Chilling Medical Horrors Of Josef Mengele Or The Angel Of Death

Sam
8 min readJul 20, 2023

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Jewish children were kept alive in Auschwitz to be used in Mengele’s medical experiments.
Jewish children were kept alive in Auschwitz to be used in Mengele’s medical experiments. / Image Source: Wikimedia Commons — Public Domain

You might experience anxiety at the mention of Joseph Mengele because of the inhumane crimes and the atrocities that he committed at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.

While Gisella Perl is known as the Angel of Auschwitz or Angel of Life, Josef Mengele is simply known as the Angel of Death; this former philosophy student certainly became one of the most terrifying faces of that dark period in history.

However, there is much more to this notorious figure from the days of the Holocaust than meets the eye.

In fact, many strange facts about Mengele have become woven into rumors and conjecture that only add to his mystique as a boogeyman who still haunts the secret history of Europe and America to this day.

Regardless of the atrocities Mengele committed at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp, it’s important to remember that Mengele was a real person — even if the horrific crimes and atrocities he committed make you believe he is a character from a horror movie.

As you’ll soon discover, he had a really complex personality; he believed that the terrible acts he committed were justified, which only made his crimes all the more terrifying.

Abnormal People Were Preferred By Mengele

23-year-old Czech prisoner suffering in Flossenburg, Germany.
23-year-old Czech prisoner suffering in Flossenburg, Germany. / Image Source: Picryl — Public Domain

Josef Mengele displayed a disturbing obsession with subjects who possessed physical abnormalities during his time as a physician at Auschwitz Concentration Camp.

He believed that perfecting the science of eugenics lay somewhere within the bodies of those who were deformed, disabled, or simply different.

Mengele’s fascination with genetic outliers was not limited to twins, although much has been written about this aspect of his research. One particular family, the Ovtizes, captured Mengele’s attention due to their unique physical characteristics.

The Ovtizes, a Transylvanian family with ten children, seven of whom were dwarves, were subjected to Mengele’s experiments.

While Mengele allowed the Ovtizes to keep their clothes and hair, he extracted their blood, removed their teeth, and subjected them to intense psychological scrutiny.

Although their time in the camp was undoubtedly torturous, the entire Ovitz family miraculously survived their internment.

Mengele’s preferential treatment of subjects with medical anomalies highlights the heinous nature of his experiments and the disregard he had for human life.

The Horrors Of Josef Mengele’s Obsession with Twins

It’s no secret that Josef Mengele had a chilling obsession with twins. This obsession was fueled by the Nazi Party’s pet concept of eugenics — the belief that human genetic traits could be improved through a systematic weeding out of perceived negative parts of DNA.

Mengele, who had worked with Professor Otmar Freiherr von Vershuer, believed that studying twins could provide him with valuable insight into how to physically remove genetic makeup.

It’s truly harrowing to think that twins, who were considered valuable by Mengele, were given some basic human rights that were denied to other prisoners at Auschwitz.

When the twins were admitted to the Auschwitz Camp, they were permitted to keep their hair and wear clothes, but these minor comforts were overshadowed by the horrors they would later have to endure there.

Mengele subjected these innocent children to brutal experiments that seemed to serve no genuine scientific purpose but rather were a means of inflicting terror and pain.

Being considered one of “Mengele’s Children” was a terrifying fate, one that no child should ever have to experience.

Mengele’s Horrifying Experiments on Heterochromia

Photo of Joseph Mengele showing his Heterochromia in the colored photo of today.
Photo of Josef Mengele showing his Heterochromia in the colored photo of today. / Image Source: Wikimedia Commons — Public Domain

The notorious Nazi physician was a man with a morbid curiosity that knew no bounds. Among his many strange fascinations was heterochromia, a condition characterized by having irises of different colors.

Mengele was so intrigued with this phenomenon that he crafted and performed his own experiments on inmates in an effort to inject different chemicals into their irises just to see if it changed the color of their eyes.

However, when his chemical methods proved ineffective, he resorted to an even more gruesome tactic of extracting the entire eyeball and sending it to his colleague, Karin Magnussen, an expert in eye pigmentation, for further study. It is truly chilling to think about the extent to which Mengele went to satisfy his twisted scientific curiosity.

Mengele’s Disturbing Duality: A Cultured Music Lover and a Horrible Nazi Doctor

Mengele was quite the character, renowned for his refined taste in music and his embodiment of the cultured ideal that was so central to the Third Reich.

He would frequently be found unwinding and relaxing during his free time by listening to the works of the great German and Austrian composers, particularly Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann, when he wasn’t engaged with his — dreadful experiments.

However, what truly sets Mengele apart from most other people was his eerie habit of whistling famous classical arias as he went about the ghastly business of selecting new arrivals for the gas chambers.

