Joseph Mengele: The Angel Of Death

Today when many think of the Holocaust, they are reminded of the shocking number of eleven million lives that were taken. What many don’t know is the man responsible for an unknown number of these deaths. Joseph Mengele was a German physician who is notoriously known for his inhumane, unscientific, and often deadly medical experiments on prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp. Joseph Mengle is most popularly known as the Angel of Death, but he is also known as Dr. Death, the Angel of Extermination, the Butcher, and Schöne Joseph. Joseph Mengele was born on March 16, 1911 in Günzberg, Germany to Karl and Walburga Mengele. Joseph was the oldest of three children. Mengele had two younger brothers, Karl Jr. and Alois. Karl Jr. was born …show more content…
Joseph Mengele graduated in April of 1930 from the gymnasium, which is “designed for those with academic aspirations” (Astor 14). After graduating, Mengele attended the University of Munich to study philosophy and medicine. At the University of Munich, Mengele earned a Ph.D in philosophy as well as passed examinations for medical school. Mengele decided to continue his medical education and moved to the University of Frankfurt am Main. After moving to Frankfurt, Mengele began studying at the Institute for Hereditary and Eugenics. Mengele became the assistant of Dr. Otmar von Verschuer. “Von Verschuer was an ardent Nazi, and in furtherance of racial science became fascinated by the phenomenon of twins.” (Astor 19). Under the guidance of Von Verschuer, Mengele wrote a paper that was published in a medical journal. This paper explored the topic of cleft palate in children. In …show more content…
Mengele had a variety of research interests. Just like his mentor, Dr. Otmar Von Verschuer, he had a certain fascination with twins. “Through twin-studies Mengele could hope to establish the supremacy of “blood” as the determinant of desirable characteristics in a human.” (Astor 92). Mengele began to form a collection of twins. Mengele’s collection of twins were housed in a separate block than other prisoners and were often treated better. Dr. Mengele didn't allow the twins to be assigned to harsh labor assignments and always made sure that they had adequate rations. Although Mengele spent most of his time focusing on twin research, his studies were not limited to that. Mengele also took interest in dwarves and other genetic abnormalities, heterochromia, and noma. Similar to twins, Mengele took a special interest in heterochromes. According to Holocaust History, heterchromia is a condition in which an individual’s two irises differ in coloration. Throughout his research, Mengele would collect and keep the eyes of his victims. Dr. Mengele would often preserve the eyes in alcohol and mail them to Dr. Otmar Von Verschuer at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Human Genetics and Eugenics. Many believe that Mengele was interested in hetrochromes because he was attempting to find a way to artificially change eye color so the world could be populated with blued-eyed Aryans. However, an “American psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, who is researching the role of