Dark History: Josef Mengele: The Angel Of Death

hello everybody and welcome back to my channel today is going to be the first video of 2020 and we're starting off the new year with a bang starting with a dark histories series and honestly this could also be a serial killers series so we've got we've got a mashup here this is about the nazi doctor joseph mengele in this dark history series we're going really in depth as in depth as possible into the background of joseph mengele into what kind of factors existed in the time and place that he lived that allowed him to go on to do his horrendous work and if you've never heard this story or you're not familiar with it i think you're really going to enjoy this series of videos you're gonna learn a lot and if you already are pretty familiar with dr joseph mengele with the nazis with the holocaust period in world war ii that's great but i think that you also will enjoy this because as i was researching from somebody that thought they knew a lot about world war ii history i found out a lot of stuff that i didn't know before researching this also obviously brought me a great deal of sadness and a little anxiety it's tough stuff that we're talking about so if you need a break i understand pulling away from the video going outside you know smelling the flowers if they're if they're blooming at this time for you and just kind of like taking a break i did need to take um a few breaks now and then while i was researching it so i completely understand but i do think it's important to watch the whole thing through so that you you have all the information now i'm going to start off and tell you guys about the two books that i used to research this mainly and then everything else was internet research but i used rapper j lifton's book and this is called the nazi doctors this is a very in-depth book and once i'm done uh doing this series i'm going to read the whole thing through not just the parts on mangala and i also used a book called a children of the flames dr joseph mengele and the untold story of the twins of auschwitz and this is by lucette madeleine legenado and sheila cohn diego i hope i said those names right in this video you're also going to see a great deal of mispronunciation probably of german names but i figure since they're nazi names they kind of deserve it i do want to recommend though if you've read these two books or you're interested in reading more and learning more about the time period and about the third reich and hitler and the holocaust and things like that a really good book i can recommend is on audible and it's called hitler's monsters mainly this book talks about the nazi fascination with the occult and the supernatural it's surprisingly in-depth it's incredibly interesting i was held enraptured for the entire book while i listen to it and if you guys don't have audible or you haven't tried audible yet you can find this book on audible and you can actually get a one month free trial audible is a sponsor of mine so i put a link in the description box if you want to try this book you can go ahead and click that link you can actually get that book for free and even if you cancel after the first free month that book is still yours and and really the cool thing about audible is every book that you download is yours forever so you can eventually build this library of amazing books that you can go back to and share with your friends and it's just a great service but today i want to talk about our sponsor for this video and that is hunted killer haunted killer is a unique subscription box service every month you get a box with different clues and different evidence and over the course of a season you will help and basically you don't help you solve the murder or the crime nev and i love doing this together there's a new season out but we're still working on the past season because once she went to college i really didn't want to do it without her but she's going to be home for christmas she'll be home for the holidays so not only can we finish this season but we have a whole new season ready to start so i'm super excited i'll just show you the box really quick this is what it looks like this is what you'll get and then inside you'll have evidence bags and files a letter from gray investigates which is a private investigation company that's helping you so inside this evidence bag it looks like i have a little necklace and it actually looks like an opal or a pearl it's an opal so me initially i'm gonna think whose birthstone is opal like who was born and what is it october i think is the oval birthstone so i'm gonna go through all my suspects that we have on the murder board and see whose birthstone would be opal and kind of use that as a starting point and that's kind of like the way that you would solve these crimes by just getting little pieces and adding them to your murder board and just like cataloging them in your mind for future reference i also have a pair of alien socks so i'm going to wear these for sure i wish i had these last month for halloween i would have worn them during our skinwalker wrench video and then you've got the letter from gray investigates and this is essentially going to tell you um almost all the crime scene evidence from charlie's car has been processed i've included a collapsed opal necklace and a pair of natalie sacks that were recovered so these things were found in charlie's car charlie was the victim so now we know like that opal might be connected to the person who killed him so i have to look at my suspects and see who has an opal birthstone and you get like these legitimate police reports blood tests toxicology reports these are like um checks that have been cashed you look here you go through like prescriptions who they were prescribed to like it's so fun it's so fun and what's even better about it is i spent a lot of time thinking about cases that actually happened so this is kind of nice to investigate a case and get really interested in it but know that nobody actually was hurt or died so it can just literally be a fun mental exercise so if you're interested in trying out honey killer play with your friends just play with yourself oh that sounds weird go in the description box and click the link and you'll get 20 off your first box it's definitely something worth trying and if you do end up trying it let me know what you're thinking because me and never probably gonna start on the next season within the week we're almost finished here i think i know who did it i think i do it's like clue except at the end of clue i always find out i'm wrong all right let's get started on the video also i've been sick i've had the food for about a week my voice might sound weird at points there seems to be times when i'm talking where i lose it so it might crack or it might seem like really thin that's what's going on i'll try to re-record if i notice that it happens but otherwise i apologize if it's distracting on may 24th 1943 the angel of death arrived at the auschwitz concentration camp in poland he would go on to spend the next 21 months living up to his nickname being front and center when the trains arrived at the camp cheerfully deciding which of its occupants would go into forced labor and which would go directly to the gas chambers during his time at the concentration camp he would fill his days performing immoral and oftentimes painful experiments on unwilling human participants oftentimes children who was joseph mengele and why is his name synonymous today with the atrocities that happened during the holocaust well as always to understand what happened at the end we have to go back to the beginning first we have to take a look at how the nazi party rose to power in germany this will help us understand why mengela and so many others like him were primed and ready to jump onto a movement that would end with the murder of millions of innocent people contrary to popular belief adolf hitler did not create the nazis this isn't a video on hitler so we're not going to go too far back or go too much into explanation about his background um and where he came from we can do a different video on that if you'd like but hitler was born in 1889 in austria which was not a part of the german empire but many who lived there spoke german as their main language and in 1914 when he was 25 hitler joined the bavarian army bavaria was a part of germany so he would have been able to fight on the side of the germans during world war one during the war he developed a sense of self and purpose