Joseph Mengele

In world history, many facts are known about bloody dictators, rulers and tyrants, distinguished by their particular cruelty and violence, who killed millions of innocent people. But a special place among them is occupied by a man with a seemingly peaceful and most humane profession, namely the doctor Joseph Mengele, who surpassed many in his cruelty and sadism famous killers and maniacs.

Curriculum Vitae

Joseph was born on March 16, 1911 in the German city of Günzburg in the family of an agricultural machinery industrialist. He was the eldest child in the family. The father was constantly busy with business at the factory, and the mother was distinguished by a rather strict and despotic character, both towards the factory staff and towards her own children.

At school, little Mengele studied well, as befits a child of a strict Catholic upbringing. Continuing his studies at the universities of Vienna, Bonn and Munich, he studied medicine and, at the age of 27, received academic degree doctor Two years later, Mengele joined the SS troops, where he was appointed to the post of doctor in a sapper unit and rose to the rank of Hauptsturmführer. In 1943, he was discharged due to injury and assigned as a doctor to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

welcome to Hell

To most of the surviving victims of the “Death Factory,” as Auschwitz was called, Mengele, when they first met, seemed to be a fairly humane young man: tall, with a sincere smile on his face. He always smelled of expensive cologne, and his uniform was perfectly ironed, his boots were always polished. But these were only illusions about humanity.

As soon as new batches of prisoners arrived at Auschwitz, the doctor lined them up, stripped them naked and walked slowly between the prisoners, looking for suitable victims for his monstrous experiments. Those who were sick, the elderly and many women with babies in their arms, were sent to gas chambers by the doctor. Mengele allowed only those prisoners who were able to work to live. Thus began hell for hundreds of thousands of people.

The “Angel of Death,” as Mengele was called by the prisoners, began his bloody activities with the destruction of all the gypsies and several barracks with women and children. The reason for such bloodthirstiness was a typhoid epidemic, which the doctor decided to fight extremely radically. Considering himself the arbiter of human destinies, he himself chose who to take life, who to operate on, and who to leave alive. But Josef was especially interested in inhuman experiments on prisoners.

Experiments on Auschwitz prisoners

Hauptsturmführer Mengele was very interested in genetic changes in the body. In his opinion, torture was carried out for the benefit of the Third Reich and the science of genetics. So he looked for ways to increase the birth rate of the superior race and ways to reduce the birth rate of other races.

• To study the effects of cold on German soldiers in the field, the “Angel of Death” covered concentration camp prisoners with large pieces of ice and periodically measured their body temperature.
• To determine the maximum critical pressure that a person can withstand, a pressure chamber was created. In it, prisoners were torn to pieces.
• Also, prisoners of war were given lethal injections to determine their endurance.
• Inspired by the idea of ​​exterminating non-Aryan nationalities, the doctor performed sterilization operations on women by injecting various chemicals into the ovaries and exposing them to x-rays.

For Mengele, people were simply biological material for work. He easily pulled out teeth, broke bones, pumped blood out of prisoners for the needs of the Wehrmacht, or performed gender reassignment operations. Especially for the "Angel of Death" were people with genetic diseases or deviations, for example, such as midgets

Doctor Mengele's experiments on children

Children occupied a special position in the activities of the Hauptsturmführer. Since, according to the ideas of the Third Reich, little Aryans should have only light skin, eyes and hair, the doctor injected special dyes into the eyes of the children of Auschwitz. In addition, he conducted experiments, injecting various injections into the heart, forcibly infecting children with venereal or infectious diseases, cutting out organs, amputating limbs, pulling out teeth and inserting others.

The twins were subjected to the most cruel experiments. When the twins were brought to the concentration camp, they were immediately isolated from other prisoners. Each couple was carefully examined, weighed, height, length of arms, legs and fingers, as well as other physical parameters, were measured. At that time, the top leadership of Nazi Germany set the goal that every healthy Aryan woman would be able to give birth to two, three or more future Wehrmacht soldiers. “Doctor Death” transplanted organs into twins, pumped blood to each other, and he recorded all the data and results of bloody operations in tables and notebooks. Enlightened by the idea of ​​​​creating a conjoined pair of twins, Mengele performed an operation to stitch together two little gypsies, who soon died.

