Misplaced Pages

#685314

86-558: The first units of the SS Medical Corps began to appear in the 1930s. Small divisions of SS personnel designated to medical duties were known initially as the Sanitätsstaffel . These formations were originally small units under the command of local SS leaders. After 1931, the SS formed a headquarters office known as Amt V, which was the central office for SS medical units. At this same time,

172-429: A boarding house in the suburb of Vicente López . After a few weeks, he moved to the house of a Nazi sympathizer in the neighborhood of Florida Este . He next worked as a salesman for his family's farm equipment company, Karl Mengele & Sons, and in 1951 he began making frequent trips to Paraguay as a regional sales representative. He moved into an apartment in central Buenos Aires in 1953, used family funds to buy

258-625: A stroke in 1976, experienced high blood pressure, and developed an ear infection which affected his balance. On 7 February 1979, while visiting his friends Wolfram and Liselotte Bossert in the coastal resort of Bertioga , Mengele had a heart attack while swimming and drowned. His body was buried in Embu das Artes under the name "Wolfgang Gerhard", whose identification Mengele had been using since 1971. Other aliases used by Mengele in his later life included "Dr. Fausto Rindón" and "S. Josi Alvers Aspiazu". Sightings of Mengele were being reported all over

344-516: A West German passport using his real name and embarked on a trip to Europe. He met with his son Rolf (who was told Mengele was his "Uncle Fritz") and his widowed sister-in-law Martha, for a ski holiday in Switzerland; he also spent a week in his home town of Günzburg. When he returned to Argentina in September 1956, Mengele began living under his real name. Martha and her son Karl Heinz followed about

430-518: A career as a researcher. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938. He was assigned as a battalion medical officer at the start of World War II, then transferred to the Nazi concentration camps service in early 1943 and assigned to Auschwitz, where he saw the opportunity to conduct genetic research on human subjects. His experiments focused primarily on twins, with no regard for the health or safety of

516-448: A combined labour camp and extermination camp . Prisoners were transported there by rail from all over Nazi-controlled Europe, arriving in daily convoys. By July 1942, SS doctors were conducting selections where incoming Jews were segregated, and those considered able to work were admitted into the camp while those deemed unfit for labor were immediately murdered in the gas chambers. Those selected to be killed, about three-quarters of

602-577: A farm in Nova Europa with the help of an investment from Mengele, who was given the job of managing for them. The three bought a coffee and cattle farm in Serra Negra in 1962, with Mengele owning a half interest. Gerhard had initially told the Stammers that the fugitive's name was "Peter Hochbichler", but they discovered his true identity in 1963. Gerhard persuaded the couple not to report Mengele's location to

688-517: A medical resident in Leipzig . Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944. The ideology of Nazism brought together elements of antisemitism , racial hygiene , and eugenics , and combined them with pan-Germanism and territorial expansionism with the goal of obtaining more Lebensraum (living space) for the Germanic people. Nazi Germany attempted to obtain this new territory by attacking Poland and

774-533: A month later, and the three began living together. Josef and Martha were married in 1958 while on holiday in Uruguay , and they bought a house in Buenos Aires. Mengele's business interests now included part ownership of Fadro Farm, a pharmaceutical company. Along with several other doctors, he was questioned in 1958 on suspicion of practicing medicine without a license when a teenage girl died after an abortion, but he

860-601: A nurse with whom he had struck up a relationship. He and his unit then hurried west to avoid being captured by the Soviets, but were taken prisoners of war by the Americans in June 1945. Although Mengele was initially registered under his own name, he was not identified as being on the major war criminal list due to the disorganization of the Allies regarding the distribution of wanted lists, and

946-588: A part interest in a carpentry concern, and then rented a house in the suburb of Olivos in 1954. Files released by the Argentine government in 1992 indicate that Mengele may have practiced medicine without a license while living in Buenos Aires, including performing abortions. After obtaining a copy of his birth certificate through the West German embassy in 1956, Mengele was issued an Argentine foreign residence permit under his real name. He used this document to obtain

