Dr. Josef Mengele (16 March 1911 – 7 February 1979), also known as the "Angel of Death", was a Nazi doctor known for his inhumane experiments at Auschwitz. The trope Mad Doctor was originally named "The Mengele".
Of course, Mengele wasn't born a doctor who performed unethical experiments. As a child, he was an avid skier, an art enthusiast, and a musical connoisseur.
The oldest son of a farming machine manufacturer, born in Günzberg, with a 1930 High School diploma, Mengele was a philosophy student in 1931 at the University of Munich when he first encountered a militia called Der Stalhelm, or "the Steel Helmet", which would eventually be absorbed into the Sturmabteilung (Storm Detachment) or SA in 1934.
After graduating with a PhD in Anthropology in 1935, in 1937, Mengele worked at the Frankfurt "Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene" under Dr. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, where like Verschuer, he developed an interest in twins as they relate to biology. During that time, Mengele joined the National Socialist German Workers Party, (NSDAP) or the "Nazis".
Mengele earned a degree in medicine at the University of Frankfurt with a thesis on chin, palate and lip clefts in 1938, and the same year, joined the Schutzestaffel or "Protection Squadron" (SS).
In 1940, Mengele served as a Combat Medic in the SS, earning the Iron Cross for saving soldiers from a burning tank in 1942 before eventually being retired from active service due to battle wounds.
Subsequently, in 1943, after applying for concentration camp service, Mengele embarked on a career in human experimentation at Auschwitz, a concentration camp 75 kilometers west of Krakow, Poland.
Mengele's duties included: having any inmate who hadn't recovered after two weeks taken to the gas chambers; selecting prisoners for death, labour or experimentation; administering Zyklon B in the gas chambers; and liquidating portions of the camp which succumbed to epidemics.
Alongside several other Nazi practitioners, Mengele also took the opportunity to perform experiments on inmates, including unnecessary amputation, infection with viruses, superfluous or dangerous blood transfusions, anesthetic-free vivisections, and chloroform injections, in one case attempting to artificially create conjoined twins. Mengele was particularly fascinated by identical twins, people with bicolored eyes, and otherwise physically atypical people. However, Mengele's experiments had no true medical basis: on top of their grotesque treatment of human beings, none of Mengele's experiments were done with any methodology in mind. It was glorified systematic torture.
Mengele transferred to Gross-Rosen in 1945, carrying two boxes of specimens alongside medical records. After being captured and released by the American army, Mengele eventually fled to Argentina, where he met up with and married his brother's widow, and according to Argentinian government documents, allegedly worked illegally as an abortionist and a practitioner in addition to a farm equipment salesman.
Between 1960-1962, Mengele evaded capture by the Mossad, partly due to their priority to find and capture the Holocaust's chief architect Adolf Eichmann. Additionally, he had both of his Degrees revoked for his complicity in the Holocaust.
When his son Rolf confronted him over his Nazi past, according to Rolf, Mengele claimed he had fulfilled his duty as an officer, and never personally harmed anyone, showing no remorse for his past deeds.
In 1979, Mengele died of a stroke while swimming. He was buried under a false name and his death did not become known to the general public until his remains were positively identified in 1985.
Even into the 21st century, Mengele's name has remained a shorthand for unethical medical and scientific experimentation.
Tropes Used in Fictional Portrayals:
- Body Horror: Oftentimes, his obsession with twins will appear in fictional works. Said twins are often someone sewn to the back of another person.
- Evilutionary Biologist: Certain portrayals will have Mengele in a laboratory, trying to create super-soldiers or other biological horrors in the name of advancing "the Aryan race".
- Fourth Reich: Mengele is often portrayed as trying to re-establish Nazi Germany, something the real Mengele was never known to have attempted.
- Historical Badass Upgrade: He was a very minor figure in the grand scheme of World War II, but in fiction he's regularly presented as a Diabolical Mastermind or an Omnidisciplinary Scientist.
- Historical Villain Upgrade: A minor example compared to others, but Mengele is often portrayed as a somewhat uniquely despicable figure amongst the Nazi hierarchy when in reality his experiments were just a small part of a wider campaign of human experimentation
in the concentration camps. Mengele tends to be remembered more than his contemporaries, many of whom were just as bad, because his experiments specifically targeted twins, and because his whereabouts were unknown for a long time, meaning writers could have him doing virtually whatever they wanted.
- Mad Doctor: Mengele is often portrayed as an vicious medical experimenter, in keeping with his real life experiments.
- Mad Scientist: Mengele is often portrayed as a scientist who will do horrible things in the name of science.
- Playing with Syringes: As he did in real life, Mengele can often be found in fiction performing inhumane medical experiments.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Mengele is often portrayed as a genocidal racist. The real Mengele considered certain ethnicities inferior to the "Aryan Race", and used his views to justify experimentation, but these traits are often Flanderized in fiction, with him trying to establish a successor state to Nazi Germany.
