Mengele: The Complete Story

Josef Mengele live a life longer than shouldhave been allowed. He did experience a sadlonely existence, well deserved, karma! It is truly sad he could not have been brought to justice, given a trial and received the just sentence he deserved. A sad situation for his son.

I do not claim to be an expert in holocaust studies, but I suspect that the collaboration of Gerald Posner and John Ware on this work dealing with the diabolically evil Josef Mengele is among the very best analysis of the Nazi phenomenon ever put together. The fact that these two gentlemen were essentially outsiders who found themselves thrust into a world and a mind set alien to their everyday life may have provided them with the objectivity and clear thinking needed to truly pursue such an enigma as Mengele.William Shirer and other foreign journalists had to control an overwhelming urge to laugh at the Nazis while covering their meetings in the late 1920's and early 30's. Nobody took these comical losers seriously. The consensus was that the Adolph Hitler and his bizarre cronies would shortly disappear into political oblivion never to be heard from again. Josef Mengele was barely a teenager during this time and lived in a solidly upper middle class family that probably would have snubbed Hitler, the former WW1 corporal, if their paths had ever crossed. The young Mengele was raised a staunch Catholic, a religious belief system he would later reject for the secular absolutist faith of Nazism. Nonetheless, it is virtually certain that the pervasive anti-Semitism of German Catholicism was Mengele's first introduction to an intense hostility towards Jews he would forevermore embrace. Mengele, an unexceptional student, had a driving ambition to succeed and make a name for himself. It appears that Mengele was indifferent about politics when he opted to study "anthropology and human genetics, so I could study the whole range of medicine." This fateful educational choice, though, would allow Mengele to offer talents to the Nazis who were more than willing to reward the young medical student with the respect and position he so desperately desired. Mengele was a quintessential result of a politically correct educational system that prohibited the academic freedom and search for truth valued as a mandatory norm in viable democratic societies. Nazi dogmas pervaded every department of the universities during Mengele's critical intellectual formative years. Dissent was not tolerated. There simply was no such thing as a give and take exchange of ideas that would have revealed the Nazi views on race and ethnicity as ludicrous ramblings of immature and hateful minds. The new introduction by Michael Berenbaum failed miserably to even deal with the threat of political correctness to the educational and political institutions of modern day America. Does Berenbaum mistakenly perceive that Liberals may occasionally goof up, but the real enemy is always to the Right? Could this also explain the peculiar infatuation of many American Jews with Evita Peron? Posner and Ware aptly prove that Juan and Evita Peron provided shelter to fugitive Nazis and were never friendly towards Jews. Do Evita's socialist economic ideas somehow make her seem more virtuous and humane? Why were there not protests and rage directed towards Andrew Lloyd Webber when his musical was released some twenty years ago? Also, the authors never once address the socialistic economic policies of the Third Reich. Hitler's Germany was never in any way, shape, or form, a paragon of conservative Libertarian economic values. Why do Liberal prefer to downplay, if not outright ignore this fact?Mengele was sane and easily grasped the reality that people and institutions adhering to the values of Western Civilization would severely take him to task if they ever got their hands on him. Often those who primarily advocate a therapeutic way of looking at the world prefer to believe that someone who commits the horrifying crimes of a Josef Mengele are mentally unbalanced. How does someone torture and murder children and not even require copious amounts of alcohol and drugs to get through the day? The vast majority of us, thankfully, would not inflict such cruel suffering on animals much less our fellow human beings. Yet, other than Mengele's proclivity of losing his temper at any given moment, the man would have probably pass a series of tests dealing with his sanity with flying colors. Many people, especially Mengele's own family, protected him. The only thing one can say in their defense is that they perhaps deluded themselves into believing that someone so dear could not actually commit such horrifying deeds. Mengele, the convinced Nazi, evaded justice on this side of the grave. The only real price he paid during his last years was that of extreme loneliness and severely restricted finances. "Mengele: The Complete Story" reads like a fictional thriller. The book, needless to add, is not escapist entertainment. It may, however, be a moral obligation to read in order to more completely understand how such monstrous incidents occurred in the not so distant past. We might even learn how to limit such crimes against humanity in our own century.