As multiple Birkenau survivors have recounted in their memoirs, there he would stand on the train platform, his impeccably tailored uniform and polished boots belying the evil that lurked within him, whistling away as he made his cruel and arbitrary choices.

It is an absolutely horrifying experience that shows the deranged mind of a guy who could take pleasure in music’s aesthetic appeal while still being responsible for some of the most heinous acts of cruelty and violence in history.

Mengele Loved Collecting Human Organs And Body Parts

The Max Planck Psychiatric Institute in Munich has been rocked to its foundation by the shocking discovery of body parts and brains that were kept in storage by none other than the infamous Josef Mengele, a Nazi physician who carried out cruel experiments on captives during the Second World War.

It was in 2015 that one of the Institute’s members stumbled upon this cache of remains tucked away in their archives.

The Institute immediately began a thorough investigation to determine the identities of the remains in an effort to provide closure to the victims and their families.

However, they were quick to clarify that the research conducted at the Institute had absolutely no connection to this disturbing finding.

In a statement released on their website, they expressed their deep embarrassment and regret at the blemish that this discovery had brought upon their esteemed organization.

The Dark Evolution of Josef Mengele

During his early career, Mengele’s focus was primarily on the field of oral embryology and the developmental anomalies of cleft palate and harelip.

He really had a highly respected job as a physician in this domain before becoming famous for his wicked experiments and as the Angel of Death.

His fascination with correcting genetic abnormalities through medical means may have served as a precursor to the horrific experiments he would conduct later.

It serves as a disturbing reminder of how even seemingly harmless activities may be corrupted into something evil by unscrupulous individuals.

Hence, we must continue to be watchful in advancing moral norms in medical research and practice.

Candido Godoi — A Chilling Possibility of Mengele’s Secret Twin Experiments

In 2009, an Argentine historian by the name of Jorge Camarasa made a shocking claim that Mengele continued his experiments on twins in a Brazilian farming community called Candido Godoi.

Camarasa’s evidence was based on the fact that beginning in 1963, the twin birth rate in Candido Godoi skyrocketed.

According to people who lived in the town, Mengele came there posing as a “rural doctor,” going from house to house and withdrawing vials of blood from everyone he treated.

Since Camarasa put forth this theory, researchers have debated its validity, with many scientists asserting that the high twin birth rate in Candido Godoi was likely due to the community’s insular nature rather than any sinister scientific experimentation.

Nonetheless, the possibility that Mengele may have created a village of twins in South America is a chilling and haunting prospect and a reminder of the atrocities that occurred under the Nazi regime.

The Enduring Legend of Josef Mengele

Once Mengele vanished in the wake of the Holocaust, he became more of a legend, and his name came to stand for everything wicked and depraved.

This mysterious figure has been the subject of countless conspiracies, some of which are more implausible than others have suggested he might have been the mysterious Zodiac Killer.

There are a handful of these hypotheses that, even when the majority of them are obviously false — — there are some kernels of reality hiding under all that.

One of the longest-lasting myths about Mengele is that he escaped to South America and collaborated with the CIA to develop the infamous brainwashing methods applied in the MK-Ultra program.

While there is not much evidence to back up this particular theory of Mengele’s involvement in the MK-Ultra program,

However, the fact that the US military acquired a large number of outstanding German engineers and scientists after the second Great War came to its conclusion.

Given Mengele’s reputation as undoubtedly one of the most notorious Nazis to have ever escaped prosecution, it is still not surprising that some individuals would jump to the conclusion that Mengele was collaborating with the CIA to help them accomplish their sinister goals.

Ultimately, the enduring popularity of Mengele as an urban legend speaks to the lasting impact of his atrocities and the continuing fascination with this dark chapter of human history.

Whether or not he actually had any involvement in the MK-Ultra program or other clandestine operations, the specter of his evil looms large in the collective imagination, reminding us of the terrible cost of unchecked hate and bigotry.

Conclusion

Forensic anthropologists examine Mengele’s skull in 1986 reminding us that we all have the same end no matter what.
Forensic anthropologists examine Mengele’s skull in 1986 reminding us that we all have the same end no matter what. / Image Source: Wikimedia Commons — Public Domain

The life and actions of the infamous Nazi physician Josef Mengele serve as a horrifying reminder of the horrors that can be carried out in the name of hate and ideology.

His unethical and inhumane medical experiments on prisoners in Auschwitz and his enthusiastic participation in the Holocaust demonstrate the dangers of unchecked power and the dehumanization of others.

History will never forget Mengele’s actions, which serve as a constant reminder of the value of empathy, tolerance, compassion and commitment to fundamental human rights.

If we want to protect ourselves and our generations from similar atrocities from ever happening again in the future, there aren’t many aspects that need to be taken into account; all we have to do is learn from the past and make sure that we don’t allow anyone to make the same mistake twice.

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Sam

A Part-time Writer, Full-time Realtor, a Father, and someone who is absolutely crazy about History, Politics, and Space