All operations were performed without anesthesia. The children endured unbearable hellish pain. Most of the little prisoners did not live to see the end of the operation, and those who fell ill or were in very poor condition after the operation were placed in gas chambers or had an anatomical dissection.

All the results of the experiments were periodically sent to the table high ranks Germany. Joseph Mengele himself often held consultations and conferences at which he read reports on his work.

The further fate of the executioner

When in April 1945 Soviet troops approached Auschwitz, Hauptsturmführer Mengele quickly left the “death factory”, taking with him his notebooks, notes and tables. Having been declared a war criminal, he was able to escape to the West, disguised as a private soldier. Since no one recognized him and his identity was not established, the doctor avoided arrest, first wandering in Bavaria, and then moved to Argentina. The bloody doctor never appeared before the court, fleeing from justice to Paraguay and Brazil. IN South America, “Doctor Death” was engaged in medical activities, usually illegal.

Suffering from paranoia, the “Angel of Death” died, according to some sources, on February 7, 1979. The cause of death was a stroke while swimming in the ocean. Only 13 years later the location of his grave was officially confirmed.

Video about the terrible experiments of the Nazis on concentration camp prisoners

Auschwitz prisoners were released four months before the end of World War II. By that time there were few of them left. Almost one and a half million people died, most of them Jews. For several years, the investigation continued, which led to terrible discoveries: people not only died in gas chambers, but also became victims of Dr. Mengele, who used them as guinea pigs.

Auschwitz: the story of a city

A small Polish town in which more than a million innocent people were killed is called Auschwitz all over the world. We call it Auschwitz. Concentration camps, experiments on women and children, gas chambers, torture, executions - all these words have been associated with the name of the city for more than 70 years.

It will sound quite strange in Russian Ich lebe in Auschwitz - “I live in Auschwitz.” Is it possible to live in Auschwitz? They learned about the experiments on women in the concentration camp after the end of the war. Over the years, new facts have been discovered. One is scarier than the other. The truth about the camp called shocked the whole world. Research continues today. Many books have been written and many films have been made on this topic. Auschwitz has become our symbol of painful, difficult death.

Where did they take place? massacres children and terrible experiments were carried out on women? In Which city do millions of people on earth associate with the phrase “death factory”? Auschwitz.

Experiments on people were carried out in a camp located near the city, which today is home to 40 thousand people. This is a calm town with a good climate. Auschwitz was first mentioned in historical documents in the twelfth century. In the 13th century there were already so many Germans here that their language began to prevail over Polish. In the 17th century, the city was captured by the Swedes. In 1918 it became Polish again. 20 years later, a camp was organized here, on the territory of which crimes took place, the likes of which humanity had never known.

Gas chamber or experiment

In the early forties, the answer to the question of where the Auschwitz concentration camp was located was known only to those who were doomed to death. Unless, of course, you take the SS men into account. Some prisoners, fortunately, survived. Later they talked about what happened within the walls of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Experiments on women and children, carried out by a man whose name terrified the prisoners, were terrible truth, which not everyone is ready to listen to.

The gas chamber is a terrible invention of the Nazis. But there are worse things. Krystyna Zywulska is one of the few who managed to leave Auschwitz alive. In her book of memoirs, she mentions an incident: a prisoner sentenced to death by Dr. Mengele does not go, but runs into gas chamber. Because death from poisonous gas is not as terrible as the torment from the experiments of the same Mengele.

Creators of the "death factory"

So what is Auschwitz? This is a camp that was originally intended for political prisoners. The author of the idea is Erich Bach-Zalewski. This man had the rank of SS Gruppenführer, and during the Second World War he led punitive operations. With him light hand Dozens were sentenced to death. He took an active part in suppressing the uprising that took place in Warsaw in 1944.

