulo until a more permanent accommodation could be found, which came about with Hungarian expatriates Géza and Gitta Stammer. The couple bought a farm in Nova Europa with the help of an investment from Mengele, who was given the job of managing for them. The three bought a coffee and cattle farm in Serra Negra in 1962, with Mengele owning a half interest. Gerhard had initially told the Stammers that the fugitive's name was "Peter Hochbichler", but they discovered his true identity in 1963. Gerhard persuaded the couple not to report Mengele's location to the authorities by convincing them that they themselves could be implicated for harboring a fugitive. In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brazil, having been tipped off to the possibility that Mengele had relocated there.

Meanwhile, Zvi Aharoni, one of the Mossad agents who had been involved in the Eichmann capture, was placed in charge of a team of agents tasked with tracking down Mengele and bringing him to trial in Israel. Their inquiries in Paraguay revealed no clues to his whereabouts, and they were unable to intercept any correspondence between Mengele and his wife Martha, who by this time was living in Italy. Agents who were following Rudel's movements also failed to produce any leads. Aharoni and his team followed Gerhard to a rural area near São Paulo, where they identified a European man whom they believed to be Mengele. This potential breakthrough was reported to Harel, but the logistics of staging a capture, the budgetary constraints of the search operation, and the priority of focusing on Israel's deteriorating relationship with Egypt led the Mossad chief to call off the manhunt in 1962.

Later life and death

In 1969, Mengele and the Stammers jointly purchased a farmhouse in Caieiras, with Mengele as half owner. When Wolfgang Gerhard returned to Germany in 1971 to seek medical treatment for his ailing wife and son, he gave his identity card to Mengele. The Stammers' friendship with Mengele deteriorated in late 1974, and when they bought a house in São Paulo, he was not invited to join them. The Stammers later bought a bungalow in the Eldorado neighborhood of Diadema, São Paulo, which they rented out to Mengele. Rolf, who had not seen his father since the ski holiday in 1956, visited him at the bungalow in 1977; he found an "unrepentant Nazi" who claimed he had never personally harmed anyone and only carried out his duties as an officer.

Mengele's health had been steadily deteriorating since 1972. He suffered a stroke in 1976, experienced high blood pressure, and developed an ear infection which affected his balance. On 7 February 1979, while visiting his friends Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert in the coastal resort of Bertioga, Mengele had a heart attack while swimming and drowned. His body was buried in Embu das Artes under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard", whose identification Mengele had been using since 1971. Other aliases used by Mengele in his later life included "Dr. Fausto Rindón" and "S. Josi Alvers Aspiazu".

Exhumation

Sightings of Mengele were being reported all over the world in the decades following the war. Wiesenthal claimed to have information that placed Mengele on the Greek island of Kythnos in 1960, in Cairo in 1961, in Spain in 1971, and in Paraguay in 1978, eighteen years after he had left the country. He insisted as late as 1985 that Mengele was still 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 interest in the case was heightened by a mock trial held in Jerusalem in February 1985, featuring the testimonies of over one hundred victims of Mengele's experiments. Shortly afterwards, the West German, Israeli, and U.S. governments launched a coordinated effort to determine Mengele's whereabouts. The West German and Israeli governments offered rewards for his capture, as did The Washington Times and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

On 31 May 1985, acting on intelligence received by the West German prosecutor's office, police raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier, a lifelong friend of Mengele and sales manager of the family firm in Günzburg. They found a coded address book and copies of letters sent to and received from Mengele. Among the papers was a letter from Wolfram Bossert notifying Sedlmeier of Mengele's death. German authorities alerted the police in São Paulo, who then contacted the Bosserts. Under interrogation, they revealed the location of Mengele's grave and the remains were exhumed on 6 June 1985. Extensive forensic examination indicated with a high degree of probability that the body was indeed that of Josef Mengele. Rolf Mengele issued a statement on 10 June confirming that the body was his father's and that news of his father's death had been concealed to protect people who had sheltered him.

In 1992, DNA testing confirmed Mengele's identity beyond doubt, but family members refused repeated requests by Brazilian officials to repatriate the remains to Germany. The skeleton is stored at the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine, where it is used as an educational aid during forensic medicine courses at the University of São Paulo's medical school.