for the first time in his life and he rose in the ranks and began to view his role as an officer in the army as inseparable from the rest of him but world war one it didn't end up going well for germany the people of germany were paying a heavy price for this war and having to make a great deal of sacrifices on the home front kaiser wilheim ii was the emperor at that point and grandson of queen victoria who was the queen of great britain from 1837 to 1901. now victoria was also the great grandmother to britain's current queen elizabeth so wilheim as victoria's favorite grandchild he had very close familial ties to british royalty and he'd often spent summers of his youth with his cousins in england he loved the sea and his cousins would often take him sailing which created a really big envy in him for the british royal navy which prompted him to order a bigger fleet built for germany which put a big financial strain on the country so during world war one and for a good deal of time before world war one germany was a military dictatorship run exclusively by the kaiser but it's rumored that he wasn't really making the decisions that behind the scenes two other men were running the show general field marshal paul von hindenburg and his chief of staff eric ludendorff so it's 1918. they've been fighting this war for a while now and at this point all of germany's offensives on the western front they're all falling the military was running out of supplies and those who were in the know who really had all the information realized that there was no way germany could win this war but obviously they didn't want to make it look as if the military had failed this was a military state essentially the people had to have you know faith in their military that they could protect and defend them so they decided to find a sneaky way to sort of shift the blame by having the kaiser abdicate so basically he steps back from his role and they hand the power of the government over to a man named frederick ebert now ebert was a social democrat and he was really interested in having peace and ending the war so he began to have peace talks with the allied powers to establish an armistice now this armistice signed on november 11th would end world war one but some of the terms of this armistice included immediate disarmament and demobilization of the german army and withdrawal from the rhineland these terms were somewhat harsh on germany but with their backs to the wall standing alone after all of their allies had surrendered they really didn't have much choice the armistice was essentially a temporary peace agreement like nobody's gonna fight while germany figures out what to do to make this work let us regroup our governmental structure and then we'll come back together and we'll decide on a more permanent peace treaty this was not a happy or peaceful time for everybody the german army and those who were high up in the german army believed that if they'd kept fighting they would have won the war and they spread these rumors and these false beliefs which resulted in the stab in the back myth and this stab in the back myth named those politicians who were civilians and not military the ones who'd signed the armistice in november and named them the november criminals the new weimar republic would get to work directing a constitution and picking a president while the old-school right-wing military leaders spread decimation through germany things got worse in june of 1919 when the treaty of versailles the permanent peace treaty was signed the treaty of versailles kind of gave germany a bad deal it was a little bit of an unfair hand in my opinion they got hit really hard with the terms of this treaty one of the most notable terms in the treaty said that basically germany would take a hundred percent of the blame for world war one so by signing it germany was agreeing to take 100 of the blame they were also agreeing to disarm and they were agreeing to pay massive reparations to the allied powers the treaty of versailles and the resulting demands put on germany would be a huge factor in the formation of the nazi party in turn leading to the second world war germany's economy was already compromised from the costs of world war one and in the end they were only able to pay back a small percentage of these reparations but even that small amount crippled the country's economy during world war one the german government had printed unbacked currency and had borrowed money to finance military efforts and when that reparation bill came the german mark lost value rapidly until it was essentially worthless at one point the currency was valued at one million marks to one american dollar and people who would have to go and collect their wages they had to do it with wheelbarrows many stopped using currency altogether and went back to the barter system because their money was just no good you'll see pictures of children using stacks of money to build towers or cutting marks up for crafts the money was used for kindling and for wallpaper since the actual paper it was printed on was worth more than the currency itself it was really bad so you can see why in that era when the country's public is suffering not able to buy the necessities of life with the money that they have they may be disenchanted with their current government and all of these smaller groups that were being created in order to you know be an opponent to the larger weimar republic they may have been appealing to these people these people were desperate you have this very vocal group of people highly respected people for the most part blaming the entire loss of world war one on the november criminals they told everybody germany didn't lose the war we were betrayed by these civilians in government now and because of that you are facing these hardships you are suffering you're not able to get enough food to feed your family and it's their fault so here comes young hitler in his 20s he's still a part of the german army he returns to munich after world war one he goes to munich because he's tasked by the military to infiltrate these smaller political groups find out what they're all about and then report back to his superiors so basically he's a spy the current military and the current government they could have pretended that they weren't threatened by these smaller groups but everybody in the country at this point was looking for something else to believe in and someone else to follow so these smaller groups were actually very threatening to the government and the military as a whole on september 12 1919 hitler attends a meeting of the german workers party with the intention to spy on them and report back to his superiors but he ends up liking what he hears and he stays at the meeting even engaging in political discourse with its members now the german workers party had been founded in january of 1919 by a man named anton drexler along with three other men dietrich eckhart gottfried federer and carl herrer at first this was a small group they didn't have huge membership numbers but they were huge believers in the stab in the back myth and they pushed ideas about nationalism anti-communism anti-semitism and anti-marxism when hitler attended the meeting he began arguing with a local professor who was speaking out against capitalism and he was noticed by the leaders of this movement for his ability to verbally express himself as well as make his points understandable and relatable to others after the meeting drexler approached him and he handed hitler a pamphlet that he had written called my political awakening so i read my political awakening i'll put a link for it if you want to find it and you want to read it just for historical purposes i don't agree with what's that in it i don't want anybody to think that but i read some of his words and there's a couple important points that you need to know in order to understand better what drexler and his buddies were all about in this pamphlet he says i am a socialist like yourselves and i want manual workers to gain equality with other creative groups as well as the annihilation of layout and drones and the confiscation of profits earned without any work or effort okay okay so far it doesn't sound too bad he wants everybody to work hard what's wrong with that he goes on to say that 300 big bankers financiers and press barons who are interconnected across the world are the real dictators they belong almost exclusively to the chosen people they are all members of the same secret conspiracy which organizes world