Works of fiction in which Mengele appears as a Historical Domain Character:
- Josef Mengele is a member of the Fourth Reich in The Legend of Koizumi. As a Mahjong player, his hands include "Where Are the Twins?!" (seven pairs) and "Designer Children" (single suit seven pairs). As a Mad Scientist, his accomplishments include reviving Richard Wagner to join the team and bio-engineering Mariel, his assistant. She has Super Hearing and Super Speed, but mostly is a backup body for Mengele's brain
- Doctor Von Reichter from Cybersix is the Big Bad of the series and heavily implied to be Josef Mengele himself. For one, his name is blatantly fake. For two, he's active in South America just like Mengele was after the war. For three, he has the same birth date as Mengele. And for four, his clone-son's first name is José. Doctor Von Reichter is the creator of many lines of artificial humans, whom he considers his property to kill off, mindwipe, and toy with as he pleases. He has no particular purpose for his creations, simply making them because he can.
- Josef Mengele appears in Assassin's Creed: Conspiracies, telling him about his progress on the Ubermensch. A year later, he manages to make a breakthrough in genetics thanks to the Apple of Eden.
- In Über Mengele is drafted in to act as Anita Scheele's lab assistant for her experiments on prisoners, while she's practicing using her disruption halo to perform plastic surgery. It's stated that he was considered appropriate for this because of his questionable morality.
- Mortified: Josef Mengele became a ghost after his death and is one of the many Mad Scientists that set up shop in Theory (now Missing Theory), causing the science wars of the 50s and 80s that sent the area to hell. While his exact fate isn't clarified, it's later revealed that most Nazi ghosts were Ended long ago due to the strong presence of Israeli ghosts already present in the Infinite Realms, implying that he's Deader than Dead.
- In After The Truth, Josef Mengele is put on trial for his unethical experiments at Auschwitz, unlike the real Mengele, who died in Argentina.
- In BloodRayne: The Third Reich, a scientist named Dr. Mangler stands in for Mengele, and experiments on vampires to try and extend Adolf Hitler's life.
- Josef Mengele is the antagonist of both the film and novel versions of The Boys from Brazil, where he tries to impregnate women with Hitler's DNA in an attempt to clone the dictator, and orchestrates a number of assassinations.
- In The German Doctor, Josef Mengele hides out in Argentina, providing the daughter of a local family with growth hormones, and later experimenting on her twin siblings.
- One of the primary characters of The Grey Zone is Dr. Nyiszli Mikloś, a physician under Josef Mengele's supervision. Mengele is shown in one scene, discussing his intention to perform an increasing number of inhumane experiments, and another scene torturing a prisoner. Because of how little the actor resembles the real Mengele and he isn't addressed by name, this can be hard to catch at first glance.
- In Nazis At The Center Of The Earth, Josef Mengele and a group of Nazis plan on starting the Fourth Reich from Antarctica.
- In Out Of The Ashes, Josef Mengele's medical atrocities are viewed through the lens of Dr. Gisella Pearl.
- In Schindler's List, the Jewish women and children under Oskar Schindler's protection are mistakenly sent to Auschwitz due to a paperwork error. While at the camp, Mengele briefly appears to inspect the group for candidates for his experiments. He's notably surprised that the group includes so many older women, who would ordinarily have been killed already for being "unfit for work". Fortunately, Schindler manages to secure their transfer back to his own factory before Mengele is able to get his hands on them.
- In Stay Out of the F**king Attic, Vern Muller seems to be a copycat of Josef Mengele trying to continue his life's "studies". At the end, he reveals himself to actually be Mengele, having survived his drowning somehow.
- In The Unborn, Josef Mengele is referenced (not by name) as a doctor obsessed with twins, who is responsible for the death of the protagonist's great uncle, which lead to the titular haunting.
- In The Last Days Of New Paris, Josef Mengele experiments on sapient artwork, in addition to his experiments on Jewish prisoners.
- In X-Men: Chaos Engine Trilogy, Josef Mengele mentors Mad Scientist Arnim Zola in human experimentation.
- In Danger 5, Josef Mengele is a Nazi scientist expert in genetic splicing, who has a volcano lair and Nazi dinosaur minions.
- In The Man in the High Castle, Josef Mengele performs unethical experiments regarding interdimensional travel.
- In Psychoville, Josef Mengele was the mentor to the Nazi father of Nurse Ketchington, who was a Mad Scientist in his own right.
- The In Search of... episode "The Angel of Death" presented supposedly true tales of Mengele's dramatic escapes from Nazi Hunters which all turned out to be bogus.
- Slayer's Reign in Blood contains a castigation piece called "Angel of Death" where they recount Josef Mengele's cruel experiments in Auschwitz.
INFAMOUS! BUTCHER! ANGEL OF DEATH!
- In I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, Nimdok is a former Nazi scientist who used to work with Josef Mengele on inhumane experiments.
- In The New Order Last Days Of Europe, Josef Mengele moved to RK Ostafrika, where he serves as Foreign Minister under Reichskommissar Hans Hüttig. He's woefully out of his depth in this role, and prefers to experiment on the African locals. Should the Afrika-Schild's war turn out badly, he'll attempt to flee to Ethiopia just like he fled to Argentina in our timeline, but will be killed by Idi Amin and his militia in a fittingly torturous manner.
- In a Creepypasta called "Reunion with the Angel of Death", Josef Mengele is visited by the ghosts of his experiment victims.
- In Everyman HYBRID, the antagonist HABIT claims to have killed prostitutes as Jack the Ripper, and experimented on inmates as Josef Mengele.
- In The Wolves of War, Josef Mengele experiments on humans and "inhumans", notably extracting the brains of Seers and leaving them in pain as husks of their former selves.
