Who is Josef mengele?
Josef Mengele
Josef Mengele was born on March 16th, 1911 in Gunzburg, Germany. He had an upper middle class family who are proprietors of a machine tool business. He was the oldest of three children in his family.
timeline of his life
1930 - After finishing his schooling he studies philosophy at the University Munich, obtaining his degree in 1935, before going on to study medicine at the University of Frankfurt am Main, where he concentrates on physical anthropology and genetics. In 1931 he joins the Stahlhelm (Steel Helmets), an extreme right-wing and antisemitic organisation.
1933 - The Nazis reach a position from which they can seize power on 30 January when Hitler is appointed chancellor. Germany's last election until after the Second World War is held on 5 March. Though the Nazis win only 44% of the vote Hitler persuades the Reichstag (parliament) to pass the Enabling Law, allowing him to govern independently for four years. Hitler is now the Führer, the dictator of the fascist Third Reich, an empire where the individual belongs to the state, and where the state is fully controlled by the Nazis. All Nazis in prison are issued with full pardons; critics of the government and the Nazi Party are subject to arrest; special courts are established for the trial of political detainees. Regional governments are dissolved and then reconstituted with governors handpicked by Hitler. Leftist political parties are banned; Germany is declared a one-party state; Jews and leftists are purged from the bureaucracy; trade unions are dissolved and replaced with Nazi organizations; and the country withdraws from the League of Nations. A program of public works, rearmament and forced labor helps bring the economy under control. Inflation comes down, the currency is stabilized and full employment achieved. |
Continuation of timeline ...
1934 - The Stahhelm is incorporated into the Sturmabteilung (SA), the 'Brownshirts', Hitler's storm troopers. Mengele serves in the SA for a short period but is forced to resign by a kidney complaint.
1936 - He passes his state medical examination and begins working in Leipzig at the university medical clinic. 1937 - Mengele is appointed to the research staff of the newly founded Institute for Third Reich Hereditary, Biology and Racial Purity at the University of Frankfurt on 1 January. He joins the Nazi Party in May. 1938 - He obtains his medical degree and enlists in the Schutz-Staffel (SS), the 'Blackshirts', Hitler's personal guard. Meanwhile, support for the Nazis is further buoyed by Hitler's policy of foreign expansion. Austria is annexed on 13 March. The Sudetenland, the German-speaking area in the north of Czechoslovakia, is ceded to Germany on 29 September under the terms of the 'Munich Agreement' between Britain, France, Germany and Italy. 1939 - Bohemia and Moravia are occupied by Germany in March, while Slovakia is made a puppet state. German troops invade Poland on 1 September. Britain and France declare war on Germany two days later. The Second World War has begun. Mengele serves in France and Russia as a medical officer with the Waffen-SS, the armed component of the SS. He is promoted to lieutenant in 1941 and awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class, while stationed on the Ukrainian front. In January 1942, following an offensive deep behind Soviet lines, he is awarded the Iron Cross, First Class, the Black Badge for the Wounded and the Medal for the Care of the German People. Wounds received during this second campaign prevent Mengele returning to combat. He is posted instead to the office of race and resettlement in Berlin and promoted to captain. 1942 - On 20 January the Nazis complete the planning for the Endlosung (Final Solution), the extermination of the Jews, Gipsies, Slavs, homosexuals, communists, and other "undesirables" and "decadents" in death camps run by the SS and controlled by the Gestapo. About six million European Jews die in the following 'Holocaust'. Most (about 4.5 million) of those killed come from Poland and the Soviet Union. About 125,000 are German Jews. The Holocaust also claims about 500,000 Gipsies, between 10,000 and 25,000 homosexuals, 2,000 Jehovah's Witnesses, up to 3.5 million non-Jewish Poles, between 3.5 million and six million other Slavic civilians, as many as four million Soviet prisoners of war, and up to 1.5 million political dissidents. By the end of the year knowledge of the Final Solution becomes an open secret among the general community. |