politics namely the international lodge of freemasons their aim is the dictatorship of money over work okay it's getting a little uh intense let's let's keep going these banks and stock exchange dictators do nothing openly for they have their agents in the workers movement and they pay them well they turn the people's resentment from against themselves onto the small property owners the factory owners and the farmers who with all their money could hardly pay the interest owing to the big bankers the house of rothschild alone owns more capital than all of german heavy industry together okay i see where this is going i see where this is going he goes on to say when will we finally see through the false friends of our movement the jewish big capitalist always plays our friend and do-gooder but he only does it to make us into his slaves the trusting worker is going to help him to set up the world dictatorship because that is their goal as it states in the bible all the peoples will serve you all the wealth of the world will belong to you in the talmud it says a time is coming when every jew will have 2 800 slaves so i mean it it started off strong but then it kind of spiraled into um insanity and conspiracy theories but this is what they believed right so drexler gives the pamphlet to hitler and hitler's like yeah dude i've thought the same stuff for years like this is nothing new to me you're not opening my mind i have a mind of my own and i too am anti-semitic as a result of his way with words his ability to address large crowds and his similar views hitler was invited to join the german workers party which he did as their 55th member so you can see when he joined up it wasn't a big organization there was you know a little bit over 50 people and he was actually there to spy on them but he ended up really liking what he heard and stayed as a part of the party and they were all really impressed with adolf hitler but he wasn't so impressed with them he thought that they were a disorganized group of guys who just gathered at beer halls to talk about politics and never do anything about it and pretty much they weren't really worried about membership they weren't out there actively seeking members and he saw that he could take this group this party this set of beliefs and make it into something bigger so hitler took a small and not well-known political movement one of the many floating around germany in those days and he gave it a face his face the party would fight for ultra nationalism the belief that the german race was superior descended from the aryan race they were against communism and capitalism and ethnic minorities especially jewish people the aryan race has come to mean something to us today because of adolf hitler blue eyes blonde hair fair skin but that's not the truth in reality the earliest known aryans lived in prehistoric iran and migrated to northern india around 1500 bc those who were already living on the continent referred to these people as arya somewhere along the twisted telephone game known as history the word aryan began to mean or represent nobility or superiority the original dominating group there are some theories as to why and how the word lost its original meaning but that's that's a talk for another video we can't go too deep into all these things all you need to know is that hitler and his buddies created an entire movement an entire political organization on a myth that that wasn't real so how did this small group develop into a massive movement that would go on to rule over germany between 1933 and 1945. in 1920 hitler's place in the group became more important more necessary drexler realized that people listened to hitler they followed his lead and they seemed to trust him so he was given more authority and allowed to speak more freely this was also the year they added two words to their name and they became the national socialist german workers party otherwise known as the nazis because the word in germany for national sounds like nazi and that's how it came to be hitler became more involved he designed their logo the swastika the black swastika with the red background but he didn't actually even do that either that was something else that he stole the symbol had been used for five thousand years before hitler bastardized it the word itself comes from the sanskrit word savastica which translates roughly into good fortune and it's still a sacred symbol in many religions such as hinduism and buddhism hitler just added the red and white background and boom the symbol strikes fear and disgust in so many people to this day in 1921 there's some internal disagreements in the group people talking about splintering off and making their own groups so hitler was like yo i can't be involved in any of this disorganized stuff we need to stand together and we need to stand strong or i'm not going to be a part of this and they didn't want to lose him their most charismatic speaker the people followed him and there was a risk he'd leave and start his own party so they basically put him in charge of everything so he's the chairman of the nazi party he's feeling himself he's gaining all this confidence and building this ego and it makes sense if we know where he comes from and the things that he's failed at all his life you know hitler was a big failure essentially before he found the nazi party he just couldn't get anything right pretty much so now he's feeling like this is where i'm supposed to be this is my place these are my people and i'm gonna lead them and they're listening to me and he got a big head and the party's not a big one still but when hitler takes over he makes it his mission to gather as many people to the party and have them join as possible right strength in numbers within that first year they grew from you know under 100 people to a few thousand strong in 1922 mussolini comes to power in italy and hitler's watching in awe he's awestruck of mussolini big fan some might say that hitler was a mussolini stan hitler was thinking you know mussolini's a fascist and the fascists kinda have the right idea like i feel the same way as the fascists so maybe we're fascists and he watched as this man who had parallel beliefs to him was able to move thousands of people to march on the capital city and demand that he be put in power and this inspired hitler he he started to plan something similar himself so now we're in 1923 inflation's at an all-time high in germany and because they weren't able to pay their reparations france occupied the roar region of germany this was a region that was well known for its coal and steel production and basically all the german people they're still working there they're still working in the coal mines still working in the steel factories but every single thing that they produce is being shipped out of germany to france so they're not making a dime off of it and this was not only just another blow to an already incredibly devastated economy but it was humiliating to the german people at this point it wasn't just the right-wing extremists that were unhappy in being vocal about their unhappiness you know it used to just be like the nazis and kind of all these people on the outskirts trying to make noise now everybody was pretty much done with the current government and their current state of affairs everyone in germany was feeling the pressure they were sick of working and working and working and still being poor they were tired of being pushed around by these other countries by essentially being the butt of the joke they felt that everybody around the world was making fun of them this made the nazi party more attractive to the masses and by 1923 they had 50 000 members and tens of thousands of people were gathering to hear hitler speak so hitler sees that there's a shift the more people are starting to show up to his speeches and and they're more interested in what he has to say so he's like maybe this is the time the german people are ready to accept my party as their leadership strategy maybe he could do a mussolini did and just let the people basically protest until he was made chancellor of germany his plan was to use eric ludendorff as a figurehead and take over the bavarian government as a stepping stone to eventually overthrowing the weimar republic now remember ludendorff had been an important military figure through world war one and he'd been henderberg's chief of staff after the armistice he was one of the men who was spreading the stab in the back myth and blaming the civilian leadership in germany