Later developments

In 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received as a donation the Höcker Album, an album of photographs of Auschwitz staff taken by Karl-Friedrich Höcker. Eight of the photographs include Mengele. In February 2010, a 180-page volume of Mengele's diary was sold by Alexander Autographs at auction for an undisclosed sum to the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. The unidentified previous owner, who acquired the journals in Brazil, was reported to be close to the Mengele family. A Holocaust survivors' organization described the sale as "a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from the writings of one of the most heinous Nazi criminals". Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center was glad to see the diary fall into Jewish hands, calling the acquisition significant. In 2011 (centenary of Mengele's birth), a further 31 volumes of Mengele's diaries were sold—again amidst protests—by the same auction house to an undisclosed collector of World War II memorabilia for US$245,000.

Publications

Racial-Morphological Examinations of the Anterior Portion of the Lower Jaw in Four Racial Groups. This dissertation, completed in 1935 and first published in 1937, earned him a PhD in anthropology from Munich University. In this work Mengele sought to demonstrate that there were structural differences in the lower jaws of individuals from different ethnic groups, and that racial distinctions could be made based on these differences.
Genealogical Studies in the Cases of Cleft Lip-Jaw-Palate (1938), his medical dissertation, earned him a doctorate in medicine from Frankfurt University. Studying the influence of genetics as a factor in the occurrence of this deformity, Mengele conducted research on families who exhibited these traits in multiple generations. The work also included notes on other abnormalities found in these family lines.
Hereditary Transmission of Fistulae Auris. This journal article, published in Der Erbarzt ('The Genetic Physician'), focuses on fistula auris (an abnormal fissure on the external ear) as a hereditary trait. Mengele noted that individuals who have this trait also tend to have a dimple on their chin.

References

Informational notes

New arrivals that were judged able to work were admitted into the camp, while those deemed unsuitable for labor were sent to the gas chambers.
Of the Hungarians who arrived in mid-1944, 85 percent were murdered immediately.
Based on entries in Mengele's journals and interviews with his friends, historians such as Gerald Posner and Gerald Astor believe that Mengele had a sexual relationship with Gitta Stammer.

Citations

^ Levy 2006, p. 242.
^ USHMM: Josef Mengele.
^ Kubica 1998, p. 320.
^ Astor 1985, p. 102.
Gopnik 2020.
Astor 1985, p. 12.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 4–5.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 6–7.
^ Kubica 1998, p. 318.
Kershaw 2008, p. 81.
US Justice Department 1992.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 8, 10.
Weindling 2002, p. 53.
Allison 2011, p. 52.
Levy 2006, p. 234 (footnote).
^ Lifton 1986, p. 340.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 11.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 54.
Evans 2008, p. 7.
Longerich 2010, p. 132.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 16.
Kubica 1998, pp. 318–319.
^ Kubica 1998, p. 319.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 16–18.
Astor 1985, p. 27.
Longerich 2010, pp. 282–283.
Steinbacher 2005, pp. 94, 96.
Steinbacher 2005, pp. 104–105.
Rees 2005, p. 100.
Steinbacher 2005, p. 109.
Levy 2006, pp. 235–237.
Astor 1985, p. 80.
^ Allison 2011, p. 53.
^ Lifton 1985.
Astor 1985, p. 78.
Levy 2006, pp. 248–249.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 29.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 27.
Piper 1998, pp. 170, 172.
Kubica 1998, pp. 328–329.
Friedman 1985.
Thornton 2006, p. 1747.
Lifton 1986, pp. 358–359.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 33.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 33–34.
Nyiszli 2011, p. 158.
Nyiszli 2011, p. 57.
Kubica 1998, pp. 320–321.
Lagnado & Dekel 1991, p. 9.
Lifton 1985, p. 337.
Lifton 1986, p. 350.
^ Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 37.
Lifton 1986, pp. 347, 351, 353.
Mozes-Kor 1992, p. 57.
Lifton 1986, p. 362.
Halioua & Marmor 2020.
Brozan 1982.
Lifton 1986, p. 360.
Lee 1996, p. 85.
Schult 2009.
Lifton 1986, pp. 376–377.
^ Levy 2006, p. 255.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 57.
Steinbacher 2005, p. 128.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 63.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 64, 68.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 68, 88.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 87.
Levy 2006, p. 263.
Levy 2006, p. 264–265.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 88, 108.
Blumenthal, June 1985.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 95.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 104–105.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 107–108.
Nash 1992.
^ Levy 2006, p. 267.
Astor 1985, p. 166.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 2.
^ Astor 1985, p. 167.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 111.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 112.
Levy 2006, pp. 269–270.
^ Levy 2006, p. 273.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 76, 82.
Levy 2006, p. 261.
Levy 2006, p. 271.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 121.
Levy 2006, pp. 269–270, 272.
Brooke 1993.
Gibbs 2024.
Belnap 1979.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 139.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 142–143.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 162.
Levy 2006, pp. 279–281.
Levy 2006, pp. 280, 282.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 168.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 166–167.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 184–186.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 184, 187–188.
Horovitz 2018.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 223.
Levy 2006, p. 289.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 178–179.
Astor 1985, p. 224.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 242–243.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 2, 279.
Levy 2006, pp. 289, 291.
Evans 2008, p. 746.
Blumenthal, July 1985, p. 1.
Zentner & Bedürftig 1991, p. 586.
^ The Guardian 2017.
Segev 2010, p. 167.
Walters 2009, p. 317.
Walters 2009, p. 370.
Levy 2006, p. 296.
Levy 2006, pp. 297, 301.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 306–308.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 89, 313.
Levy 2006, p. 302.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 315, 317.
Posner & Ware 1986a, pp. 319–321.
Posner & Ware 1986a, p. 322.
Saad 2005.
Simons 1988.
USHMM: SS Auschwitz album.
Oster 2010.
Hier 2010.
Aderet 2011.
Lifton 1986, p. 339.
Lifton 1986, pp. 339–340.

