Mengele: The Complete Story

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Summary: More Mengele, Less Mossad!
Review: This book focusses on Mengele's life as a fugitive, giving just a little background information and very few details (from third parties with questionable motives) about his work at Auschwitz. The reader is expected to believe the stories of a Frankenstein-esque mad scientist creating mutants to advance the Master Race. That is the only point where the reader's intellect is insulted, and it is a low point. Too much is said about the goings-on at the Israeli Mossad, if I wanted to read about the quarreling of some top secret jews I would have bought another book! This is by no means "the complete story," as outside sources are often quoted- "victims" and doctors forced to work under him are hardly impartial sources for information. The most intriguing part of the book comes not from the authors or witnesses, but from Dr. Josef Mengele himself. His diary excerpts are very revealing to his personality, or at least how he thought of himself. Forget the phony Hitler Diaries, the real Mengele Diaries would make for better reading. It is a shame he was forced to spend 30 years of his life languishing in South America, as he had the brilliance to do anything he put his mind to. Through this book the preconception of the talentless Nazi butcher whose ideas and research methods were "worthless" is disproved by Mengele's more-than-apparent genius. The authors try to paint him as a bad scientist and lousy philosopher, but fail miserably. The light of intelligence shines through in Dr. Josef Mengele's own words, which are sprinkled throughout the book.

If you're at all curious about what life is really like for a "Nazi war criminal" in hiding, this is a good book for that. But if a concise biography of a "Nazi war criminal" devoid of any mediocre Freudian psychoanalysis is your cup of tea, look elsewhere.

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Summary: Insight into the dark side of genocide
Review: Though genocide is something that continues to fill evening news and panel discussions on clashes and conflicts in countries that seem like an eternity away, this book explores the dark side to the Holocaust, darker than normal because, in this unbelievable biography, genocide and Nazi evil is given a human face in the form of the smiling and smartly-dressed SS doctor, Josef Mengele.

Known greatly by survivors and Holocaust historians/scholars, there is little literature out there that paints a complete portrait of this man, from his spoon-fed existence in Bavaria to his existence and later death in several South American havens, which, by sheltering this infamous Nazi, unwittingly spat in the face of international justice and law. The full story of his escape and hiding from the international community is described. Everything one could ask for on Mengele is contained within the pages of this book, sometimes shocking, sometimes sinister, sometimes bewildering, and often very thrilling.

Posner's book reads like a fast-paced thriller, in which the reader is transported back into time and placed before the spectacle of Mengele, the "Angel of Death." This is the first book by Posner read by the reviewer, and he admits that he was (and continues to be) very impressed. Meticulously researched and even given access to Mengele's unpublished and largely unused diaries and autobiography (still not released by the Mengele family), this biography stands out over all other 'attempts,' for they all fail miserably to even try to surpass or compete against Posner's masterpiece. He is to be commended on a fine job in painting a vivid portrait of Mengele. Hopefully, readers will begin to see the truth behind the many distortions surrounding the Holocaust and its perpetration - and that the perpetrators of this nightmarish bloodbath were human beings like everyone else, not a label of dissent that brings about a rift between Holocaust (or any other genocidal) perpetrators, and thus ensuring that genocide continues forever. Most certainly, Mengele's deeds were monstrous, but their monstrosity does not change the fact that he was still human, just like us. If we forget this fact, then genocidal forces existing within the souls of us all will continue forever.

Find out all this for yourselves, fellow readers, and read this book.

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Summary: Those who ignore history are condemned to repeat it.
Review: 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

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Summary: Flawed documentation fails to prove Mengele hid in Brazil
Review: WHERE WAS JOSEF MENGELE IN 1962?

There is a serious gap in Posner's research which leads me to question his reasons for writing this biography. Despite having access to an enormous CIA file on Mengele, Posner fails to document the period when Mengele was supposedly hiding out with the Stammer couple in Brazil.

Gerald Posner is the much-publicized author of several other cover-up books on the Kennedy and King assassinations. His research methods and commitment to truthfulness are often questioned.