The SS Gruppenführer's assistants found a suitable location in a small Polish town. There were already military barracks here, and in addition, there was a well-established railway connection. In 1940, a man named He arrived here. He will be hanged near the gas chambers by decision of the Polish court. But this will happen two years after the end of the war. And then, in 1940, Hess liked these places. He took on the new business with great enthusiasm.

Inhabitants of the concentration camp

This camp did not immediately become a “death factory.” At first, mostly Polish prisoners were sent here. Only a year after the organization of the camp, the tradition of writing a serial number on the prisoner’s hand appeared. Every month more and more Jews were brought. By the end of Auschwitz they made up 90% of total number prisoners. The number of SS men here also grew continuously. In total, the concentration camp received about six thousand overseers, punishers and other “specialists.” Many of them were put on trial. Some disappeared without a trace, including Joseph Mengele, whose experiments terrified prisoners for several years.

We will not give the exact number of Auschwitz victims here. Let's just say that more than two hundred children died in the camp. Most of them were sent to gas chambers. Some ended up in the hands of Josef Mengele. But this man was not the only one who conducted experiments on people. Another so-called doctor is Karl Clauberg.

Beginning in 1943, a huge number of prisoners were admitted to the camp. Most of them should have been destroyed. But the organizers of the concentration camp were practical people, and therefore decided to take advantage of the situation and use a certain part of the prisoners as material for research.

Karl Cauberg

This man supervised the experiments carried out on women. His victims were predominantly Jewish and Gypsy women. The experiments included organ removal, testing new drugs, and radiation. What kind of person is Karl Cauberg? Who is he? What kind of family did you grow up in, how was his life? And most importantly, where did the cruelty that goes beyond human understanding come from?

By the beginning of the war, Karl Cauberg was already 41 years old. In the twenties, he served as chief physician at the clinic at the University of Königsberg. Kaulberg was not a hereditary doctor. He was born into a family of artisans. Why he decided to connect his life with medicine is unknown. But there is evidence that he served as an infantryman in the First World War. Then he graduated from the University of Hamburg. Apparently, he was so fascinated by medicine that he abandoned his military career. But Kaulberg was not interested in healing, but in research. In the early forties, he began searching for the most practical way to sterilize women who were not of the Aryan race. To conduct experiments he was transferred to Auschwitz.

Kaulberg's experiments

The experiments consisted of introducing a special solution into the uterus, which led to serious disturbances. After the experiment, the reproductive organs were removed and sent to Berlin for further research. There is no data on exactly how many women became victims of this “scientist”. After the end of the war, he was captured, but soon, just seven years later, oddly enough, he was released under an agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war. Returning to Germany, Kaulberg did not suffer from remorse. On the contrary, he was proud of his “achievements in science.” As a result, he began to receive complaints from people who suffered from Nazism. He was arrested again in 1955. He spent even less time in prison this time. He died two years after his arrest.

Joseph Mengele

The prisoners nicknamed this man the “angel of death.” Josef Mengele personally met the trains with new prisoners and carried out the selection. Some were sent to gas chambers. Others go to work. He used others in his experiments. One of the Auschwitz prisoners described this man as follows: “Tall, with a pleasant appearance, he looks like a film actor.” He never raised his voice and spoke politely - and this terrified the prisoners.

From the biography of the Angel of Death

Josef Mengele was the son of a German entrepreneur. After graduating from high school, he studied medicine and anthropology. In the early thirties he joined the Nazi organization, but soon left it for health reasons. In 1932, Mengele joined the SS. During the war he served in the medical forces and even received the Iron Cross for bravery, but was wounded and declared unfit for service. Mengele spent several months in the hospital. After recovery, he was sent to Auschwitz, where he began his scientific activities.

Selection

Selecting victims for experiments was Mengele's favorite pastime. The doctor only needed one glance at the prisoner to determine his state of health. He sent most of the prisoners to gas chambers. And only a few prisoners managed to delay death. It was hard with those whom Mengele saw as “guinea pigs.”

Most likely, this person suffered from an extreme form of mental disorder. He even enjoyed the thought that he had a huge amount of human lives. That is why he was always next to the arriving train. Even when this was not required of him. His criminal actions were guided not only by the desire for scientific research, but also a thirst to manage. Just one word from him was enough to send tens or hundreds of people to the gas chambers. Those that were sent to laboratories became material for experiments. But what was the purpose of these experiments?