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Levy, Alan (2006) . Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File (Revised 2002 ed.). London: Constable & Robinson. ISBN 978-1-84119-607-7.
Lifton, Robert Jay (21 July 1985). "What Made This Man? Mengele". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 January 2014.
Lifton, Robert Jay (1986). The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-04905-9.
Longerich, Peter (2010). Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280436-5.
Mozes-Kor, Eva (1992). "Mengele Twins and Human Experimentation: A Personal Account". In Annas, George J.; Grodin, Michael A. (eds.). The Nazi Doctors and the Nuremberg Code: Human Rights in Human Experimentation. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 53–59. ISBN 978-0-19-510106-5.
Nash, Nathaniel C. (11 February 1992). "Mengele an Abortionist, Argentine Files Suggest". The New York Times. Retrieved 31 August 2014.
Nyiszli, Miklós (2011) . Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account. New York: Arcade Publishing. ISBN 978-1-61145-011-8.
Oster, Marcy (3 February 2010). "Survivor's grandson buys Mengele diary". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
Piper, Franciszek (1998) . "Gas Chambers and Crematoria". In Gutman, Yisrael; Berenbaum, Michael (eds.). Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. pp. 157–182. ISBN 978-0-253-20884-2.
Posner, Gerald L.; Ware, John (1986). Mengele: The Complete Story. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-050598-8.
Rees, Laurence (2005). Auschwitz: A New History. New York: Public Affairs. ISBN 978-1-58648-303-6.
Saad, Rana (1 April 2005). "Discovery, development, and current applications of DNA identity testing". Baylor University Medical Center Proceedings. 18 (2): 130–133. doi:10.1080/08998280.2005.11928051. PMC 1200713. PMID 16200161.
Schult, Christoph (12 October 2009). "Why One Auschwitz Survivor Avoided Doctors for 65 Years". Spiegel International. Retrieved 8 July 2020.
Segev, Tom (2010). Simon Wiesenthal: The Life and Legends. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-51946-5.
Simons, Marlise (17 March 1988). "Remains of Mengele Rest Uneasily in Brazil". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 February 2014.
Staff (2009). "Josef Mengele". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 22 August 2019.
Staff (11 January 2017). "Nazi doctor Josef Mengele's bones used in Brazil forensic medicine courses". The Guardian. Associated Press. Retrieved 24 August 2019.
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Steinbacher, Sybille (2005) . Auschwitz: A History. Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck. ISBN 978-0-06-082581-2.
Walters, Guy (2009). Hunting Evil: The Nazi War Criminals Who Escaped and the Quest to Bring Them to Justice. New York: Broadway Books. ISBN 978-0-7679-2873-1.
Thornton, Larry (2006). "Mengele, Josef (1911–1979)". In Merriman, John; Winter, Jay (eds.). Europe Since 1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of War and Reconstruction. Detroit, Michigan: Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 1747. ISBN 0684314975.
Weindling, Paul (2002). "The Ethical Legacy of Nazi Medical War Crimes: Origins, Human Experiments, and International Justice". In Burley, Justine; Harris, John (eds.). A Companion to Genethics. Blackwell Companions to Philosophy. Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 53–69. doi:10.1002/9780470756423.ch5. ISBN 978-0-631-20698-9.
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External links