for their loss of the war and their subsequent hardships he was also very anti-semitic and he'd been following hitler's rise to power closely ever since so the plan was they were going to kidnap gustav van kar the state commissioner of bavaria while he was giving a speech at one of the biggest beer halls in munich hitler and hundreds of his supporters surrounded the beer hall and then he and 20 of his closest friends burst into the beer hall he fired a shot at the ceiling and he announced that this was a national revolution and this might have worked ludendorff came in and he talked to von karr and convinced him that giving in to hitler was his best option however hitler left that beer hall to help other groups of nazis who were supposed to be taking over government buildings but they were being held at bay by the military and then ludendorff for some reason let van kar leave the beer hall and then the revolution was just kind of over hitler was arrested on november 11th he was charged with high treason and he was sentenced to five years in prison but he only ended up being in there for one year and he used that time to write his manifesto mein kampf my struggle and while he was on trial and in prison his popularity grew he was now the mockingjay right he was the sign of the resistance so within 10 years adolf hitler would become the chancellor of germany and he'd begin putting in place policies of state-sponsored racism focused on eliminating all jewish people from germany and its lands to do this he would utilize those under him to see that the final solution went off without a hitch and that's where we're introduced to joseph mengele usually when someone takes a bad turn in life they go on to become you know a murderer or a criminal we can look at their past and say aha that's where it happened that's where this started that's where he became a bad seed or we can look at it and say well he was a bad seed from the very beginning everybody he knew when he was growing up said it well with joseph mengele it's not so easy he seems to have had a fairly normal and happy childhood probably better than most his age at that time in germany looking at his past nothing stands out as the moment that he became a serial killer or he started going down that path that would lead him there and i've always said that i don't believe people are 100 good and 100 evil and i also don't believe that serial killers are born i thought they were made but with this guy this guy he may have been born 100 evil and don't let any revisionist history or anybody else tell you any different this man was evil to his core he was born on march 16th 1911 in a bavarian town called goonsburg goonsburg was a small idyllic town like you'd see on a postcard it was quaint and most of its revenue was coming from the railway and farming industries mangela's father carl had left his hometown when the family farm had gone to his older brother and he'd come to gunsberg to make his own name that's where he met his wife walberga while berga had wealthy parents who loaned their son-in-law money which he then used to start his own business manufacturing farm equipment joseph was the oldest of three sons and he and his younger brothers would often help their father out with his farming equipment business joseph saw his father carl as cold distant and always preoccupied with work and he was much closer to his mother walberga and while burgo wasn't known for being that warm of a maternal figure either but she was kind of really focused on her children and her family and she was clearly like the dominant force in the house when carl wasn't home so i mean at least she was there she made her sons go to church she was very catholic so she forced her sons to go to church often you know she made sure they had food on the table she made sure they were dressed and they knew the difference between right and wrong apparently in joseph mengele's case that didn't work out so well but she was there but joseph mengele did describe his mother once as unable to love and this is often the case carl and wahlberg and mengele have been lost to history a lot of what made them who they were is just gone so they're not completely three-dimensional figures but what i get from it is carl was you know running his own business really interested in spending time and and money and effort to build that business into something great and while burgo was that typical overbearing heavily catholic mother she dressed entirely in black she had this love affair with food that caused her to struggle with her weight for her entire life and if you look at carl and wall burger together you would almost not think that they were married because they were very different they they looked very different and in in personality they were also very different so carl you know he was tall and slender and stately looking he always had nice suits on his shoes were always shiny he really cared a lot about what his appearance said and while berga like i said dressed all in black eventually started gaining a lot of weight carl's employees would dread when his wife showed up at the factory because she would just verbally berate them so she doesn't sound like a super nice person that's for sure and at first the mengeles lived modestly they shared a house with another family however within no time mengele's company was the go-to manufacturer for farming equipment they became wealthy and prominent in the town and they moved into a bigger house in a better part of the city a big part of their success was due to world war one when mengele's company received a contract from the government to manufacture weapons and war goods for the troops so by the end of world war one mangala's factory in mengele's business was one of the biggest in goonsburg they were moving up in the world and baby joseph mengele would have no recollection at all of what it was like to live in war times or to struggle for money or to pinch pennies or to sacrifice he was basically raised with a silver spoon in his mouth he and his younger brothers carl jr and alois were tasked by their parents with overseeing the transport of materials into the factory and finished goods out of the factory the people of goonsburg would fondly recall little dark-haired joseph who they nicknamed beppo pacing around the platform shouting to his brothers to be ready to unload as soon as the train came in he was the most well-liked of the mengele children by the people of glensburg he was always cheerful polite he had a smile for everyone even as a young boy he was referred to as classically handsome with gleaming hair and very colored eyes and a small gap between his front teeth now why they named him beppo i can only guess it's not very clear but his name was joseph and italian for joseph is giuseppe and people often will use beppo as a nickname for giuseppe so i assume that's why they called him beppo but you can tell they're giving him a nickname right the people of goonsburg thought he was just like the best he was a cute little boy he was helping his dad he had good manners he was attractive they liked him nobody said he was torturing animals nobody said that he was setting things on fire he was a normal kid like i said his mother walberga she wasn't a warm person but when it came down to siding with one parent or the other joseph would always side with his mother he was her favorite and he was a bit of a mama's boy one day carl mengele came home with a new cart proudly show off to his wife and sons and instead of being happy and excited about it walberga basically asked him how dare you make this this large of a purchase without consulting with me first so they got into a fight and carl basically said like why am i even married to you i'm gonna leave you and while berga starts crying in the corner of her room and young joseph goes over and sits next to her he puts his hand on her and he says i'll never leave you mama so it seems to me even though he recognized his mother's faults or her inability to be warm and loving he he disliked his father more so it was just kind of natural that he'd gravitate towards his mother because she was the other parent i don't think that joseph mengele had a super close warm or good relationship with either of his parents and joseph grew up in a sort of closed-off world in goonsburg the mangalas were considered royalty and as he got older he developed a taste for the finer things in life he'd wear tailored suits made out of the most expensive fabrics and the most flattering cuts he developed