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Mengele: Unmasking the "Angel of Death"
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About This Book
A gripping account of the infamous Nazi doctor, from a former Justice Department official tasked with uncovering his fate. One of the most notorious war criminals of all time, Dr. Josef Mengele has come to symbolize both the evil of the Nazi regime and the failure of justice in the postwar world. Drawing on new scholarship and sources, historian David G. Marwell examines Mengele's life and career, chronicling his university studies, which led to two PhDs and a promising career as a scientist; his wartime service, in combat and at Auschwitz, where his "selections" determined the fate of countless innocents and his "scientific" pursuits resulted in the traumatization and death of thousands more; and his postwar refuge in Germany and South America. Mengele describes the international search in 1985, which ended in a cemetery in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and the dogged forensic investigation that produced overwhelming evidence that Mengele had died―but failed to convince those who, arguably, most wanted him dead. This is a story of science without limits, escape without freedom, and resolution without justice.
Reviews
"Marwell's account of that investigation is gripping ..."
"The author's legalistic prose occasionally obscures the drama of his subject's crimes and exile, but Israeli attempts to flush Mengele out of hiding in the 1960s and 1970s are grippingly related ..."
"Marwell already had access to Mengele's correspondence and diaries and, remarkably, the text of what appeared to be an autobiographical novel ..."
"There is nothing surprising in educated people doing evil, but it is still amazing to see how fully they construct a rationale to let them do it, piling plausible reason on self-justification, until, like Mengele, they are able to look themselves in the mirror every morning with bright-eyed self-congratulation."
"There is also highly detailed reportage regarding the seemingly endless investigations and multiple conflicts surrounding the interpretation of the medical and forensic evidence that in 1992 definitively established that Mengele had died in Brazil in 1979."
"Marwell engrossingly describes the capture process as highly political, involving American, Israeli, and German government groups ..."
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