Belnap, David F. (10 August 1979). "Mengele Hunt Focuses on Paraguay". Los Angeles Times.
Breitman, Richard (April 2001). "Historical Analysis of 20 Name Files from CIA Records". US National Archives.
Papanayotou, Vivi (18 September 2005). "Skeletons in the Closet of German Science". Deutsche Welle.
Posner, Gerald; Ware, John (18 May 1986). "How Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele cheated justice for 34 years". Chicago Tribune Magazine. Archived from the original on 18 February 2014.
Siegert, Alice (30 June 1985). "His secret out, Rolf Mengele talks about his father". Chicago Tribune Magazine.

Holocaust in German-occupied Poland

Main article: The Holocaust
Related articles by country: Belarus; Belgium; Croatia; Denmark; Estonia; France; Germany; Latvia; Lithuania; Norway; Romania; Russia; Slovakia; Ukraine

Camps, ghettos, execution sites and attacks

Camps

Extermination	Auschwitz II-Birkenau Chełmno Majdanek Operation Reinhard Belzec Sobibor Treblinka
Concentration	Auschwitz I Gross-Rosen Kraków-Płaszów Potulice Soldau Stutthof Szebnie Trawniki Warsaw Danzig-Matzkau

Mass shootings

Pogroms

Ghettos

Other atrocities

Perpetrators, participants, organizations, and collaborators

Perpetrators

Organizers	Viktor Brack Josef Bühler Adolf Eichmann Theodor Eicke Ludwig Fischer Hans Frank Odilo Globocnik Richard Glücks Arthur Greiser Heinrich Himmler Hermann Höfle Fritz Katzmann Wilhelm Koppe Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger Franz Kutschera Erwin Lambert Ernst Lerch Georg Michalsen Oswald Pohl Heinz Reinefarth Julian Scherner Arthur Seyss-Inquart Jakob Sporrenberg Bruno Streckenbach Richard Thomalla Otto Wächter Dieter Wisliceny
Camp command	Hans Aumeier Richard Baer Wilhelm Boger Hermine Braunsteiner Irmfried Eberl Theodor van Eupen Kurt Franz Karl Frenzel Karl Fritzsch Amon Göth Maximilian Grabner Otto Hantke Fritz Hartjenstein Gottlieb Hering Rudolf Höss Franz Hössler Karl-Otto Koch Josef Kramer Arthur Liebehenschel Maria Mandl Heinrich Matthes Hermann Michel Karl Möckel Robert Mulka Johann Niemann Josef Oberhauser Franz Reichleitner Heinrich Schwarz Johann Schwarzhuber Franz Stangl Gustav Wagner Christian Wirth
Gas chamber executioners	Erich Bauer Kurt Bolender Lorenz Hackenholt Josef Klehr Hans Koch Herbert Lange Otto Moll Ludwig Plagge Adolf Theuer
Physicians	Franz von Bodmann Carl Clauberg Karl Gebhardt Horst Fischer Fritz Klein Josef Mengele Horst Schumann Alfred Trzebinski Eduard Wirths
Ghetto command	Heinz Auerswald Hans Biebow Josef Blösche Franz Bürkl Heinrich Klaustermeyer Franz Konrad Alexander Palfinger Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg Jürgen Stroop
Einsatzgruppen	Wolfgang Birkner Helmut Bischoff Lothar Beutel Paul Blobel Karl Brunner Ernst Damzog Gerhard Flesch Ludwig Hahn Felix Landau Josef Meisinger Bruno Müller Erich Naumann Emanuel Schäfer Hermann Schaper Karl Eberhard Schöngarth Udo von Woyrsch

Personnel

Camp guards

By camp

Organizations

Einsatzgruppen (SS)
Order Police battalions (Ordnungspolizei)
WVHA
RKFDV
VoMi
General Government
Hotel Polski

Collaboration

Resistance, victims, documentation and technical

Organizations

Uprisings

Leaders

Victim lists

Ghettos	Kraków Łódź Lviv (Lwów) Warsaw
Camps	Auschwitz Bełżec Gross-Rosen Izbica Majdanek Sobibór Soldau Stutthof Trawniki Treblinka

