On July 11962, Israeli agent Zvi Aharoni flew hurriedly from Brazil to Paris to report an important news to his superior Javier. The agent team of Mossad found the absconded Nazi war criminal and Auschwitz SS military doctor Joseph Menger, nicknamed "Angel of Death", in Brazil, and begged his superiors to formulate a pursuit plan immediately. When Aharoni couldn't help but feel excited and excited when he thought that Menger would be caught back to Israel for trial like Eichmann. However, a few days later, Javier informed him: Stop all pursuit of Menger! This unexpected decision disappointed Aharoni, and at the same time made Menger disappear again, eventually escaping legal sanctions. Why is all this? What are the tortuous and complicated experiences?
- The tracking action was suddenly stopped
Agents discovered that Gerhard often went to a farm outside St. Paul and decided to go and find out. They pretended to go on an outing for a picnic and secretly observed outside the farm. Soon, three people walked out of the house, two of them were Gerhard and his wife, and the third, despite having a beard, looked exactly the same as Menger. Aharoni was sure that this person was Menger.
Aharoni had a plan in his mind. He planned to arrest Mengel back to Israel for trial like he kidnapped Eichmann, so he immediately flew to Paris to report to Javier, and that happened the scene at the beginning of this article.
Mengler was wearing a white coat, but he was not an angel in white, but an angel of death.
With clear clues and conclusive evidence, it is indeed puzzling why Mossad suddenly stopped the arrest of Menger. According to sporadic materials currently revealed, the reason why Mossad stopped taking action against Menger is that they cannot be sure whether Menger was discovered. If they act rashly and catch the wrong person, they will be very passive in diplomacy. Second, at that time, Israel had tense relations with Egypt , and war might be imminent. The focus of the entire Israel and Mossad's work had shifted to war-related aspects, and the work of pursuing Nazi war criminals could only be temporarily suspended.
I think the second reason is more reasonable. After the war, the frequent activities of Mossad agents in South American countries made South American countries feel that their sovereignty was offended, especially the kidnapping of Eichmann, which clearly violated the sovereignty of Argentina . Since then, relations between Arab and Israel have deteriorated. Although South American countries are openly and secretly supporting Nazi war criminals, Israel is unwilling to further deteriorate its relations with South America because of a few fleeing Nazi war criminals, especially when a war is possible. Although the Third Middle East War broke out five years later, in the situation Israel faced at that time, it would not make a big mistake for a Menger to get into evil with many countries because of a small loss. This is the real reason for giving up the capture of Menger.
- Auschwitz's "Doctor"
Joseph Menger was born in a wealthy family in 1911. He received a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Munich in 1935, and three years later, he received a doctorate in medicine from the University of Frankfurt. In theory, this should be a genius with great achievements in biomedical science. He should use his knowledge to benefit mankind. However, the fact is just the opposite. In the Nazi concentration camp, he inhumanly destroyed many victims in the name of "medical research".
Mengler's photo while on the Eastern Front, he served as a military doctor for the SS and also received the second-level Iron Cross and the battle wound badge.
Menger joined the SS in 1937, and after the outbreak of World War II, he joined the armed SS. He began to serve on the Eastern Front as a military doctor in 1941. He was transferred to the Vikings to continue working as a military doctor in 1942. He was injured and transferred back to Germany and entered the SS Office of Race and Immigration. In 1943, he applied to go to the Auschwitz concentration camp to conduct "medical research" there.
Mengele served as the supervisor of the Birkenau Roma camp in Auschwitz II. The responsibility of these "doctors" is to screen Jewish , decide who can be temporarily kept and who will be sent to the gas chamber immediately. It is said that Mengele does not like to screen Jewish errands. He showed a strong interest in the "research" of twins, so he chose many twin children as his test subjects, injecting drugs into the children's eyes to change the color of the eyeballs, and sewing the twin babies back to back to create conjoined people. Injecting pathogenic bacteria and random amputations are even more of a daily "research" project. After the destruction is over, the children are sent to the gas chamber to kill. For prisoners suffering from infectious diseases in the camp, Menger's treatment method is to send them all into the gas chamber and then thoroughly disinfect them. This is his "treatment" method. How many people died at Menger's hands still have no accurate data, and it is estimated that it may reach hundreds of thousands.
Mengler's daily task in Auschwitz concentration camp is to screen the Jews who have just been sent to the train. Those healthy Jews can stay and serve hard labor. Most of them are judged by SS doctors as having no value and are sent directly to the gas chamber.
Why would a doctor who should have saved lives, healed the wounded, cured the disease, become an anti-human murderer? Racism promoted by the Nazis was the key factor. In their ideology, except for Aryans, other ethnic groups belonged to "lower ethnic groups" and were not worthy of living in this world. When this ideology was combined with so-called medicine and eugenic genetics, it created many "scientific devils" like Menger who used medical measures as a means to destroy others.