Invincible faith in the Aryan utopia, explicit psychical deviations- these are the components of Joseph Mengele's personality. All his experiments were aimed at creating a new means that could stop the reproduction of representatives of unwanted peoples. Mengele not only equated himself with God, he placed himself above him.

Joseph Mengele's experiments

The Angel of Death dissected babies and castrated boys and men. He performed the operations without anesthesia. Experiments on women involved high-voltage electric shocks. He conducted these experiments to test endurance. Mengele once sterilized several Polish nuns using X-rays. But the main passion of the “Doctor of Death” was experiments on twins and people with physical defects.

To each his own

On the gates of Auschwitz it was written: Arbeit macht frei, which means “work sets you free.” The words Jedem das Seine were also present here. Translated into Russian - “To each his own.” At the gates of Auschwitz, at the entrance to the camp in which more than a million people died, a saying of the ancient Greek sages appeared. The principle of justice was used by the SS as the motto of the most cruel idea in the entire history of mankind.

The German doctor Joseph Mengele is known in world history as the most cruel Nazi criminal, who subjected tens of thousands of prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp to inhuman experiments.
For his crimes against humanity, Mengele forever earned the nickname “Doctor Death.”

Origin

Josef Mengele was born in 1911 in Bavaria, in Günzburg. The ancestors of the future fascist executioner were ordinary German farmers. Father Karl founded the agricultural equipment company Karl Mengele and Sons. The mother was raising three children. When Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power, the wealthy Mengele family began to actively support him. Hitler defended the interests of the very farmers on whom the well-being of this family depended.

Joseph did not intend to continue his father’s work and went to study to become a doctor. He studied at the universities of Vienna and Munich. In 1932 he joined the ranks of the Nazi Steel Helmet stormtroopers, but soon left this organization due to health problems. After graduating from university, Mengele received a doctorate. He wrote his dissertation on the topic of racial differences in the structure of the jaw.

Military service and professional activities

In 1938, Mengele joined the ranks of the SS and at the same time the Nazi Party. At the beginning of the war he joined the reserve troops tank division SS, rose to the rank of SS Hauptsturmführer and received the Iron Cross for saving 2 soldiers from a burning tank. After being wounded in 1942, he was declared unfit for further service in the active forces and went to “work” in Auschwitz.

In the concentration camp, he decided to realize his long-time dream of becoming an outstanding doctor and research scientist. Mengele calmly justified Hitler's sadistic views with scientific expediency: he believed that if inhuman cruelty is needed for the development of science and the breeding of a “pure race,” then it can be forgiven. This point of view translated into thousands of damaged lives and even more deaths.

In Auschwitz, Mengele found the most fertile ground for his experiments. The SS not only did not control, but even encouraged the most extreme forms of sadism. In addition, the killing of thousands of Gypsies, Jews and other people of the “wrong” nationality was a priority task concentration camp. Thus, Mengele found himself in the hands of a huge amount of “human material” that was supposed to be used up. "Doctor Death" could do whatever he wanted. And he created.

"Doctor Death" experiments

Josef Mengele conducted thousands of monstrous experiments over the years of his activity. He amputated body parts without anesthesia and internal organs, sewed twins together, injected toxic chemicals into the children's eyes to see if the color of the iris would change after that. Prisoners were deliberately infected with smallpox, tuberculosis and other diseases. All new and untested medications were tested on them, chemical substances, poisons and poisonous gases.

Mengele was most interested in various developmental anomalies. A huge number of experiments were carried out on dwarfs and twins. Of the latter, about 1,500 couples were subjected to his brutal experiments. About 200 people survived.

All operations on fusion of people, removal and transplantation of organs were performed without anesthesia. The Nazis did not consider it advisable to spend expensive medicines on “subhumans.” Even if the patient survived the experience, he was expected to be destroyed. In many cases, the autopsy was performed at a time when the person was still alive and felt everything.