a reputation for being a snappy dresser charming handsome and he was the most requested dance partner at balls that were held in the homes of goonsburg elite even though there's other people in goonsburg that would be the same age as him they probably didn't go to his fancy private school they didn't have as much money they didn't live in the nice neighborhood so he didn't socialize with them he just kind of hung out with the same group of people all friends of his parents friends etc joseph would go and meet up with his friends at the cafe mater which was the place to you know be seen in goonsburg they would all sit together sipping coffee chatting smoking cigarettes but joseph mengele at this time he wasn't interested in politics and i believe that he probably never really was interested in politics even though outside of his small quaint postcard town hitler and his nazis were slowly rising in power and notoriety and there was even a small nazi group or chapter of the nazis in goonsburg it just wasn't something that interested him we wanted to talk about suits and girls and cars he didn't care about politics so we see joseph mengele as a teenager he's incredibly popular with his peers a lot of people who knew him said he seemed like a natural born leader he was charming he was articulate he was a little dandy essentially and he always made sure he had a pair of crisp white gloves on him never to wear just to hold casually in your hand because white gloves were a symbol that you were somebody he was the perfect image of a well-to-do young man he could have a conversation about anything with anybody he was always impeccably dressed and he made it look all incredibly easy like it was second nature image was important to him he knew he was handsome because people told him so he knew he was well liked because people told himself so growing up in this bubble where everybody around you is just kissing your ass all the time mengele was bound to develop quite a large ego and a narcissistic personality but underneath that underneath this facade that he put forth of a guy who's handsome and suave and he knows it and confidence is oozing out of our report there was that little part of him that had self-esteem issues and it would have been easy for him to stay in goonsburg in that bubble work for his father's company stay rich and respected for his whole life but he didn't want that he wanted to make his name apart from the family business he wasn't interested in just carrying on the legacy he wanted to make his own legacy he told a friend once one day you'll read the name joseph mengele in the encyclopedia and how right he was but i'm sure it wasn't for the reasons that that he thought it would be for he wanted to be a doctor which was fine but he hadn't been that great of a student in his youth he kind of was just passable like an average student not overly intelligent not overly dedicated to his schoolwork he achieved average grades which disappointed his mother and she let him know it but then something happened when he turned 15 which made achieving high marks in school almost impossible he developed osteomyelitis now osteomyelitis is a bone infection if you remember from the pauline parker and juliette heum video pauline parker had osteomyelitis when she was young it's very painful and in those days it was often lethal from this condition mengele also contracted nephritis or an inflammation of his kidneys as well as a systemic infection which is just an infection basically of the whole body not just one isolated place because of this he was out of school for almost six months and when he returned to school he was far behind his peers but he did catch up he got decent grades and when he was 19 he graduated and enrolled at the university of munich in the fall of 1930. the people of goonsburg were very sad to see young joseph go they said he was the friendliest and most humane of the mengeles which is terrifying considering what he would go on to do and munich was a world away from small quaint goonsburg it was a bigger city busy bustling full of culture and arts there was museums there was opera houses there was the best restaurants and mengala wanted to see them all and do them all he loved opera big fan big fan of the opera 1930 was also the year that hitler's most radical views were beginning to take root in germany and munich was the perfect nazi town it was called the capital of the movement new ss members would be sworn in there nazi headquarters was located there and huge ceremonies and rallies were often held there mangala chose to study biology and genetics and genetics at this time we're talking 1930 it was pretty cutting edge it was like all new on the horizon kind of stuff but at this time the way it was being used and taught at the university of munich and many other universities in nazi germany was for the purpose of eugenics so i can't go forward without a brief discussion of what eugenics is where it started and how it was adapted by nazi germany in order to achieve its end goal which was to cleanse all german lands of those who didn't have pure blood so eugenics was a term coined by sir francis galton who is a statistician and half cousin to charles darwin the word itself essentially means well born and it was galton's hope that by bringing eugenics into mainstream science he could improve britain and the world this was a proposed scientific solution to social problems like mental illness criminal behavior and poverty and galton believed that these things were all inheritable so if people that had these conditions stopped making babies and those who were healthy and had desirable traits made more babies the world would be perfect i don't know what the brits thought about this idea when galton brought it up but the americans loved it man we loved it the first occurrence of the american government interfering in human procreation happened in connecticut in 1896 when it became a law that those who had epilepsy or those who were feeble-minded could not get married and in 1903 the american breeders association was founded to study eugenics the american breeders association and we're talking about people very very uncomfortable john harvey kellogg best known for his creation of breakfast cereal also jumped on the eugenics bandwagon and i guess it's no surprise to me kellogg always had that mad scientist off his rocker vibe he was obsessed with healthy and clean living he was a seventh-day adventist he encouraged people to be abstinent even with themselves if you know what i mean and he had moments of clarity and intelligence like when he recognized bacteria in the intestines can cause health problems and he had ideas about germ theory years before it was even a thing but he organized the race betterment foundation in 1911 and he even went as far as to create a pedigree registry for human beings the eugenics records office became a thing and that kept track of people's genetics and claimed that most people were unfit to have children especially immigrants minorities and the poor but when it comes to the american eugenics program and how it influenced nazi germany we have to go to california where 20 000 people were sterilized in mental health hospitals without their knowledge or permission and the justification given was that society had to be protected from these people reproducing in no time 33 states followed suit creating laws that gave the government the final say in who was fit to procreate i don't want to go too deep into this because it's a series of videos on its own but a supreme court justice named oliver wendell said in 1927 during a hearing to determine whether these four sterilizations were a violation of human rights three generations of imbeciles is enough and he was referring to one specific family here but the implication and meaning on a more widespread level is pretty clear so it snowballed puerto rico started doing it claiming to be interested in ending poverty in the us native americans were sterilized people of color those who had physical handicaps mental handicaps it was bad but to the nazis it was exactly what they needed something they could point to and say well they're doing it it's a law there it's legal to do it there the u.s is doing it which is exactly what they did so young joseph mengele ready to be a doctor and study genetics which at that time was essentially just studying eugenics in germany he throws himself into his schoolwork and he becomes a far better student than he ever was in the past he was still popular