SECTION 10

#1732858220686

1032-772: A special SS unit was formed known as the Röntgensturmbann SS-HA , or the Hauptamt X-Ray Battalion. This formation comprised 350 full-time SS personnel who toured Germany offering X-ray diagnostics to any SS member. While the Röntgensturmbann was an independent office, the local Sanitätsstaffel were under dual command of both the SS Medical Office (Amt V), and the leaders of the various SS-Sturmbann and Standarten . Within each SS-Sturmbann (battalion), there existed one company of SS personnel whose duty

1118-708: A trial and death sentence. Assisted by a network of former SS members, he used the ratline to travel to Genoa , where he obtained a passport from the International Committee of the Red Cross under the alias "Helmut Gregor", and sailed to Argentina in July 1949. His wife refused to accompany him, and they divorced by proxy in Düsseldorf in 1954. Mengele worked as a carpenter in Buenos Aires , Argentina, while lodging in

1204-754: The Wehrmacht (Nazi armed forces) in June 1940, some months after the outbreak of World War II. He soon volunteered for medical service in the Waffen-SS , the combat arm of the SS, where he served with the rank of SS- Untersturmführer ('second lieutenant') in a medical reserve battalion until November 1940. He was next assigned to the SS-Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt ('SS Race and Settlement Main Office') in Poznań , evaluating candidates for Germanization . In June 1941, Mengele

1290-497: The RSHA , was to hold dual police rank as SS- Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei . SS- Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS was the equivalent in the armed SS; in 1944, most active SS generals received this designation in order to command military troops during the last days of the war. Approximately fifteen SS generals were ranked as SS- Obergruppenführer und General der Polizei und Waffen-SS . SS- Obergruppenführer

1376-568: The Simon Wiesenthal Center . On 31 May 1985, acting on intelligence received by the West German prosecutor's office, police raided the house of Hans Sedlmeier, a lifelong friend of Mengele and sales manager of the family firm in Günzburg. They found a coded address book and copies of letters sent to and received from Mengele. Among the papers was a letter from Wolfram Bossert notifying Sedlmeier of Mengele's death. German authorities alerted

1462-636: The University of Frankfurt in 1938. (Both of his degrees were revoked by the issuing universities in the 1960s.) In a letter of recommendation, Von Verschuer praised Mengele's reliability and his ability to verbally present complex material in a clear manner. The American author Robert Jay Lifton notes that Mengele's published works were in keeping with the scientific mainstream of the time, and would probably have been viewed as valid scientific efforts even outside Nazi Germany . On 28 July 1939, Mengele married Irene Schönbein, whom he had met while working as

1548-536: The Holocaust , where he was nicknamed the "Angel of Death" (German: Todesengel ). He performed deadly experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz II (Birkenau) concentration camp, where he was a member of the team of doctors who selected victims to be murdered in the gas chambers, and was one of the doctors who administered the gas. Before the war, Mengele received doctorates in anthropology and medicine, and began

1634-527: The Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt , where he worked for Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer , a German geneticist with a particular interest in researching twins. As Von Verschuer's assistant, Mengele focused on the genetic factors that result in a cleft lip and palate , or a cleft chin . His thesis on the subject earned him a cum laude doctorate in medicine ( MD ) from

1720-524: The Israeli intelligence agency Mossad , personally led the successful effort to capture Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. He was hoping to track down Mengele so that he too could be brought to trial in Israel. Under interrogation, Eichmann provided the address of a boarding house that had been used as a safe house for Nazi fugitives. Surveillance of the house did not reveal Mengele or any members of his family, and

1806-832: The Law for Euthanasia for the Incurably Ill. According to historian Götz Aly, the first commandants of the death camps at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka came out of Operation T4 and "were on its payroll." In 1938, the SS formed its own Medical Academy in Berlin to train medical personnel and physicians who would serve with the SS-VT , the forerunner of the Waffen-SS . Doctors serving with the Waffen-SS were highly trained both in medical skills and combat tactics with many such doctors receiving high combat awards. During

SECTION 20

#1732858220686

1892-568: The Mossad chief to call off the manhunt in 1962. In 1969, Mengele and the Stammers jointly purchased a farmhouse in Caieiras , with Mengele as half owner. When Wolfgang Gerhard returned to Germany in 1971 to seek medical treatment for his ailing wife and son, he gave his identity card to Mengele. The Stammers' friendship with Mengele deteriorated in late 1974, and when they bought a house in São Paulo, he

