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. [1] His questionable actions fell into three categories:
- 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[3] of the Kaiser William Institute of Anthropology, Human Genetics, and Eugenics[4]
- 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.[5] 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.” [6] Lifton emphasizes that von Verschuen had much influence on his actions. [7]
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.[8]
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.[9]
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. [10]
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.[11] He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938, and the SS Medical Corps in 1940.[12]
SS career
Assigned to the SS Viking Division, he served as a combat physician and was wounded in action. His recovery was insufficient for him to be approved for front-line service. As a result, he transferred to Auschwitz between May 1943 and January 1945, and both served as a general medical officer and conducting experiments under the sponsorship of Otto von Verscheur[3] Subsequently, he moved to Mauthausen Concentration Camp.[12] Most of his work, however, was at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.
Selections
Experiments
Postwar
There is debate whether or not he spent any time in U.S. detention camps. [13]
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.[14]
The governments of Germany, Israel, and the United States agreed, in 1992, that he was dead.
References
- ↑ Robert Jay Lifton (1986), The Nazi Doctors: medical killing and the psychology of genocide, Basic Books, p. 21
- ↑ Auschwitz, United States Holocaust Museum
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Rebecca Erbelding (28 April 2008), The Historiography of Josef Mengele: Home, George Mason University
- ↑ Bentley Glass (October 1981), "A Hidden Chapter of German Eugenics between the Two World Wars", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 125 (5)
- ↑ Rebecca Erbelding (28 April 2008), The Historiography of Josef Mengele: Biography, George Mason University
- ↑ Lifton, The Nazi Doctors, p. 346
- ↑ Lifton, The Nazi Doctors, p. 355
- ↑ Gerald Posner and John Ware (1986), Mengele: the Complete Story, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0070505985, pp. 5-7
- ↑ Gerald Astor (1983), The Last Nazi: the life and times of Dr. Joseph Mengele, Donald H. Fine, ISBN 091765746, pp. 12-14
- ↑ Posner and Ware, pp. 8-9
- ↑ Astor, pp. 16-19
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Mengele, Josef, Yad Vashem Historical Center
- ↑ Office of Special Investigations, Criminal Division; Neal M. Sher, director (October 1992), In the Matter of Josef Mengele: A Report to the Attorney General, Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice
- ↑ Astor, pp. 141-142