The document provides background information on Josef Mengele, known as the "Angel of Death" for his human experimentation at Auschwitz. It details his early life and education in Germany, joining the Nazi party and becoming involved in the study of eugenics. It describes how he became a doctor and was assigned to Auschwitz in 1943, where he conducted horrific medical experiments on prisoners, especially twins and those with physical abnormalities, without anesthesia, which often led to death. After the war, Mengele fled Europe and lived in hiding in Argentina until his death in 1979 while trying to evade capture.

1. The Angel of Death Dr. Josef Mengele

2. Born March 16, 1911 in Gunzburg Bavaria, Germany. Parents were Karl and Walburga Mengele. Had two brothers, Karl and Alois. Josef was the eldest of the three. In 1926 he was diagnosed with osteomyelitis. In 1935 he received PhD from the University of Munich. In May of 1938 Mengele was admitted into the SS. July of 1939 married Irene Schoenbein. May 30, 1943 he arrived at Auschwitz Background

3. Home Life Josef was born in the Bavarian village in Gunzburg Germany. Josef’s father, Karl, ran a plant that made and manufactured farming equipment. Josef’s mother Walburga, had a terrible temper and was prone to physically disciplining her three sons and even the workers in her husband’s factory. Walburga had complete control over the household and ruled it with an iron fist.

4. Education In grade school, Josef was never at the top of his class, but he did well and was ambitious. Josef’s father wanted him to inherit the factory, but Josef wanted to go to school to become a doctor. In 1930 Josef graduated form Gunzburg High School and passes the preliminary test that allowed him to enter college. Josef was then accepted into the University of Munich where he majored in philosophy and medicine. While studying at Munich, Mengele heard his first Hitler speech and was then affiliated with the Nazi party. Josef saw Hitler’s movement as a chance for him to advance his career and gain the fame and respect he believed he deserved and had earned. After joining the “Steel Helmets”, Mengele then began to study anthropology and paleontology as well as medicine. Josef attended lectures of Dr. Ernst Rudin who believed in the theory of “unworthy life” which, simply put, was that some lives were not worth living and undeserved. It was at these lectures that Mengele decided he wanted to help with the purification of the German race.

5. In 1937, Mengele was recommended for the Third Reich Institute for Hereditary, Biology, and Racial Purity at the University of Frankfurt. Here he became assistant to Professor Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer. Von Verschuer was a public supporter of Hitler and ran a program to try and find the “perfect” set of genes that all of the German race must have. Anyone who was claimed to be feeble-minded, have schizophrenia, manic depression, epilepsy, hereditary blindness, deafness, physical deformities, Huntington’s Disease and alcoholism were written as unfit to be a part of the German race and needed to be “cleansed”. In1938 Mengele was accepted into the SS or Schutzstaffel which was a group of followers who were devout in their Aryan beliefs. By the age of 28 Mengele was well known within the Nazi party. In 1938 Mengele was awarded his medical degree from The University of Frankfurt, and from there he went on to become a soldier and then lieutenant. When war broke out in 1939, Mengele saw and used it as an opportunity to make himself known and protect the purity of the German race. The Beginning of a Career

6. Human Experimentation Mengele saw Auschwitz as an opportunity to experiment and research hereditary issues he was interested in. Josef was especially interested in children who were identical twins or who had physical abnormalities such as dwarfism or certain birth defects. Experiments were done to see if eye color could be changed in children. Chemicals and poisons would be injected into the eye and often caused disease, blindness and death. Amputations of limbs was common to see the aftermath effects of the surgery and how the person would function without the limb. Sterilization and shock treatments were used on both the male and female prisoners. Mengele once rounded up 14 twins and injected chloroform directly into their hearts which killed them instantly. After killing the children he began to dissect them and note and label every part of their bodies.

7. Human Experimentation Two twins were tied together to create conjoined twins and after the children became infected their skulls were smashed. Groups of prisoners were placed into huge ovens and burned to death to see how long it would take for them to receive first, second and third degree burns. Mengele tested how much force it would take to break a human skull. Major surgeries were preformed without anesthesia such as stomach and heart surgeries.

8. Post War Mengele Fled Auschwitz on January 17, 1945. Mengele took on a false identity and went into hiding to escape persecution. He took a boat over to Italy to escape the American men looking for him. In 1949 he arrived in Argentina. Mengele spent the next thirty years running from International authorities. Mengele drowned in 1979 and was buried at the home of the people harboring him.