1978-618: The Romani camp in 1943, Mengele initiated a study to determine the cause of the disease and develop a treatment. He enlisted the assistance of prisoner Berthold Epstein , a Jewish pediatrician and professor at Prague University . The patients were isolated in separate barracks and several afflicted children were killed so that their preserved heads and organs could be sent to the SS Medical Academy in Graz and other facilities for study. This research

2064-492: The SA from 1929 to 1930 and as a title until 1933. In April 1942, the new rank of SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer was created which was above Obergruppenführer and below Reichsführer-SS . The rank of Obergruppenführer was created in 1932 by Ernst Röhm and was intended as a seniormost rank of the Nazi stormtroopers for use by Röhm and his top SA generals. In its initial concept,

2150-410: The SS Medical Corps, as a whole, losing the status of a headquarters office. This was an important development in changing the nature of service for members of the SS Medical Corps. By 1935, the SS Medical Corps was considered an "auxiliary duty", and all members of the medical corps were also attached to regular SS formations. To denote medical corps status, the SS authorized a serpent crest to be worn on

2236-474: The SS and Nazi Party after his abortive flight to Scotland in 1941. Helldorff was stricken from the SS rolls in 1944 after the 20 July plot against Hitler. Helldorff was a unique case, in that his SS rank had been bestowed for technical reasons in order to command the Berlin Police . While holding SA membership, Helldorff was never actually an SS member although for administrative purposes he held SS rank and

2322-665: The SS in the Berlin region. Daluege's promotion was to avoid the SS splitting into two separate entities, one based in Northern Germany under Daluege and the other in Bavaria under Himmler. This early SS disunity became a non-issue after a common ground was found amongst SS leaders in their general hatred of the SA. Udo von Woyrsch and Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger were promoted to SS- Obergruppenführer in 1935 while Josias, Hereditary Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont , and Max Amann received

2408-716: The Soviet Union, intending to deport or murder the Jews and Slavs living there, who were considered by the Nazis to be inferior to the putative " Aryan master race ". Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the Schutzstaffel (SS; 'Protection Squadron') in 1938. He received basic training in 1938 with the Gebirgsjäger ('light infantry mountain troop') and was called up for service in

2494-507: The West German authorities into starting extradition proceedings, and an arrest warrant was drawn up on 5 June 1959. Argentina initially refused the extradition request because the fugitive was no longer living at the address given on the documents; by the time extradition was approved on 30 June, Mengele had already fled to Paraguay and was living on a farm in Hohenau , near the Argentine border. In May 1960, Isser Harel , director of

2580-477: The West German government and clandestine operations by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad . He drowned in 1979 after suffering a heart attack while swimming off the coast of Bertioga , and was buried under the false name of Wolfgang Gerhard. His remains were disinterred and positively identified by forensic examination in 1985. Mengele was born into a Catholic family in Günzburg , Bavaria , on 16 March 1911,

2666-748: The authorities by convincing them that they themselves could be implicated for harboring a fugitive. In February 1961, West Germany widened its extradition request to include Brazil, having been tipped off to the possibility that Mengele had relocated there. Meanwhile, Zvi Aharoni , one of the Mossad agents who had been involved in the Eichmann capture, was placed in charge of a team of agents tasked with tracking down Mengele and bringing him to trial in Israel. Their inquiries in Paraguay revealed no clues to his whereabouts, and they were unable to intercept any correspondence between Mengele and his wife Martha, who by this time

SS Medical Corps - Misplaced Pages Continue

2752-480: The blood of one twin into another. Many died during the procedures, and those who survived were often killed and dissected for comparative post-mortem reports. Nyiszli recalled one occasion where Mengele killed 14 twins at the same time by injecting their hearts with chloroform. Some twins were sewn back to back in an attempt to create conjoined twins. Other experiments he performed included injecting chemicals into inmates' eyes to change their eye color, removing

2838-709: The clean block. This process was repeated until all of the barracks were disinfected. Similar procedures were used for later epidemics of scarlet fever and other diseases, with infected prisoners being murdered in the gas chambers. For these actions, Mengele was awarded the War Merit Cross (Second Class with swords) and was promoted in 1944 to First Physician of the Birkenau subcamp. Mengele used Auschwitz as an opportunity to continue his anthropological studies and research into heredity, using inmates for medical experimentation . His medical experiments showed no consideration for