Documentation

Nazi sources	Auschwitz Album Frank memorandum Höcker Album Höfle telegram Katzmann Report Korherr Report Posen speeches Sobibor perpetrator album Special Prosecution Book – Poland Stroop Report Wannsee Conference
Witness accounts	Graebe affidavit Gerstein Report Vrba–Wetzler report Witold's Report Sonderkommando photographs
Concealment	Sonderaktion 1005

Technical and logistics

Aftermath, trials and commemoration

Aftermath

Trials

West German trials	Frankfurt Auschwitz trials Treblinka trials
Polish, East German, and Soviet trials	Auschwitz trial (Poland) Stutthof trials Extraordinary (Soviet) State Commission

Memorials

Righteous Among the Nations

v t e Nazi Party
Leader	Anton Drexler (1919–1921) Adolf Hitler (1921–1945) Martin Bormann (1945)
History	Adolf Hitler's rise to power Beer Hall Putsch Brown House, Munich Denazification Enabling Act of 1933 German Workers' Party National Socialist Program Nazism Night of the Long Knives Nuremberg rallies Röhm scandal SA Thule Society
Party offices	Amt Rosenberg Hitler Youth Hitler's Chancellery Nazi Party Chancellery Office of Colonial Policy Office of Military Policy Office of Racial Policy Office of Foreign Affairs NSDAP/AO SS SS Education Office
Publications	Völkischer Beobachter Das Schwarze Korps Das Reich Innviertler Heimatblatt Arbeitertum Der Angriff Panzerbär Der Stürmer Kampfverlag
Notable members	Artur Axmann Houston Stewart Chamberlain Kurt Daluege Richard Walther Darré Rudolf Diels Karl Dönitz Dietrich Eckart Adolf Eichmann Hans Frank Roland Freisler Wilhelm Frick Walther Funk Joseph Goebbels Hermann Göring Ernst Hanfstaengl Rudolf Hess Reinhard Heydrich Heinrich Himmler Rudolf Höss Ernst Kaltenbrunner Robert Ley Josef Mengele Konstantin von Neurath Joachim von Ribbentrop Ernst Röhm Alfred Rosenberg Bernhard Rust Fritz Todt Baldur von Schirach Arthur Seyss-Inquart Albert Speer Gregor Strasser Otto Strasser Julius Streicher
Derivatives	Black Front (Strasserism) / German Social Union Deutsche Reichspartei / National Democratic Party of Germany Socialist Reich Party
Related articles	Adolf Hitler Schools Munich Documentation Centre National Political Institutes of Education Nazi concentration camps Nazi Germany Nazi songs Horst-Wessel-Lied Ranks and insignia of the Nazi Party Samoan branch of the Nazi Party

Post-war flight of Axis fugitives

Fugitives

German / Austrian	Franz Abromeit Ludolf von Alvensleben Klaus Barbie Hermine Braunsteiner Alois Brunner Adolf Eichmann Hans Eisele Aribert Heim Walter Kutschmann Johann von Leers Josef Mengele Hermann Michel Erich Priebke Walter Rauff Eduard Roschmann Walter Schreiber Horst Schumann Josef Schwammberger Franz Stangl Gustav Wagner
Croatian	Milivoj Ašner Andrija Artuković Anton Geiser Vjekoslav Luburić Ante Pavelić Ivo Rojnica Dinko Šakić Vjekoslav Vrančić
Belgian	Pierre Daye Léon Degrelle René Lagrou
Ukrainian	John Demjanjuk Feodor Fedorenko Mykola Lebed
Danish	Søren Kam Carl Værnet
Estonian	Aleksander Laak Karl Linnas
Latvian	Viktors Arājs Herberts Cukurs
Other nationalities	Tscherim Soobzokov (Circassian) Aarne Kauhanen (Finnish)

Assistance

Organizations	Ratlines
State involvement	Colonia Dignidad (Chile) Franco (Spain) Nasser (Egypt) Perón (Argentina) Videla (Argentina) Operation Paperclip (USA) list of scientists Operation Osoaviakhim (USSR) list of scientists Robert Leiber (Holy See) Banzer (Bolivia) Stroessner (Paraguay)
Other persons	Rodolfo Freude Alois Hudal Charles Lescat Hans-Ulrich Rudel Otto Skorzeny

Hunters

Disputed / dubious

Misplaced Pages