Josef Mengele
Josef Mengele (1911 - 1979) was a German physician and researcher who perpetrated the Holocaust in the Auschwitz death camp. Mengele had obtained a Ph.D. based on the study of racial differences in the anatomy of the jaw. He was one of the greatest supporters of Nazi theories of racial superiority with questionable research claims. Dr. Josef Mengele's evolutionary thinking was in accordance with social Darwinist theories that Adolf Hitler and a number of German academics found appealing.[1] Mengele studied under the leading proponents the "unworthy life" branch of evolutionary thought.[2] Mengele strongly supported the murder of the physically and mentally disabled. Dr. Mengele was one of the most notorious individuals associated with Nazi death camps and the Holocaust.[3] Dr. Mengele obtained an infamous reputation due to his experiments on twins while at Auschwitz-Birkenau.[4] He was known as the "Angel of Death."
He performed experiments on humans in the concentration camps attempting to prove that disease was the product of racial inferiority and in order to genetically engineer a new species, which was the aim of his organization, the Frankfurt-based Institute of Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene. He amputated healthy limbs and performed other unusual operations on prisoners.
He has been criticized to this day because of his unethical and cruel operations on prisoners.
During the Israeli Mossad operation in May 1960 to capture Adolf Eichmann in Argentina, operatives located Mengele's apartment, and at one point, knew he was home on a specific day. At the time, though, Eichmann was in a safe house inside Argentina, and the Mossad decided it would be unsafe to attempt a second operation. After Eichmann was taken out of the country, Mossad agents tried to locate Mengele,[5] but he had already escaped to Paraguay.[6] He latter fled to Brazil where he drowned anonymously due to a stroke while swimming. His bones were identified in 1985, and a DNA test confirmed his identity in 1992.[7]
In 1975 a widely publicized story that Mengele had drowned in 1969 while suffering a stroke while swimming had been publicized. However, in the absence of a body being produced to confirm identification, others remained skeptical. A 1978 Hollywood film, The Boys from Brazil was produced that insisted Mengele was still alive. In the film, Mengele is killed at the end by vicious attack dogs. Then in 1985, a grave was exhumed in Brazil and reports emerged that Mengele's body had been located. The cause of death was reported as drowning while suffering a stroke in 1979, not 1969 as had been reported earlier in 1975.[8] DNA testing in 1992 confirmed the remains were Mengele.
References
- ↑ http://www.posner.com/book1.htm
- ↑ http://www.posner.com/book1.htm
- ↑ http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/joseph_mengele.htm
- ↑ http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/joseph_mengele.htm
- ↑ Israeli ex-agent: We allowed Nazi doc to escape. The team that kidnapped Nazi mastermind Adolph Eichmann in 1960 knowingly let another notorious war criminal — Josef Mengele — get away, according to a former Israeli Mossad agent. Associated Press/NBC News, Sept. 2, 2008.
- ↑ Israeli Mossad let Nazi Mengele get away
- ↑ Mengele history, in Portuguese (includes some images with extreme graphical violence), site reporterdecrito.com (Christ reporter, a Roman Catholic site)
- ↑ EXPERTS SKEPTICAL OF REPORTS THAT MENGELE DIED IN 1975, By Ralph Blumenthal, New York Times, June 7, 1985.