2924-530: The collar patches of SS unit insignia. Because SS Medical Corps members could now serve in any branch of the SS, this expansion allowed medical professionals to join every SS office and participate in a variety of duties. Between 1935 and 1938, the SS Medical Corps began to serve a more sinister purpose, with SS doctors assigned to concentration camps where they engaged in a variety of indescribably cruel human medical experiments. SS doctors were called upon in 1936 to assist with Germany's euthanasia program against

3010-412: The crematoria smoke, and these children, tomorrow or in a half-hour, he is going to send them there. Well, that is where the anomaly lay. In his twin experiments, Mengele generally ordered the twins to undertake weekly physical examinations. Then, he would subject them to a variety of procedures, including amputating healthy limbs, deliberately infecting them with diseases such as typhus, and transfusing

3096-622: The eldest of three sons of Walburga ( née Hupfauer) and Karl Mengele. His two younger brothers were Karl Jr. and Alois. Their father was founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company (later renamed as Mengele Agrartechnik  [ de ] ), which produced farming machinery. Mengele was successful at school and developed an interest in music, art, and skiing. He completed high school in April 1930 and went on to study philosophy in Munich , where

3182-453: The equivalent of a General ; holders were titled in full SS- Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS . Josef Mengele Josef Rudolf Mengele ( German: [ˈjoːzɛf ˈmɛŋələ] ; 16 March 1911 – 7 February 1979) was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and physician during World War II at the Russian front and then at Auschwitz during

3268-430: The eyes of dead inmates and occasionally "pinning them on walls like butterflies", removing the teeth and blood of dwarfs and inmates with physical abnormalities, and forcing inmates to undergo unnecessary drug and X-ray treatments. Pregnant women were also victims of these experiments. Survivors were typically sent to the gas chambers within weeks. Their skeletons were sent to Berlin for further analysis. Mengele removed

3354-533: The fact that he did not have the usual SS blood group tattoo . He was released at the end of July and obtained false papers under the name "Fritz Ulmann", documents he later altered to read "Fritz Hollmann". After several months on the run, including a trip back to the Soviet-occupied area to recover his Auschwitz records, Mengele found work near Rosenheim as a farmhand. He eventually escaped from Germany on 17 April 1949, convinced that his capture would mean

3440-570: The following month. Upon the outbreak of World War II, there were seventeen men who held the rank of SS- Obergruppenführer . During the Second World War, there were 88 promotions to the rank, of which 22 were considered regular officers of the Waffen-SS and the rest members of the Allgemeine SS . The first wartime promotions to SS- Obergruppenführer occurred in April 1940 when the rank

3526-437: The former East Germany for instance, Hermann Voss became a respected anatomist, while Eugen Wannenmacher obtained a post as a professor at the University of Münster and Mengele's former sponsor and mentor, Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer , continued operating his medical practice. Obergruppenf%C3%BChrer Obergruppenführer ( German: [ˈoːbɐˌɡʁʊpm̩fyːʁɐ] , lit.   ' senior group leader ' )

SS Medical Corps - Misplaced Pages Continue

3612-548: The fugitive's capture. Worldwide interest in the case was heightened by a mock trial held in Jerusalem in February 1985, featuring the testimonies of over one hundred victims of Mengele's experiments. Shortly afterwards, the West German, Israeli, and U.S. governments launched a coordinated effort to determine Mengele's whereabouts. The West German and Israeli governments offered rewards for his capture, as did The Washington Times and

3698-473: The headquarters of the Nazi Party were located. He attended the University of Bonn , where he took his medical preliminary examination. In 1931, he joined Der Stahlhelm , a paramilitary organization that was absorbed into the Nazi Sturmabteilung ('Storm Detachment'; SA) in 1934. In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Munich . In January 1937, he joined