with his peers but they considered him a serious student somebody who would always have a book in his hand whenever they saw him or when they came to his apartment and he carried a heavier course load than most of them although he had previously had no real interest in politics his first year of college he joined the steele helmets which was a paramilitary group who didn't support or promote any particular leader but they presented themselves as a conservative group they did push for a return to the old military leadership and they made their position on the new form of government known eventually they did become more radical and they helped to bring hitler to power i still don't think he was super interested in politics it was just what you did at that time if you were young and hoping to make a name for yourself in germany but mengele really flourished in this group he gave speeches he was greatly respected so i definitely think this was his first introduction to how beneficial politics can be for someone's career or place in society while attending the university mengele heard a man named ernst rudin give several lectures now mengele was already an elitist he already thought he and people like him were better than others but now he had words and terms that he could scientifically use to voice these thoughts terms such as lives unworthy of living and useless eaters ernst rudin was a psychiatrist and a director of the kaiser wilheim institute and he was also the president of the international federation of eugenics organization rudin would become the main architect of sterilization laws in germany the ideas that joseph and other students would have been hearing from these well-respected men would have been as follows those who are weak or sick those who can't help themselves and need assistance from others they shouldn't be allowed to have children because not only is that another mouth to feed but they're gonna pass on their bad genetics to these children which takes the whole bloodline into a vicious cycle joseph goebbels minister of propaganda said in 1938 at a nazi rally our starting point is not the individual and we do not subscribe to the view that one should feed the hungry give drink to the thirsty or clothe the naked our objectives are entirely different we must have a healthy people to prevail in the world and it's hard to understand because the nazis they didn't like communism um they really didn't like capitalism either but they didn't hate capitalism as much as they hated communism they pretty much considered capitalism as something that was good as long as it helped the whole of germany the whole country not just one people or a few people so they said they were socialists they wanted everybody to contribute equally and everybody to have the same things but they didn't feel like they could have that utopian country until those who were holding them back were removed from the equation so a stronger more self-sufficient population leads to a stronger more self-sufficient germany and okay looking at it that way it makes sense when you have a plant and you're growing it sometimes you have to cut off excess branches or dead branches so that the main stock or the main route can grow higher and stronger but these aren't plants we're talking about here these are people biggest group of people or undesirables that hitler and his fellow nazis wanted to see gone from germany were the jews who hitler had for years been referring to as the germs of the country taking a healthy population and making them sick and weak he told everybody who would listen that all the jewish people cared about was money and world domination and all of this was talked about and taught openly in germany far before the night of the broken glass or world war ii in fact the whole idea or concept of anti-semitism wasn't new to germany with the rise of hitler and the nazis it had existed for many years in 1920 a book was published by two men colleagues of ernest rudin their names were carl binding and alfred hoech the title of the book was allowing the destruction of life unworthy of life nothing was said specifically about jews in this book or the blacks or the romani people all groups that the nazis would later go on to target instead it referred to the mentally ill brain damaged disabled the fact is though as soon as you start picking and choosing which lives are unworthy of that life it's a train off the tracks and it was a natural leap from one to the other for hitler and the nazis they didn't have to specify jews or those of different races that threatened the purity of germany simply the notion that some life is not worthy and that there's people who should be able to choose who lives and who dies that was enough to build a whole movement on it was really a perfect storm for joseph mengele to become who he became he was already an elitist a social darwinist he was bothered by the fact that those in the lower working classes seem to be the ones having all the children and those in the upper classes or not having as many children the nazi movement was working hard and fast in munich his professors were teaching that you should use genetics to decide who was able to have a family and who couldn't mangala most likely felt that he'd found a place where he could move freely and flourish a place that he actually belonged here he could make a name for himself and many years later after world war ii he still believed these things he wrote in a journal some really disturbing things he wrote we have to prevent the rise of the idiot masses the feeble-minded person was separated from farmers because of his social status and low income this separation is no longer the case in the age of technology he is now on the same level with the farmer's son who went to the city he also wrote everything will end in catastrophe if natural selection is altered to the point that gifted people are overwhelmed by billions of morons and he predicted that 90 of humans will starve due to stupidity and the remaining 10 percent will survive like reptiles survived the rest will die just like the dinosaurs did we have to prevent the rise of the idiot masses he went on to write we know that selection rules all nature by choosing and exterminating those who were unfit had to accept the rule of more accomplished human beings or they were pushed out or exterminated weaker humans were excluded from reproducing this is the only way for human beings to exist and to maintain themselves this is what was being taught in german schools and colleges not just to people who were already a part of the nazi party but to everybody and as this was happening those who did have a jewish background are making a mad dash to get out of germany and germany owned lands because they saw where this was going especially on july 14th 1933 that's when the law for prevention of hereditary diseased offspring was enacted so basically a genetic health court was created usually presided over by one judge one medical officer and one health practitioner and this court would decide who would be sterilized depending on a list of genetic conditions that in some cases weren't even actually genetic the list includes congenital mental deficiency manic depressive insanity hereditary epilepsy huntington's disease hereditary blindness and deafness those who had physical deformities that were hereditary and even severe alcoholism and it was completely up to this court they were given permission to use force if necessary to see the sterilization through and there was no appeals process over 400 000 people were sterilized in this way against their will this was the general public everyone and it was mandatory if a doctor was found to have kept quiet when seeing a patient that was eligible for sterilization he'd be fined doctor patient privilege did not exist and they published studies that pointed to the work done in california by the united states which gave scientific legitimacy to what they were doing now in germany and then in 1935 when mengele was getting ready to graduate from the university of munich the nuremberg laws happened the laws are said that jewish people were no longer considered to be german citizens therefore they had no protection or rights or benefits that german citizens would have but the nazis didn't choose who was jewish based on religious beliefs they looked at their lineage so if you had even one grandparent that was jewish you were considered jewish there were some german citizens who had no idea that they had any jewish people in their