Book Review: Mengele: Unmasking the "Angel of Death"

David G. Marwell, Mengele: Unmasking the "Angel of Death." New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2020. ISBN: 9780393609530.

Genre: biography

Subgenre: World War II, Nazi, Germany, war crimes, fugitives

Format: hardcover

Source: Berea branch, Madison County (KY) Public Library

 

I picked this up out of curiosity. I wanted to learn more about the man who is one of the greatest incarnations of evil. He probably comes in second or third in many people's minds after Hitler when it comes to Nazi atrocities and crimes. The book's author was an investigator with the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations in the 1980s, at the time when Mengele's body was finally found in Brazil and eventually identified. This biography looks at Josef Mengele as a man, a monster, and a symbol of Nazi atrocities. The book also shows what happens when doctors and scientists act without regard to any ethical nor humane restrictions. Mengele definitely tossed aside the Hippocratic Oath. 

The book has 14 chapters arranged in four parts and an epilogue: 

• Part One: Becoming Mengele. Here we see his early years up to his military career up to right before Auschwitz. 
• Part Two: Auschwitz. This covers his time in the concentration camp until the end of the war and the start of his escape. 
• Part Three: Flight: Here we learn about his escape and how he managed, with support, to evaded authorities seeking his capture. 
• Part Four: Pursuit. This documents the various efforts, not always coordinated nor consistent, to capture Mengele. We also get to closure as his body is found, though closure did not come right away. Not everyone was willing to accept Mengele's death right away.
• Epilogue. 

 The book is based on research, investigation, and primary sources from various archives. It also draws on Mengele's own writing including letters, diaries, and a fictionalized account of his life. He basically wrote an autobiography in the form of a novel. 

The book takes us from his early life to his eventual death and sort of afterlife. The narrative is mostly in chronological order. The book's pacing is average. This is not a fast paced book, and it can be a bit dry at times. The book can also get bogged down on some very technical details. For example, the author provides a large section explaining the science of twins as it was at the time and how Mengele and the Nazis saw it. The author argues that understanding the topic helps us better understand Mengele, but that part gets a bit too technical at times. It slows down the book's pace. There were a few other parts that were a bit technical as well. 

There are some interesting things too. For instance, we get a glimpse of German sciences, which for the time were very advanced. Sadly they were also inhumane and outright racist, yet back then they saw themselves as serious scientists. Mengele certainly wanted to be seen as a serious scientist by his peers. Furthermore, over time other Nazi scientists came to depend on Mengele during the war for samples and specimens from camp victims that he would send them for their research. They all saw themselves as serious researchers, and none of them had any regard for those they killed in the name of science, their science. 

Once Mengele flees, the narrative moves on to the pursuit. We learn that at times the authorities almost had him or got close, but then things like ignorance, incompetence, or just plain bad luck enabled Mengele to stay steps ahead. Let's be honest, at times he did not put that much effort to hide who he was. He also did have a lot of support along the way from some family, many sympathizers, and various governments' officials. 

Overall, the book is informative. It offers some lessons that should not be forgotten Yet it is not that engaging, and it can be slow reading at times. It is also a bit of a dry read that at times feels like an academic textbook. It works if you want to learn about Mengele. This is one to borrow. For me it was OK. 

2 out of 5 stars. 

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Additional reading notes: 

By the way, eugenics were very much popular in the early part of the 20th century, and not just in Germany. The United States was a hot bed for eugenics too. As the book tells us, one of the prominent supporters of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Genetics, and Eugenics (KWI-A) was the American Rockefeller Foundation. 

 Some folks think of Mengele as a rogue scientist, but that is not the case. He was very much part of a scientific and academic community: 

"Given Mengele's ambition, his pursuit of his Habilitation, and his patronage from Verschuer, it is clear that he pursued his science not as some renegade propelled solely by evil and bizarre impulses but rather in a manner that his mentors and his peers could judge as meeting the highest standards. Historian Massin writes, 'Mengele is sometimes portrayed as the embodiment of the pseudoscientific SS physician, who in complete isolation carries out his abstruse experiments. In fact, Mengele was very tightly connected to the scientific community'" (115). 

It was not just him. What he did in Auschwitz, monstrous and terrifying as it was, was not an anomaly. It was part of the scientific establishment at the time. Mengele was very much a product of a system of thought and practice. Thus for many people: 

"It is easier to dismiss an individual monster than to recognize the monstrous that can emerge from otherwise respected and enshrined institutions" (116).