After the war

After Hitler’s defeat, “Doctor Death,” realizing that execution awaited him, tried with all his might to escape persecution. In 1945, he was detained near Nuremberg in the uniform of a private, but then released because he could not establish his identity. After this, Mengele hid for 35 years in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. All this time, the Israeli intelligence service MOSSAD was looking for him and was close to capturing him several times.

It was never possible to arrest the cunning Nazi. His grave was discovered in Brazil in 1985. In 1992, the body was exhumed and proved that it belonged to Josef Mengele. Now the remains of the sadistic doctor are in medical university Sao Paulo.

German doctor Joseph Mengele is known in world history as the most brutal Nazi criminal, who subjected tens of thousands of prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp to inhumane experiments.

For his crimes against humanity, Mengele forever earned the nickname “Doctor Death.”

Origin

Josef Mengele was born in 1911 in Bavaria, in Günzburg. The ancestors of the future fascist executioner were ordinary German farmers. Father Karl founded the agricultural equipment company Karl Mengele and Sons. The mother was raising three children. When Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power, the wealthy Mengele family began to actively support him. Hitler defended the interests of the very farmers on whom the well-being of this family depended.

Joseph did not intend to continue his father’s work and went to study to become a doctor. He studied at the universities of Vienna and Munich. In 1932 he joined the ranks of the Nazi Steel Helmet stormtroopers, but soon left this organization due to health problems. After graduating from university, Mengele received a doctorate. He wrote his dissertation on the topic of racial differences in the structure of the jaw.

Military service and professional activities

In 1938, Mengele joined the ranks of the SS and at the same time the Nazi Party. At the beginning of the war, he joined the reserve forces of the SS Panzer Division, rose to the rank of SS Hauptsturmführer and received the Iron Cross for saving 2 soldiers from a burning tank. After being wounded in 1942, he was declared unfit for further service in the active forces and went to “work” in Auschwitz.

In the concentration camp, he decided to realize his long-time dream of becoming an outstanding doctor and research scientist. Mengele calmly justified Hitler's sadistic views with scientific expediency: he believed that if inhuman cruelty is needed for the development of science and the breeding of a “pure race,” then it can be forgiven. This point of view translated into thousands of damaged lives and even more deaths.

In Auschwitz, Mengele found the most fertile ground for his experiments. The SS not only did not control, but even encouraged the most extreme forms of sadism. In addition, the killing of thousands of Gypsies, Jews and other people of the “wrong” nationality was the primary task of the concentration camp. Thus, Mengele found himself in the hands of a huge amount of “human material” that was supposed to be used up. "Doctor Death" could do whatever he wanted. And he created.

"Doctor Death" experiments

Josef Mengele conducted thousands of monstrous experiments over the years of his activity. He amputated body parts and internal organs without anesthesia, sewed twins together, and injected toxic chemicals into children's eyes to see if the color of the iris would change after that. Prisoners were deliberately infected with smallpox, tuberculosis and other diseases. All new and untested medications, chemicals, poisons and poisonous gases were tested on them.

Mengele was most interested in various developmental anomalies. A huge number of experiments were carried out on dwarfs and twins. Of the latter, about 1,500 couples were subjected to his brutal experiments. About 200 people survived.

All operations on fusion of people, removal and transplantation of organs were performed without anesthesia. The Nazis did not consider it advisable to spend expensive medicines on “subhumans.” Even if the patient survived the experience, he was expected to be destroyed. In many cases, the autopsy was performed at a time when the person was still alive and felt everything.

After the war

After Hitler’s defeat, “Doctor Death,” realizing that execution awaited him, tried with all his might to escape persecution. In 1945, he was detained near Nuremberg in the uniform of a private, but then released because he could not establish his identity. After this, Mengele hid for 35 years in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. All this time, the Israeli intelligence service MOSSAD was looking for him and was close to capturing him several times.

It was never possible to arrest the cunning Nazi. His grave was discovered in Brazil in 1985. In 1992, the body was exhumed and proved that it belonged to Josef Mengele. Now the remains of the sadistic doctor are at the Medical University of Sao Paulo.