February 7 1979 – Nazi ‘Angel of Death’ Dr. Josef Mengele dies

Dr. Josef, the SS physician who gained notoriety for his inhumane medical experimentation upon the inmates of the concentration camp at Auschwitz, died on February 7, 1979. Popularly known as the Angel of Death or White Angel, Mengele died of a stroke in Brazil. His death was verified much later, though, in 1985. Josef Mengele was born in Gunzburg, Germany, on March 16, 1911, the eldest among the three sons of Karl and Walburga Mengele. In Bavaria, Karl had founded Frima Karl Mengele & Sohne, a manufacturing plant that designed and produced farm implements. When Josef Mengele went to college at Munich, he initially studied philosophy. It is believed that he was deeply moved by the racist theories of Alfred Rosenberg and it was in these formative years that he took on a fanatically anti-Semitic, pro-Aryan outlook. Mengele went on to study medicine at Frankfurt University. In 1935 he completed work on a dissertation that studied the structural differences in the lower jaw of the different races. Having earned his PhD, Mengele started to work in Frankfurt as the assistant of Dr. Otmar von Verschuer (known for his work on twins) at the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene. By 1931, Mengele had joined the paramilitary organization called Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten. In 1934 this organization became part of the Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA).Mengele officially joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and was inducted into the SS later that year. He was drafted into the army in 1940 and is believed to have voluntarily joined the medical service of the Waffen-SS (Armed SS). In the next three years, Mengele worked with the Race and Settlement Main Office (Rasse-und Siedlungshauptamt), at the Central Immigration Office (Einwandererstelle), and with the SS Pioneer Battalion V as a battalion medical officer. In 1942, Mengele was seriously wounded when he faced action near Rostov-on-Don. Having been declared unfit for further action, Mengele was sent to rest for a few months. As he started to recover, Mengele was transferred to the Race and Resettlement Office in Berlin and in 1943 he applied to serve at the Auschwitz concentration camp. On May 30, 1943 he gained the transfer to the Auschwitz camp. Josef Mengele’s infamy revolves around his stint at Auschwitz despite the fact that almost 30 physicians served at the camp during his tenure and he was not the highest-ranking physician. The position was held by SS captain Dr. Eduard Wirths. Mengele was initially the physician responsible for Birkenau’s “Gypsy camp” which held the Roma captives but soon rose to the position of the Camp Physician. Mengele started to strike fear in hearts of the millions who were sent to Auschwitz due to his demeanor at the ‘Ramp’. A placid, collected, impeccably dressed physician, Mengele used to turn up as often as possible for “selection” – a process by which the masses of prisoners arriving at Auschwitz were immediately segregated to be sent to the gas chamber or to the harshest forms of labor. While all physicians were required to undertake the task, Mengele often took on the duty of others and seemed sober and keen on its discharge, unlike the others. With a flick of his hand or a lash he’d cry “Left” or “Right” and decide the fate of the millions brought to Auschwitz. Apart from selection, Mengele’s special interest was a research into genetics and hereditary. This was conducted in the form of utterly gruesome, inhuman experiments. Convinced of the superiority of the Aryan race, Mengele sought to distinguish himself by coming up with a formula that would increase the blond, blue-eyed Aryan population in the world. The birth of twins was the obvious solution. To understand and research the phenomenon of twin births, Mengele rounded up and experimented on any pair of twins that landed at the camp. “Zwillinge!” (“Twins!”) – The cry often struck terror in the hearts of parents. Of about three thousand twins, mostly children, pulled from the prisoners on the ramp, only about two hundred survived to tell of the horrors Mengele had in store for them. “Mengele’s children,” the twins were all tattooed with a special number. Their medical records were maintained meticulously as they were subject to a variety of physical tests and medical experiments. Some of the experiments performed by Mengele on the twins included blood transfusion between twins, bleeding and blood tests, amputation of limbs, intentional introduction of one twin with typhus or a similar disease, isolation and psychological experiments and incestuous insemination. Most of the twins suffered inhuman torture and those who did not die were killed for a study of the results of such experimentation. It is believed that Mengele had once personally killed fourteen twins in one night by injecting a chloroform injection to their hearts. In one case he had sewn together twins for weeks together to “create” conjoined twins. The children died of pain from infected wounds. Apart from his work on twins, Mengele was fascinated with heterochromia – a condition in which an individual has two irises of different colors. Mengele conducted a number of experiments in trying to change the color of his victims’ eyes. He killed and collected the eyes of many Auschwitz prisoners and sent them as “research material” to Karin Magnussen, a researcher of eye coloration. He also came to be known for conducting surgeries without anesthesia, sex change surgeries, experiments on pregnant women, and experiments with various drugs. Unlike other SS personnel, Mengele’s activities were recorded by various individuals, though most of these were destroyed by the Nazis. Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, a prisoner-physician who was forced to assist Mengele wrote about his experiences and published them in 1946, thereafter translating them in many languages. In January 1945, as the Soviet Army closed in on Auschwitz through western Poland, Mengele left for the Gross-Rosen concentration camp disguised as an ordinary Nazi soldier. From Gross-Rosen he headed west, to evade capture but was caught by the American troops in June 1945. The Allies inadvertently set him free, unaware of his notoriety. Initially working as a farmhand in Bavaria, he soon migrated to Argentina. The International Military Tribunal (IMT) and other courts reconstructed his crimes and by 1959,a warrant for Mengele’s arrest had been issued. Mengele fled to Paraguay and then to Sao Pãolo in Brazil. on February 7, 1979, Mengele suffered a stroke while swimming and drowned. He was buried under the assumed identity – “Wolfgang Gerhard” – in a Sao Pãolo suburb. In 1985, German police dug up the grave and exhumed Mengele’s corpse. Forensic experts established the identity of Josef Mengele. In 1992, his death was confirmed by DNA evidence. The Angel of Death had successfully evaded arrest for 34 years. You may also like : February 7 1497 – The Largest Bonfire of the Vanities Occurs in Florence, Italy