What is intriguing and important about this book is the awareness it adds to the ongoing saga of the man often called historically the "Angel of Death" of World War II. There is no need to reinvent the wheel in terms of Mengele's "work" in the concentration camps, there is plenty of literature that speaks to this quite plainly, clearly and specifically. His "work" is referred to, within its historical context, and within the framework of time.What "Mengele: The Complete Story" attempts to explore with as much hindsight as is possible given its fairly recent copyright ((c)2000) is the nightmare of his existence as he lived out his life after the war. A nightmare, and yet, compared to the lives of the surviving Jews after the war, fairly privileged. He never did pay for his crimes, except, perhaps, for living with the fear for the rest of his life of being caught; and the disdain in which he was held by his own son.It was interesting, and new information for me, to contemplate how this man's life and his hiding affected his family, and how they struggled with their loyalty to him as family while at the same time attempting to distance themselves from him in view of the harsh judgments of history. It could not have been easy.Morality in war time is not the same as in peace time, which is often why war is declared...when an agenda exists that could never pass muster in peace time, war becomes the perfect manipulative tool for those in power to manipulate the masses.The point being that Mengele was, indeed, doing what he believed to be his job, and to single him and other Nazis out as war criminals is to miss the entire point of what was going on, and is also to miss the entire point of what is going on today...and the entire point of war, itself.If we continue to believe that it was them, that it was then, and that they are dead and it is over; we will never see what is happening under our very noses as an ongoing legacy of their work.The Eugenics movement began in America and England, it was far bigger than Hitler and Mengele and Himmler and Hess and it was far bigger than Germany. The American Medical Association is no different in its medical experimentation now as it was then, and the AMA became particularly horrendous after the war BASED on the work the Nazis did in the concentration camps, imported via Operation Paperclip.German medicine had a particular advantage in its scientific study because of the concentration camps that every country benefited from in terms of the slave labor and the medical experimentation that benefited NASA specifically in later years, as we clammored to learn how various conditions would affect astronauts in space. How much cold could they take, how long could they go without food and water, how long would it take them to die if, if, if...?And how *do* we create a "Master Race" and rid ourselves of those "others" that take up so much air and space and give us so much trouble?In war time, a certain percentage of people are going to die anyway, the thinking goes, so you might as well make the most of them while you can. Thus, the medical advances during the Civil War, World War I, and even Vietnam, where brainwashing and mind control took a particularly evil turn in terms of the tortures involved.But if we keep looking at Hitler and Mengele and Himmler and Hess and wipe our brows with relief that "THAT is over!" we won't recognize the dangers we are in today. This book doesn't cover that -- but what it does raise is the question of how Mengele managed to survive so long without being found, right up until he died. Extremely convenient, if you ask me.The authors have done extensive research and interviews, and pay particular attention to the mythology of Mengele and how reports of sightings were legendary, almost beyond human capability. The authors dismiss most of the sightings out of hand. I don't. The authors also don't seem to even hint that Mengele's work may have continued anywhere else, as important as it was. I question that as well. There is no doubt in my mind that his influence is felt particularly today.That said, this is an important book that brings the history of Mengele as up to date as any can right now. It is essential reading, I think, for those who are trying to stay on top of the Nazi legacy....geminiwalker

This is the definitive work on the most grotesque man to walk the face of the earth. It’s a must read.

Good overview of Josef Mengele's escape from Europe after the war; his life in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil and the numerous hunts for him; culminating in his death in 1979.

Conocer la siniestra vida, obras de Mengele, muy recomendable.

Sono arrivato a questo libro sulla lista di raccomandazioni fatte dall'autore alla fine del Libro "La scomparsa di Josef Mengele". Una bellissima ed interessante ricerca storica sulla vita di Mengele, se pisce l'argomento e' un libro imperdibile

A must read to understand the disgusting actions of Josef Mengele and his pointless experiments on people and children. An eye opener to see just how far man will go when he is not being monitored and thinks no one is watching. Thank goodness for the survivors who were brave enough to share their stories and experiences. A must read

A very complete research in Josef Mengele and a very well written and paced book. Terrible what he he did in Auschwitz, how he escaped and kept hidden till his death. The relationship with his family, his son and the people that protected him in South America is extremely well explained.