- Menger's activity track in the war
Menger fled ten days before the Soviet army liberated Auschwitz in January 1945. He took away a box of "research materials", and destroyed all other materials that could not be taken away, and then disguised himself as the National Wehrmacht surrendered to the US military in June. Because he did not have tattoos of SS members under his armpit, and the chaos in the wanted work of the Allied war criminals, Mengermon escaped and was released in July. He obtained a fake identity under the alias of Frit Uman and found a job on a farm near Rosenheim, Bavaria.
Mengler's wife was unwilling to escape with him and later divorced.Mengler married his widowed sister-in-law Martha in 1958. This was not out of love, but to ensure the interests of the family business.
In fact, the Allies did not give up on the pursuit of Menger, but they could not determine Menger's real name and could not spell the name of Menger correctly. With Menger's name changing, the investigation work came to a halt. Menger did not relax his vigilance. He knew that his crime would definitely not be able to escape death if he was arrested. So in July 1949, with the help of the remaining Nazi forces, he fled to Argentina.
After other Nazi war criminals fled to South America, most of them lived incognito and low-key. Menger was another alternative. Not only did he become the sales agent of Menger's family business in South America, but he also returned to Germany in a swagger, married his widowed sister-in-law, and took his son Rolf to Swiss for vacation and skiing. After returning to Argentina, he even applied for a passport to the German Embassy with his real name. Menger's name also appeared publicly on the yellow pages of the phone.
His swaggering approach will naturally attract the attention of Jewish organizations. In 1959, an investigation material about Menger was handed over to the West German inspection agency, demanding that Menger be prosecuted for war crimes. Unfortunately, due to the delicate relationship between the West German judicial system and the remnants of Nazi forces, the news was revealed, and Menger quickly disappeared after getting the news.
Menger first fled to Paraguay. After Eichmann was kidnapped by Mossad, the frightened Menger fled to Brazil with the help of Gerhard and bought a farm together with Hungarian immigrant Steinmer. This is where Aharoni discovered Menger's trace. However, since Israel stopped pursuing Menger, the farm became the last place where Menger appeared.
- The final outcome of the demon
It has been fifteen years since the investigation of Menger was launched again. In 1977, Menachim Begin was elected president of Israel. Both of his parents died in Nazi concentration camps. Out of hatred of Nazi war criminals, he ordered the resumption of the pursuit of Menger. But after many years, Menger was like a mud bull entering the sea, and there was no trace. So, where did Menger go?
In fact, Menger has been staying in St. Paul for the past few years. In 1969, he and Stanmer bought another farm, and Menger has been hiding in the farm. In 1971, Wolfgang Gerhard took his wife back to Germany for treatment and handed over his Brazilian ID card to Menger. This is very critical. It will be mentioned later that Menger then moved to a bungalow in the Eldorado community and lived in seclusion there. His son Rolf had secretly visited him. According to Rolf's recollection, his father still adhered to the Nazi philosophy and had no regrets about the people he was murdered, claiming that he had not hurt anyone, but was just sticking to his duties.
Mengler's photo on passport.
Many Nazi war criminals, like Menger, refused to change their admiration and belief in Nazi ideas. After the war, Nazi crimes against humanity were exposed and proved to be as strong as mountains of iron, these people still did not repent, and even did not think that their actions were crimes at all. This phenomenon cannot be defined by words such as "stubbornness" and "fool loyalty", nor can they be explained by the motivation of "exemption of guilt". A sin recognized by the world is still regarded as the right choice in their hearts, and has been passed down to future generations, and the ghosts have not yet dispersed. This is what is worth reflecting on.
Since 1972, Menger's health began to deteriorate. He suffered from hypertension, cerebral stroke and other diseases. After treatment, he improved slightly, but his balance ability was poor, which was the problem, which eventually killed him. On February 7, 1979, he came to the beachfront vacation sanctuary Berdioga to visit his old friend. He had another stroke while swimming in the sea and drowned. Because he had been using Wolfgang Gerhard's ID card since 1971, he also used this name when he was buried, and did not use his real name after his death, which also caused great trouble for the subsequent investigation and identification.
Menger's photo when he was old.
As the 40th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp was approaching, the public opinion in the United States and Germany expressed great anger at Menger's impunity, which also prompted the two governments to increase their search for Menger, but they did not know that Menger had been dead for more than four years at this time.
Finally, through investigations of letters between the Menger family, he found that Menger was already dead. It took a lot of trouble to find his grave. Finally, on June 6, 1985, his body was dug out. After dental examination and DNA comparison in 1992, it was confirmed that the remains of the pseudonym Wolfgang Gerhard were Menger himself, and the pursuit of the "Death Doctor" was closed.
How to deal with Menger's corpse was a trauma for the Brazilian government. Menger's family refused to collect his remains many times. In the end, the skeleton was handed over to the Forensic Research Institute of São Paulo. When students from the University of São Paulo Medical School were in class, Menger's skeleton was used as a teaching tool. This devil who had harmed countless people in front of him seemed to have finally made a bunch of good bones that were beneficial to humans after turning into a pile of bones.
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