3784-758: The hearts and stomachs of victims without anesthesia and forced one inmate who survived the removal of a kidney to work without painkillers afterwards. In his 1986 book, Lifton described Mengele as sadistic, lacking empathy, and extremely antisemitic, believing the Jews should be eliminated as an inferior and dangerous race. He also believed that he was responsible for an unknown number of deaths via other experiments, lethal injections, beatings, and shootings. Along with several other Auschwitz doctors, Mengele transferred to Gross-Rosen concentration camp in Lower Silesia on 17 January 1945, taking with him two boxes of specimens and

3870-498: The hospital barracks and ordered any prisoners who had not recovered after two weeks in bed to be sent to the gas chambers. Mengele's work also involved carrying out selections, a task that he chose to perform even when he was not assigned to do so, in the hope of finding subjects for his experiments, with a particular interest in locating sets of twins. In contrast to most of the other SS doctors, who viewed selections as one of their most stressful and unpleasant duties, he undertook

3956-460: The mentally disabled and physically handicapped in a program known confidentially as Operation T4 . For example, they helped develop the first methods of gassing patients using carbon monoxide from the exhaust fumes of lorries (vans). Stemming from a secret memorandum signed into effect by Hitler authorizing the killing of "useless eaters" and people considered an economic burden on German society on 9 October 1939, Operation T4 eventually evolved into

4042-547: The neighborhood postman claimed that although Mengele had recently been receiving letters there under his real name, he had since relocated without leaving a forwarding address. Harel's inquiries at a machine shop where Mengele had been part owner also failed to generate any leads, so he was forced to abandon the search. Despite having provided Mengele with legal documents using his real name in 1956 (which had enabled him to formalize his permanent residency in Argentina), West Germany

4128-418: The other areas of the camp. When visiting his young subjects, he introduced himself as "Uncle Mengele" and offered them sweets. A former Auschwitz inmate doctor said of Mengele: He was capable of being so kind to the children, to have them become fond of him, to bring them sugar, to think of small details in their daily lives, and to do things we would genuinely admire ... And then, next to that, ...

4214-528: The photographs include Mengele. In February 2010, a 180-page volume of Mengele's diary was sold by Alexander Autographs at auction for an undisclosed sum to the grandson of a Holocaust survivor. The unidentified previous owner, who acquired the journals in Brazil, was reported to be close to the Mengele family. A Holocaust survivors' organization described the sale as "a cynical act of exploitation aimed at profiting from

4300-680: The police in São Paulo, who then contacted the Bosserts. Under interrogation, they revealed the location of Mengele's grave and the remains were exhumed on 6 June 1985. Extensive forensic examination indicated with a high degree of probability that the body was indeed that of Josef Mengele. Rolf Mengele issued a statement on 10 June confirming that the body was his father's and that news of his father's death had been concealed to protect people who had sheltered him. In 1992, DNA testing confirmed Mengele's identity beyond doubt, but family members refused repeated requests by Brazilian officials to repatriate

4386-460: The rank a year later along with Karl von Eberstein and Philipp Bouhler . The year 1936 saw several promotions to the rank, including Friedrich Jeckeln who would become one of the most infamous SS and police leaders on the Eastern Front during World War II . The last pre-war promotion to the rank of SS- Obergruppenführer was in April 1939 for Friedrich Graf von der Schulenburg who died

SECTION 50

#1732858220686

4472-577: The rank was intended to be held by members of the Oberste SA-Führung (Supreme SA Command) and also by veteran commanders of certain SA-Gruppen (SA groups). Some of the early promotions to the rank included Ernst Röhm , Viktor Lutze , Edmund Heines , August Schneidhuber , and Fritz Ritter von Kraußer . The rank of SA- Obergruppenführer was the most senior rank of the Sturmabteilung until

4558-522: The records of his experiments at Auschwitz. Most of the camp medical records had already been destroyed by the SS by the time the Red Army liberated Auschwitz on 27 January. Mengele fled Gross-Rosen on 18 February, a week before the Soviets arrived there, and traveled westward to Žatec in Czechoslovakia , disguised as a Wehrmacht officer. There he temporarily entrusted his incriminating documents to

4644-604: The remains to Germany. The skeleton is stored at the São Paulo Institute for Forensic Medicine, where it is used as an educational aid during forensic medicine courses at the University of São Paulo 's medical school. In 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received as a donation the Höcker Album , an album of photographs of Auschwitz staff taken by Karl-Friedrich Höcker . Eight of

