Dr. Death Josef Mengele is a killer of thousands who has not repented

Dr. Josef Mengele is one of the most demonized Nazi criminals. Unfortunately, most of the nightmares attributed to the doctor are absolutely reliable and, remembering the terrible stories of the surviving "patients", you can believe anything. But was the doctor a madman or a bloodthirsty maniac? Obviously not. Having a sharp mind and a brilliant education, the "Angel of Death" was deprived of humanity and a sense of compassion — he simply went to his goal, leaving behind death and grief.

Josef Mengele was born in 1911 in the Bavarian city of Gunzburg. The youth of the future doctor of medicine was typical for the majority of German youth of the late 20s — early 30s of the XX century. Josef fell under the influence of Nazi propaganda and became a member of the Steel Helmet, a radical Nazi organization.

But the night torchlight processions and the arson of Jewish shops did not captivate the intelligent young man, so Mengele broke with the militants a year later, citing health problems. The young man was attracted by science — after receiving a medical degree in anthropology, he easily got a job at the Institute of Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene, as an assistant to Dr. Otmar von Verschuer.

Together with Verschuer, Mengele worked on issues of genetics, placing special emphasis on twins and various developmental anomalies. When Adolf Hitler came to power, the institute abandoned all unpromising tasks and completely switched to the study of racial issues. At the height of the war, in 1942, Josef Mengele was offered to work "for the glory of the Fatherland" in a concentration camp in Poland, and the young specialist immediately agreed.

There was a lot of work to be done, since Jews from all over Europe were brought to Poland for the extermination, and there was plenty of material for scientific research. At first, the young specialist was appointed chief physician of the Gypsy sector in Auschwitz, and a little later he headed the clinic in Birkenau, a concentration camp satellite of a huge death complex.

One of the main tasks of doctors in concentration camps was to receive new batches of prisoners, who were immediately sorted by gender, age and, of course, by health status. Elderly, sick, emaciated and too young prisoners were immediately sent to the gas chambers as unpromising workers.

But any of the doomed could be saved by Dr. Mengele, if he only turned to the leadership of the concentration camp with a corresponding request. It is worth noting that the young doctor often made requests for clemency of prisoners and took dozens of them to his clinic on the territory of the camp.

Mengele even asked to wake him up if the train with new prisoners came at night. The doctor was especially interested in children and, first of all, twins and those who had growth abnormalities.

Most of the "patients" of the camp doctor were never seen again — they all died a terrible painful death in the "operating rooms" and laboratories of Auschwitz.

It is difficult to describe the whole range of "scientific" works for which Dr. Josef Mengele used living material. They performed operations to change the color of the cornea — the Nazi was looking for a way to turn people with brown and black eyes into blue-eyed Aryans. There were also terrible experiments in gynecology, amputation of limbs, experiments with lowering the body temperature to extreme and infection with deadly diseases.

Part of the tasks that Mengele set for himself concerned bringing a person to the standards of "racial purity", and part was an order of the military. The German army needed new ways to save itself from hypothermia and pressure drops, effective antibiotics and innovative methods of surgery.

The doctor was not alone — a whole team of killers in white coats worked under his leadership, and in addition, Nazi "luminaries" from other death camps and military hospitals of the Reich regularly came to the camp "to exchange experience". "Doctor Death" or "Angel of Death", which is exactly what the prisoners of the camp called Mengele, conducted hundreds of experiments, most of which ended in death or mutilated the subject.

The camp prisoners who survived but became incapacitated were sent to the gas chambers or killed with a shot of phenol. It is especially creepy to read the memoirs of the prisoners of the camp about Mengele's attitude to children. The killer doctor was always kind and courteous, and in the pockets of his immaculately white coat there were lollipops and chocolates, which he generously distributed to hungry kids.

Parents, seeing that the children were taken with them by a polite and sympathetic doctor, usually calmed down. It could not even have occurred to them that their babies were already sentenced to a terrible death in the clutches of a ruthless monster.

The doctor created an illusion of caring for people around his clinic — a kindergarten and a nursery, as well as an obstetric and gynecological center for pregnant women worked on its territory.

Only a few of those about whom Dr. Mengele "took care" were able to leave the death camp after his release — the Nazi knew perfectly well what he was in danger of disclosing information about crimes and carefully covered his tracks. The monster felt the end approaching and 10 days before the liberation of the camp by Soviet troops, he fled from the camp, sending his last experimental subjects to the gas chambers.

Dr. Mengele took with him an invaluable archive with notes, photographs and observation diaries. Having gone to meet the allies, Mengele surrendered to the Americans, after which his traces are lost for many years.

During the trials of Nazi criminals, the name of Joseph Mengele was mentioned many times, but the American military could not say anything intelligible about his location.

At that time, "Doctor Death" lived quietly in his native Bavaria under a false name and even practiced as a private doctor. Mengele felt so free that he even had the audacity to travel to areas of Germany under the control of the Red Army. It is known for sure about one such trip — the Nazi had to pick up some of the valuable records from the cache.

In 1949, the search for a monster doctor narrowed so much that Mengele was forced to flee overseas to Argentina. After the war, the so-called "rat trails" system operated, ensuring the escape of Nazi criminals from Europe to the relatively safe South America.

Having settled in Buenos Aires, Mengele opened a private medical practice, while not disdaining clandestine abortions. In 1958, he was even arrested, but not for crimes in Auschwitz, but for the death of a young patient. However, solid patrons and big money solved the issue, and the doctor did not stay in prison for a long time.

In the mid-60s, Buenos Aires became a troubled place for the Nazis - Israeli intelligence "Mossad" kidnapped and took to Israel Adolf Eichmann, one of Hitler's henchmen. The criminal was tried and hanged to the applause of the whole world. Not wanting such a fate, the doctor runs to Paraguay under the name of Jose Mengele, and after that to Brazil.

For almost 35 years, Mengele has been leading the best specialists in the search for war criminals by the nose. "Mossad" and Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter, literally stepped on the heels of the "Angel of Death" many times, but he always managed to avoid capture. Unfortunately, the most wanted Nazi monster never received the punishment he deserved.

On February 7, 1979, Mengele, who had recently suffered a stroke, was splashing near the shore of the beach of Sao Paulo in the ocean when he suddenly became ill. There was no one nearby, and the murderer of thousands of Auschwitz prisoners simply drowned in shallow water.

The search for Mengele continued until 1992, when genetic analysis proved that the nameless remains of a German found in a neglected grave in one of the cemeteries of Sao Paulo belonged to Dr. Josef himself.

The body of the criminal did not deserve to lie in the ground — it was exhumed, taken apart and used to this day as visual aids at the medical university.

Finally, it is worth saying that Josef Mengele has never repented for his crimes. In 1975, the doctor was found by his son Ralph, to whom the Nazi told that he did not regret anything and did absolutely no harm to anyone personally.