Labels
Posted by Master of My Universe

True Crime Friday: Josef Mengele, the Angel of Death


Josef Mengele was born March 16, 1911, in the country of Germany. Mengele can be classified as a serial killer because of all the people he murdered. He lived in the  country side of Germany. Josef Mengele has the moniker of the Angel of Death, but he was no angel. He was a Nazi Schutzstaffel (SS) officer during World War II. He was also a medical doctor. He was located at the Soviet Front and was later sent to Auschwitz during the Holocaust. The term serial killer was not used until the seventies, but I would call him a serial killer because of the sheer amount of death and destruction he committed.

Josef Mengele conducted medical research and experiments on innocent people that were falsely sent to prison. At Auschwitz II-Birkenau, which was a concentration camp, he was a member of a team of doctors who selected victims to be murdered in gas chambers. The victims that did not go to the gas chambers to die immediately were used in experiments. Mengele received a doctorate in anthropology and medicine. He began his evil journey as a researcher in the medical field after joining the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS party in 1938. Mengele was assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. There were other concentration camps where he operated.

The Early Childhood of Josef Mengele

Josef Mengele was born in Bavarian City of Günzburg, Germany. His father was Karl Mengele a manufacturer of farming equipment. His mother was a homemaker. By all accounts his family was wealthy. Mengele studied under Dr. Otmar von Verschuer who was a leading geneticist known for his research on twins. Under Verschuer’s direction, Mengele completed an additional doctorate in 1938.

Less Dead Theory

In this case the lives of the Jewish people were less dead to the Nazis. Serial killers choose marginalize individuals and communities who are devalued and ignored by society. These victims are typically lower socioeconomic backgrounds such as sex workers, drug users, homosexuals, the young and the elderly. Law enforcement tends to neglect these cases and so does the media making it easier for serial killers to roam the communities with impunity. The Less Dead Theory is now used to highlight victims so that better investigations by police and reporting by the media can assist in solving these unsolved cases at a higher rate. Cases involving more prestigious victims rarely take a back seat in the media and law enforcement.

The Victims of Josef Mengele

There are too many victims to list so I added the link in the reference section. Millions of people died. Mengele had a fascination with twins, and he murdered over three thousand children that were twins. Mengele believed that Germans were biologically different from and superior to members of all other races. This theory was a fundamental tenet of Nazi ideology. The Nazi German regime used racial science to justify the forced sterilization. The Nuremberg Law in Germany outlawed marriage between Germans and Jewish, Black, or Romani peoples. Without consent from the prisoners these types of experiments conducted at Auschwitz included: sterilization, infecting people with diseases, conducting unlawful testing treatments, surgery, murder and dissection.

The Survivors of Josef Mengele

  • Renate Guttmann
  • Max Guttmann
  • Gisella Perl
  • Ms. A, Age 83
  • Mr. G, Age 82
  • Mr. B, Age 76
  • Ms. B, Age 78
  • Ms. M, Age 73
  • Mr. K, Age 80
  • Ms. B, Age 77
  • Mr. E, Age 69
  • Ms. G, Age 81

Some of the survivors were able to give witness testimony to the atrocities that happen at the hand of Josef Mengele. Gisella Perl’s memoir titled I was a Doctor in Auschwitz stated, we feared these visits more than anything else, because we never knew whether we would be permitted to live. Mengele was free to do whatever he pleased with us.

Lady Justice

It is sad to say but the United States hired previous Nazi soldiers to work for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as informants after the war ended. I did not find any information that Mengele was one of them since he was in hiding. Mengele escaped to Brazil where he lived a good life. It was reported that he died of a stroke while swimming at his home in Brazil. He died February 7, 1979, but his death was not verified until 1985.

References

Labels: