MENGELE The Complete Story

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304 MENGELE by NBC, which had shot several thousand feet of videotape of the old man washing his car, ABC approached Senor Branaa directly and asked, "Are you Dr. Mengele?" The poor man spent the rest of the day trying to convince the reporter that he was not the Auschwitz doctor. After Branaa introduced them to business colleagues and old friends and showed them school records, ABC was satisfied that the forensic scientists had made an enormous blunder. Nevertheless, it was West German prosecutor Klein's view that prevailed: Mengele was still alive. And reports from Europe seemed to bear this out. Two young British psychologists, Simon Jones and Kirn Rattan, researching a psychological profile of Mengele, thought they had made a breakthrough in contacting the elusive fugitive. Fritz Steinacker, the Frankfurt lawyer who acted for Mengele when he was divorced as well as when he was stripped of his medical and anthropological doctorates, had agreed to forward their written questions through an unidentified intermediary to Mengele. Steinacker promised that in three months they would receive an answer directly from the doctor himself. In hindsight it appears to be Steinacker's perverse way of having some fun with serious Mengele researchers. "You could say that on that basis we believed Mengele was probably alive," said Jones. "Steinacker was Mengele's lawyer, after all." The U.S. government also believed Mengele was alive. They gave some credence to intelligence reports in 1984 that he had been seen in Paraguay. Slowly but inexorably, the momentum for American involvement in the Mengele hunt was gathering pace. In June 1984, in an uncharacteristically defeatist mood, Simon Wiesenthal complained that perhaps the time had passed for the hunt for Mengele. "After all, when you bring an old man to court, there is natural sympathy for him," he sighed. But congressional sympathy for that argument still had some distance to run. Two crucial events at the beginning of 1985 persuaded Congress that the Josef Mengele mystery had to be cleared up once and for all. Dead or alive. I The wind he ding an eeri before it bat against the p disfigured bti their steps c 1985, the f( troops. It w( Mengele's e find Mengel It was si errand boy many times and thick o on end," fli colder, 1 gu Berkow grandmothi a member "We know The elf( week later macabre ga! hear evider
306 MENGELE panel chaired by Gideon Hausner, Israel's chief prosecutor at the Adolf Eichmann trial, Telford Taylor, chief American prosecutor at Nuremberg, and Simon Wiesenthal. Wiesenthal and some Israeli colleagues had resorted to this wellpublicized "trial" in a last desperate attempt to highlight the failure of governments to run Mengele to ground. There had been some last-minute in-fighting between Wiesenthal and the Klarsfelds, who had wanted to be there. According to Serge Klarsfeld, Wiesenthal wanted the Nazi-hunting stage to himself. "He's an egomaniac," said a slighted Klarsfeld.' The event was an enormous success. For four consecutive nights, TV screens showed victims—midgets, Jewish women, twins—telling the most gruesome tales, all testifying to Mengele's unspeakable crimes. Altogether 106 known survivors of his grotesque research were ready to take the stand. The groundwork for this new and final push had been laid the previous month when the Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, in a fanfare of publicity, released declassified American army intelligence documents showing that Mengele may have been in U.S. hands in April 1947.* In fact, the documents had been declassified eighteen months before, but the timing of the release, the pilgrimage to Auschwitz, and the mock trial at Jerusalem was a masterly stroke of public relations planning, especially coming after the buildup of speculative stories the previous summer suggesting that Mengele might have tried to enter the U.S. and indicating the extent of Dieter Mengele's business interests there. Pressure on the U.S. government to act became irresistible. On February 6, 1985, the day the Jerusalem "trial" drew to a close, U.S. attorney general William French Smith directed the justice department to examine every aspect of the Mengele case— and to find him. As Smith told reporters that day: The allegations have been such, and the public interest has been such, and the notoriety of the individual has been such, that it seemed appropriate to open the investigation. We intend to be thorough. We also intend to be speedy.' • Inquiries showed that Mengele was not in U.S. custody in April 1947. But he was in American hands, under his own name, during the summer of 1945. See Chapter The scope Trott, chi partment: It to all() had wi entere how is and, fi The depa Office of Carter ad Nazi crier entry int( there eve was assig' marshal's FBI, the partment manhunt Sham later that justice m of police up to co( file on A Minister higher pi chief in shoul and majo youn ' The shady info employed. the chief a.
Page 1 and 2: 3 6 4 Index Verschucr, Helmut von.
Page 3 and 4: MENGELE The Complete Story Gerald L
Page 5 and 6: x i i Acknowledgments Howard B. Got
Page 7 and 8: x iv Acknowledgments spokesman, Jer
Page 9 and 10: aublishing director, Bunte, ;pheric
Page 11 and 12: s contributed to and are a ley who
Page 13 and 14: face believe that Mengele never wro
Page 15 and 16: 136 MENGELE it was clear from the f
Page 17 and 18: ow its led ght nch AIRS =IA tato ii
Page 19 and 20: .cret poofParayou say aimed in ourt
Page 21 and 22: CHAPTER 12 "I've Seen Mengele" Jose
Page 23 and 24: 111•10". 208 MENGELE Number One o
Page 25 and 26: 2 1 0 MENGELE easily identifiable s
Page 27 and 28: sightwhere h coun- .d seen perpetge
Page 29 and 30: navigate [ow account 2s, and later
Page 31 and 32: 246 MENGELE Wiesenthal, not to be o
Page 33 and 34: 248 MENGELE was killed, then left s
Page 35 and 36: 1, 2 5 2 MENGELE people he had in m
Page 37 and 38: 294 MENGELE Irene; her husband, Alf
Page 39: esiryasto )Ut SIX aid try nly seere
Page 43 and 44: 318 MENGELE reports suggest he's st
Page 45 and 46: Simon 3f the r. Les- York; iltant,

MENGELE The Complete Story

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