lineage they had been you know considering themselves to be catholics christians they'd been practicing christianity they had no idea they were stunned when they found out that they were no longer considered to be a german citizen that they were now considered to be jewish this happened in september and then in november the romani people and black people were added to this list of those who would no longer enjoy the protection and rights of germany jewish businesses were arionized essentially they'd be taken over by germans all jews had to carry an identity card and all germans had to carry an identity card but the jews had big red jays on theirs and if the germans decided that your name your middle name wasn't jewish enough they would give you a new middle name and put it on that card so the men were given the middle name of israel and the women were given the middle name of sarah during the 1936 olympic games which were held in berlin jewish athletes who had been training for this for years were forbidden to attend or participate but joseph mengele in the middle of all this he's just going along doing his schoolwork writing his dissertations when he was 25 he graduated from the university of munich summa laude which was the highest level the highest achievement you could get he then traveled to the university of frankfurt to continue his studies at the institute for heredity biology and racial purity the next obvious step in his career there he studied under and came to assist one of the rising stars in the eugenics movement professor atmar von vershwar this man would become mengele's mentor during the 1920s when he'd been the head of the genetics department at the kaiser wilhelm institute virtua had focused primarily on twin studies he believed they held the key to the secrets of genetics but he'd never been able to do research or perform experiments on a pair of living twins because well that was unethical even finding a pair of deceased twins was almost impossible because it would be very rare to find a situation where both twins had died at the same time but he'd often speak to his students about how much a scientist could discover about genetics if only he could study living breathing twins experiment on them and see what happened to mengela who viewed von vershoier as his mentor as a fatherly figure this made a big and lasting impression on him the idea of being able to do experiments perform scientific experiments on people that were alive and if they died from whatever it was you did to them then you could just study their corpse after this program that mengele was working on with his mentor of anvirshwar it's obviously nazi approved and funded but who else was donating to the piggy bank of the nazi eugenic movement who else would be interested in using science to discover a technology that could create an entire world or society of blonde haired blue eyed demigods well maybe the rockefellers because the rockefeller foundation donated generously to the very same program that von vershoier and mengele were working on so you can kind of see that although this whole eugenics thing sounds real off to us in today's world during this time in the 1930s the nazis weren't the only people who were pushing for it it wasn't frowned on overseas people all over the world were interested in what they were doing they were interested in seeing what the outcome of the results were many people from the united states eugenics was supported and believed in by many who were in the upper echelons of society and government in america at that time mengele and von vershore really thought that it would be awesome if they could figure out why some women gave birth to only one child and other women gave birth to more than one child this information would be invaluable to the third reich because they could just pump out aryan babies faster and get a jump on this whole like perfect utopian society thing so at the same time that they were figuring how to eliminate the bad genes from germany they were also trying to figure out how to populate germany with millions of little baby thor's someone like von vershoer who is well respected in germany he could give legitimacy to the nazi movement and the inevitable final solution through his pro-hitler pro-nazi writings and he wrote a lot he wrote about how great hitler was how bad the jews were he said in his writings that measures they had taken to ensure germany's place in the world were good but they were not enough desperate times call for desperate measures and von vershoer would go on to become one of the architects of what hitler called the final solution at this time in germany most of the top scientists had joined forces with the nazis to help legitimize the nuremberg laws using science and mengele's mentor professor von verschwer was one of the loudest voices he'd been receiving financial support from the nazis since the early 30s his entire institute at the university had been built with nazi money so it's not a surprise that the work done there would mirror their core beliefs and support their propaganda doctors researchers and scientists who worked at the institute would often be called upon in court to testify as experts when the nazis were prosecuting anyone who broke the nuremberg laws von verschwer and anyone who worked with him were in hitler's pocket and that included joseph mengele in 1938 bengal published his second doctoral dissertation on the genetic origins of the human jaw mengele thought that he could tell what race you were or what your genealogy was just by looking at you and analyzing your facial features while at the university of frankfurt working under von verschwar he helped to analyze the city's population for racial purity his mentor saw a great promise in mengala a passion for science and research no matter what the cost in reality what he was seeing was a passion to excel and make a name for himself no matter what the cost it was important that he was on the radar of those who could push him further in his career and at that point that was the nazis and von vershoer was tight with the nazis so if mengele could stay at his right hand he'd have his career made he worked with von vershoer on many special projects and he just pretty much hoped that if a promotion ever came up that was right for a man like mengele his mentor would push him to the front of the line 1938 was also the year that joseph mangala met and became engaged to his first wife irene schonbien mangala said that irene was well educated and pretty and many years after they'd separated he still referred to her as the love of his life maybe that's why he fought so hard and so long to marry her when her own genealogy was under question she was 19 and studying art history he was had over heels for her he broke up with his current girlfriend in order to propose to irene but as soon as they were engaged mengele was called in by the army for training war was on the horizon and the wehrmacht wanted to make sure its troops were ready he was stationed for three months in the germany mountain army regiment in tyrol a region in the alps but he didn't like his commanding officer the two butted heads constantly and when his three months was up he knew that he wouldn't be going back to that army instead he decided to join the ss which he was allowed to do since he'd already been accepted into the nazi party the year before now there may be some confusion about the ss and the the german military as a whole before hitler roast power he established his own militia and they were essentially his personal bodyguards but they weren't viewed by the general public as a legitimate army but when he became chancellor of germany the ss was immediately legitimized and more than that they pretty much became the cream of the crop of the german army so all the other army branches were essentially ruled over by the ss they wore different uniforms they were given top pick of all the resources and weapons the ss was also the most vicious and loyal of the nazis they were required to get a blood tattoo on their armpit when they joined and this would signify that they had pure blood but joseph mengele who was incredibly vain he didn't want to get that tattoo so he like broke the law initially upon entering the assassin he he broke the law and didn't get that tattoo and in the end his vanity and his refusal to get that tattoo would allow him to escape when allied forces came into germany okay so mengele has joined up with the ss he marries irene in july of 1939 and then less