4730-483: The spring of 1933, when Röhm made the title position of Stabschef (SA Chief of Staff) into a rank and promoted himself accordingly. Also in the summer of 1933, Heinrich Himmler was promoted by Adolf Hitler to the newly created rank of SS- Obergruppenführer with the intent being to make Himmler the equivalent of the senior commanders of the SA, to which the SS was still subordinated. Although Himmler usually referred to himself as Reichsführer-SS , before

4816-492: The summer of 1934, this was simply a title for the SS commander, and not yet an actual rank. Shortly after Himmler's promotion, Hitler further promoted Franz Xaver Schwarz , with Himmler's date of rank backdated to 1 January 1933 in order to confirm his seniority as the top officer within the SS. Shortly after Rudolf Hess was appointed as his deputy in April 1933, Hitler promoted him to SS- Obergruppenführer . However, in September, Hitler decreed that Hess should no longer use

4902-419: The task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling. He was one of the SS doctors responsible for supervising the administration of Zyklon B , the cyanide -based pesticide that was used for the mass killings in the Birkenau gas chambers. He served in this capacity at the gas chambers located in crematoria IV and V. When an outbreak of noma —a gangrenous bacterial disease of the mouth and face—struck

4988-446: The title of Obergruppenführer but only use the title of Deputy Führer. A number of men were promoted to SS- Obergruppenführer in 1934, these being Fritz Weitzel , Richard Walther Darré and Walter Buch . After the Night of the Long Knives in July 1934, Sepp Dietrich was promoted to the rank. On 9 September 1934, so as to prevent a power struggle within the SS, Hitler further promoted Kurt Daluege who commanded most of

5074-416: The total, included almost all children, women with small children, pregnant women, all the elderly, and all of those who appeared (in a brief and superficial inspection by an SS doctor) to be not completely fit and healthy. In early 1943, Von Verschuer encouraged Mengele to apply for a transfer to the concentration camp service. Mengele's application was accepted and he was posted to Auschwitz, where he

5160-483: The twin studies may also have been motivated by an intention to uncover strategies for 'racially desirable' Germans to reproduce more twins. A grant was later provided by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft ('German Research Foundation'), at the request of Von Verschuer, who received regular reports and shipments of specimens from Mengele. The grant was used to build a pathology laboratory attached to Crematorium II at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Nyiszli, who

5246-400: The victims' health, safety, or physical and emotional suffering. He was particularly interested in identical twins , people with heterochromia iridum (eyes of two different colors), dwarfs , and people with physical abnormalities. Twin research was of particular interest to Mengele, as one twin could serve as subject with the other as the control. Miklós Nyiszli and others reported that

SECTION 60

#1732858220686

5332-663: The victims. With Red Army troops sweeping through German-occupied Poland , Mengele was transferred 280 kilometres (170 miles) from Auschwitz to the Gross-Rosen concentration camp on 17 January 1945, ten days before the arrival of the Soviet forces at Auschwitz. After the war, Mengele fled to Argentina in July 1949, assisted by a network of former SS members . He initially lived in and around Buenos Aires , then fled to Paraguay in 1959 and Brazil in 1960, all while being sought by West Germany , Israel, and Nazi hunters such as Simon Wiesenthal , who wanted to bring him to trial. Mengele eluded capture in spite of extradition requests by

5418-444: The war began was nothing less than the institutionalized medical genocide of anyone considered an enemy of the Nazi regime. People deemed inferior or undesirable became human guinea pigs and were exploited for scientific research by SS doctors as they conducted inhumane medical experiments at the camps. Human medical experiments, the most notorious of which occurred at Dachau concentration camp and Auschwitz reached their zenith during

5504-473: The war's progression, the Waffen-SS had a continuously developing structure for physicians which was highly complex, so sometime in August 1943, Himmler united all the medical branches of the SS and placed them under the command of Reicharzt-SS Ernst-Robert Grawitz , much like the Surgeon-General of the army. Oftentimes personnel in the medical units of the SS performed duties not typically associated with traditional medicine as their primary responsibility once