The same sloppiness is evident in his writing on Mengele. Posner uses quotes from Mengele's diary until 1962 and then skips to 1969. He quotes from some undated letters to his son which must have been written in the mid-to-late sixties because in them Mengele comments on Rolf's studies at university. Nowhere in this biography is there evidence that Mengele wrote anything from Brazil in the period 1962-69.

The sixities were a tricky period for Mengele: the period when (according to witnesses testifying before a US Congressional committee set up under President Clinton to investigate allegations that the CIA experimented on humans) Mengele (under the name "Dr. Green") is said to have participated in MKULTRA in CIA-funded projects at various universities and military bases in the US and Canada.

Posner does nothing to disprove these allegations, and does not (of course) mention them. In a footnote he briefly mentions Mengele's family in Germany kept all his letters EXCEPT for the period between 1963-1969. More likely, the CIA does not want those letters to become public, because they would show Mengele was no longer in Brazil, but doing "research" in America.

Supposedly Mengele hid out in the Brazilian countryside from the early 60s to his death in 1979, when he is said to have drowned after suffering a strike while swimming off the coast. Posner claims he worked all those years at "manual labour" -- as a farmhand and carpenter -- while Mossad and West German intelligence were looking for him in Paraguay. There is nothing in Mengele's letters or authoritarian behavior around the farm to suggest he had any tolerance for manual labour.

Posner says Mengele's hosts were Geza and Gitta Strammer, a married couple from Hungary, who put him up in Brazil after he left Paraguay. Posner documents this living arrangement with quotes from Mengele's diaries as well as witnesses who lived or visited the Stammer's, up to 1962 when Mengele and his host and hostess had a serious falling-out.

After the summer of 1962, there are no more quotes from Mengele's letters or diary entry until seven years later! Posner produces not one witness testimony or photograph to indicate that Mengele actually remained in hiding in Brazil during that period (1962-69).

Interviews with the Stammers indicate serious conflicts with their house-guest, Mengele, coming to a head in 1962. Several people say Mengele and his hostess, Gitta Stammer had an affair. His diaries and Gitta's story show that things became "tense" between the couple and their guest in 1962. It defies credibility that after having an affair with Gitta, and fighting with the entire household, Mengele would have gone on living "between four walls" and under the same roof with them until 1974, as Posner asserts. Posner invents an explanation: the Stammers swallowed their resentment because they were dependent on Mengele's money and co-ownership in property, and allowed him to stay with them for another 12 years!

One photo of Mengele shows him visiting his son in Switzerland in 1956. Posner's next photo of Mengele, undated, taken in Brazil, the doctor has aged about 15 years, put on weight, grown grey and stooped. Presumably Mengele did not want to be photographed after 1956 while he was a fugitive, but then why did he allow himself to be photographed in the late sixties and early seventies when he was still being hunted? The last photos show him as a contented-looked old man, puttering around the farm -- he is back in Brazil, and seems to be enjoying his retirement. Do these last images jive with Posner's claim that Mengele spent all those years as a fugitive, with a couple he already despised in 1962? I don't think so.

Posner is clearly constructing a careful fabrication to hide dangerous evidence that Mengele probably left Brazil in 1962 to work in the US and Canada on CIA experiments with human beings which were paid for by the US military.

In 1962, Eichmann was hanged, after being deported from Paraguay and put on trial. This would have made Mengele nervous about remaining in South America, which was the focus of the Nazi hunters. What would have made it POSSIBLE for him to get out of Brazil, is that after 1962, Mossad and the West German government scaled down their hunt for Mengele, which remained concentrated in Paraguay. The world believed Mengele was still in Paraguay, when he had fled to Brazil. Ffforts to find him in Brazil failed even though the German police raided the home of one of his supporters in Brazil in 1964. They found no trace of Mengele. Not surprising, since he had gone to America!

Posner has written a highly-publicized, CIA-supported and funded cover story to throw readers off the trail of Josef Mengele, and keep us from finding out the truth about MKULTRA and other atrocities. The truth about Mengele -- that he worked for the United States government on mind control research, and retired wealthy in Brazil in the early seventies -- would require another author, one who could get his hands on the CIA's Mengele files. The CIA gave Posner access to their extensive file on Mengele, including his 5000-page diary, so he could construct a flimsy smokescreen. Next question: Where are those documents now and who can access them?