than a month later he gets drafted and for his first duty as an asset soldier he's assigned to the race and resettlement office which was a desk job going through applications of those who claim to be german and it was his job to decide whether they really were or not by june of 1941 he was sent to ukraine the eastern front for active military duty war had broken out and now he'd be working as a combat medic on the front lines with the viking division of the ss now the eastern front was not the place you wanted to be if you were trying to avoid the death and gore that comes along with a war many believed that germany would quickly crush the soviet union but that's not what happened at first it seemed like germany was gaining traction but the russians seemed to have an endless supply of troops and in no time they were beating the germans back not only that but the weather conditions were awful many german soldiers felt that their real enemy was general winter a nickname that they'd given for a very cold and frigid season in russia hitler the eternal optimist had thought that his troops would defeat the soviet union's troops far before winter came so you have all these german soldiers in their summer uniforms they had to curl up and hay in newspapers in order to stay warm as a result many suffered from frostbite which resulted in the amputation of nearly 15 000 limbs additionally the soviet union forces they were not only used to the winter and dress properly for it but they had special weapons and machinery that were designed to work in extreme cold temperatures and the germans didn't so their tanks wouldn't start their guns wouldn't fire it was bad but even though it was clearly impossible to win against the soviets under these conditions hitler made it clear that anyone who gave up or surrendered would be immediately shot by their own side and deemed a traitor and the eastern front seemed to be a sort of wild west of the war obviously war is horrible and people die but most armies and soldiers they live by a certain set of rules and moral obligations and these were off the table on the eastern front both sides ignored their moral compass and typical rules of engagement and committed terrible war crimes and atrocities basically there was a lot of damage a lot of death a lot of injuries and joseph mengele as a combat medic was kept quite busy and he probably loved every second of it in my opinion it was here amidst the chaos and the blood of the eastern front that mengele honed his skill for selection he perfected his ability to choose who would live and who would die resources were low medication stores even lower and thousands of german soldiers were getting shot and injured every single day so mengele essentially had to triage these people and quickly within sometimes just seconds decide whether the man on the ground was worthy of getting medication or getting his medical help or if he was a lost cause he claimed later to a friend that doing this with his own german people was heart-wrenching terribly hard but somebody has to do it after he saved two soldiers from a burning tank he was awarded the iron cross first class and promoted to officer but he'd been wounded so he couldn't go back into the battle and he was sent home to germany and posted back at the race and resettlement office he should have been happy he was away from the front lines back with his new wife his mentor but he was working a tedious desk job which he loathed and he wanted to get back into the lab and do some science lucky for him von vershoer had been busy kissing the nazi's asses while mengele was away and he made some connections in the third reich that would benefit both he and mengele but most importantly their scientific work you know what they say it's not about what you know but who you know von verschwer got a promotion he became the director of the kaiser wilhelm institute in berlin mengele was bored with his life and his job so the two men got to talking wouldn't it be great if mengele could get a position at a concentration camp and not just any concentration camp the biggest one auschwitz here he could achieve complete control of his research and his test subjects human test subjects with his mentor's help this position was offered to mengela and he was set to arrive at auschwitz in april of 1943. now don't get it twisted this wasn't von vershwer trying to help a young aspiring scientist out and get him in good this was von verschwer helping himself and furthering his own agenda on his own scientific work he was motivated by the fact that these concentration camps held a wide variety of human subjects and basically since they weren't really considered to be human at all there was no moral dilemma inside von versur or mengele when they decided they would start experimenting on these people while they were alive von verschwar sent his protege off to auschwitz with the promise that whatever mengele discovered and whatever materials organic materials he achieved or collected during his his research he had to send that back to von vershwer so he could also look at it the worst part of all of this is even though von vershoer may not have physically taken part in what mengele was going to do he's the one who encouraged him to do it he's the one that pushed him there got him the position and had spent the last several years talking to him about how great would it be for science and for our country if we could perform experiments on living people it would be a scientific breakthrough we'd be famous we'd have our names in all the books and when the war was over you'd think that this man would be put on trial with the rest of the nazis but he wasn't was there not proof of his complicity and his knowledge of mangala's research experiments no there was proof i mean truth be told von verschwer that sly dog he burned most of the evidence that connected him to mangala but there still exists some evidence there was a report that von versh was sent to the german research council in 1944 stating my assistant dr joseph mengele has joined me in this branch of research he is presently employed as doctor and camp physician in the concentration camp at auschwitz anthropological investigations on the most diverse racial groups of this concentration camp are being carried out with the permission of himmler the blood samples are being sent to my laboratory for analysis more than blood samples were sent to von versua's laboratory for analysis whole body parts eyes all sorts of things were sent to him he goes on further in this report to state that the war has made it difficult to procure twin materials for study and that mengele's unique position at the camp put him in a perfect position to have access to these things dude knew everything everything he was he was an equal partner in what mangala did at the concentration camp and afterward he was not tried he wasn't um you know cast out of society he was given promotions and given awards i mean after the war he established one of the largest genetic research centers in west germany and he was awarded the prestigious professorship of human genetics at the university of munster is bananas but that's going to be it for today next video we're going to pick up with mengele arriving at auschwitz and truth be told this second video is going to be the toughest but i will always be sensitive trying to vocalize my information in a way that's not completely um traumatizing thank you guys so much for being here remember to check out the links in the description box for audible and hunter killer there's so many good books on audible especially concerning this topic and hunter killer is just one of the funnest things is funnest a word one of the most fun things that i've done ever because i love you know true crime and i love games and i love solving puzzles so it's literally just the longest most exciting game of clue ever but instead of working against other people that you're with you're working with them to solve the crime so that's really cool ah thank you guys so much for being here i hope you're enjoying this dark histories series let me know if you like it let me know if it was boring let me know if you think history sucks and so i suck stay kind and stay beautiful and i'll see you next time and

Channel: Stephanie Harlowe

Views: 344,617

Rating: 4.8905811 out of 5

Keywords: josef mengele, the angel of death, dark history, stephanie harlowe, true crime

Id: xkSG1wShMcw

Length: 68min 42sec (4122 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 02 2020