5590-515: The war. Such experiments ranged from vivisections , sterilization experiments, infectious disease research, freezing experiments, as well as many other excruciating medical procedures often performed without anesthetic . During this period of time one of the most infamous SS doctors, Josef Mengele , served as Head Medical Officer of Auschwitz and was responsible for the daily gas chamber selections as well as brutal experiments (including those on human twins ). Another function that SS doctors served

5676-536: The wide range of human medical experimentation which had been conducted during World War II as well as the role SS doctors had played in the gas chamber selections of the Holocaust . Later charges were brought against SS intellectuals and SS physicians by the German state. Many SS doctors, however, were never brought to justice with such figures as Josef Mengele escaping to Argentina while still other SS doctors returned to civilian practice in Germany under assumed names and in some cases, even their original identities. In

5762-474: The work capacity among inmates at its highest possible level. He does this through surveillance and through replacing [the sick or injured] at individual work stations... Toward this end it is necessary that the camp doctors take a personal interest and appear on location at work sites." In 1945, after the surrender of Germany, the SS was declared an illegal criminal organization at the Nuremberg trial . SS doctors, in particular, were marked as war criminals due to

5848-442: The world in the decades following the war. Wiesenthal claimed to have information that placed Mengele on the Greek island of Kythnos in 1960, in Cairo in 1961, in Spain in 1971, and in Paraguay in 1978, eighteen years after he had left the country. He insisted as late as 1985 that Mengele was still alive—six years after he had died—having previously offered a reward of US$ 100,000 (equivalent to $ 300,000 in 2023) in 1982 for

5934-437: Was a paramilitary rank in Nazi Germany that was first created in 1932 as a rank of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and adopted by the Schutzstaffel (SS) one year later. Until April 1942, it was the highest commissioned SS rank after only Reichsführer-SS . Translated as "senior group leader", the rank of Obergruppenführer was senior to Gruppenführer . A similarly named rank of Untergruppenführer existed in

6020-474: Was appointed by SS- Standortarzt Eduard Wirths , chief medical officer at Auschwitz, to the position of chief physician of the Zigeunerfamilienlager ( Romani family camp) at Birkenau, a subcamp located on the main Auschwitz complex. The SS doctors did not administer treatment to the Auschwitz inmates but supervised the activities of inmate doctors who had been forced to work in the camp medical service. As part of his duties, Mengele made weekly visits to

6106-407: Was considered the highest rank of the Allgemeine SS until April 1942; equivalent to a lieutenant general (three-star general) in the American and British armies. It was only outranked by Himmler's special rank of Reichsführer-SS . However, within the Waffen-SS , the rank of SS- Gruppenführer was equivalent to a Generalleutnant , and an SS- Obergruppenführer came to be considered

6192-431: Was forced to work on Mengele's behalf due to his pathologist background, prepared specimens and performed autopsies for this laboratory. Mengele's research subjects were better fed and housed than the other prisoners, and temporarily spared from the gas chambers. His research subjects lived in their own barracks, where they were provided with a marginally better quality of food and somewhat improved living conditions than

6278-520: Was granted to Joachim von Ribbentrop , Martin Bormann and Hans Lammers ; Arthur Seyss-Inquart and Otto Dietrich were promoted a year later. All five promotions were honorary SS ranks with the first promotion of an active SS officer occurring in September 1941 when the rank was granted to Reinhard Heydrich . The Waffen-SS commander, Paul Hausser was promoted to the rank of SS- Obergruppenführer on 1 October 1941. Waffen-SS commander Theodor Eicke

6364-514: Was living in Italy. Agents who were following Rudel's movements also failed to produce any leads. Aharoni and his team followed Gerhard to a rural area near São Paulo, where they identified a European man whom they believed to be Mengele. This potential breakthrough was reported to Harel, but the logistics of staging a capture, the budgetary constraints of the search operation, and the priority of focusing on Israel's deteriorating relationship with Egypt led

6450-675: Was mentioned several times during the Nuremberg trials in the mid-1940s, but the Allied forces believed that he was probably already dead. Irene Mengele and the family in Günzburg also claimed that he had died. Working in West Germany, Nazi hunters Simon Wiesenthal and Hermann Langbein collected information from witnesses about Mengele's wartime activities. In a search of the public records, Langbein discovered Mengele's divorce papers, which listed an address in Buenos Aires. He and Wiesenthal pressured

6536-515: Was not invited to join them. The Stammers later bought a bungalow in the Eldorado neighborhood of Diadema, São Paulo , which they rented out to Mengele. Rolf, who had not seen his father since the ski holiday in 1956, visited him at the bungalow in 1977; he found an "unrepentant Nazi" who claimed he had never personally harmed anyone and only carried out his duties as an officer. Mengele's health had been steadily deteriorating since 1972. He suffered

6622-505: Was now offering a reward for his capture. Continuing newspaper coverage of his wartime activities, with accompanying photographs, led Mengele to relocate again in 1960. Former pilot Hans-Ulrich Rudel put him in touch with the Nazi supporter Wolfgang Gerhard, who helped Mengele cross the border into Brazil. He stayed with Gerhard on his farm near São Paulo until a more permanent accommodation could be found, which came about with Hungarian expatriates Géza and Gitta Stammer. The couple bought

6708-776: Was posted to Ukraine , where he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class. In January 1942, he joined the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking as a battalion medical officer. After rescuing two German soldiers from a burning tank, he was decorated with the Iron Cross 1st Class, the Wound Badge in Black, and the Medal for the Care of the German People. He was declared unfit for further active service in mid-1942, when he

6794-406: Was promoted to SS- Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS on 20 April 1942. Sepp Dietrich remained senior, having served as General der SS-VT ( SS-Verfügungstruppe ) upon the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Two SS officers would be demoted from the rank of SS- Obergruppenführer : Rudolf Hess and Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorff . Hess was stripped of his rank and expelled from both

6880-460: Was ranked as the 15th most senior SS officer. A total of 107 men would eventually hold the rank of SS- Obergruppenführer with 97 such officers listed on the SS seniority list in 1944. Several men with the rank would die during World War II; some of the more notable being Heydrich, Eicke, and Artur Phleps . The last promotion was made in March 1945 to Hans Kammler . The rank of Obergruppenführer

6966-472: Was released without charge. Aware that the publicity could lead to his Nazi background and wartime activities being discovered, he took an extended business trip to Paraguay and was granted citizenship there in 1959 under the name "José Mengele". He returned to Buenos Aires several times to settle his business affairs and visit his family. Martha and Karl lived in a boarding house in the city until December 1960, when they returned to West Germany. Mengele's name

7052-660: Was seriously wounded in action near Rostov-on-Don . Following his recovery, he was transferred to the headquarters of the SS Race and Settlement Main Office in Berlin , at which point he resumed his association with Von Verschuer, who was now director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics . Mengele was promoted to the rank of SS- Hauptsturmführer ('captain') in April 1943. In 1942, Auschwitz II (Birkenau) , originally intended to house slave laborers, began to be used instead as

7138-414: Was still ongoing when the Romani camp was liquidated and its remaining occupants murdered in 1944. When a typhus epidemic began in the women's camp, Mengele cleared one block of six hundred Jewish women and sent them to be killed in the gas chambers. The building was then cleaned and disinfected and the occupants of a neighboring block were bathed, de–loused, and given new clothing before being moved into

7224-455: Was to maximize the economic utility of slave labor at the concentration camps, aiding the SS industry and the Nazi cause through the exploitation of people and resources. Along those lines in December 1942, SS - Gruppenführer Richard Glücks (Inspector of Concentration Camps) sent a directive to the camp doctors telling them that, "The best doctor in a concentration camp is that doctor who holds

7310-516: Was to serve as medical support personnel to the rest of the SS battalion. Eventually these supporting units became the SS Medical Corps. When the Nazis came to national power in 1933, the SS was reorganized and an office of the SS Surgeon General was established. Commanded by an SS- Obergruppenführer , the SS Surgeon General was a member of the personal staff of the Reichsführer-SS , with

7396-407: Was used by four major paramilitary groups of the Nazi Party, these being the SA, SS, National Socialist Motor Corps , and National Socialist Flyers Corps . The rank would remain the highest SS general officer rank until April 1942, when the rank of SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer was created. Standard practice for SS generals serving as an SS and police leader , as well as those senior SS personnel of

#685314