Josef Mengele

WWII

Josef Mengele

The angel of death

Introduction

• Josef Mengele was born on March 16, 1911 in Günzberg Germany
• He was known to be an average student in school, in the constant struggle of keeping his grades up
• After contracting the Osteomyelitis disease, he was behind in his school work
• By age seventeen, he became an extroverted, handsome man and was popular amongst both teachers and students
• By age 19, he got accepted to the Munich University into the medical and philosophical faculty
• He joined the Steel Helmets in 1931, because of his interests in politics
• Also had a facination of eugenics as he believed the population could be perfected through selective breeding

Timeline to Auschwitz

the nature of his Crime

• When he would choose inmates to perform experiments on, he would focus on twins, Heterochromia, Dwarfism, and people with other unique features.
• He wanted to prove scientifically that the people he was researching were biologically inferior than the superior race that the Germans represent
• His way of “experimentation” would be injecting disease on one twin not the other, amputating limbs, transfusion of blood, injecting chemicals into the eyes to change color, doing surgery without using anesthesia, starving newborn babies, etc.

“[Josef Mengele] exposed about 3000 children at Auschwitz-Birkenau to disease, disfigurement and torture under the guise of medical “research” into illness, human endurance, and more”-(history.com)

The ethical Dillema

Josef Mengele is the person who was in-charge of selecting the people for the gas chamber and for laboratory experiments in Auschwitz Concentration. Sending Jewish people in the concentration camp is not any morally justified act in the first place as it violates the most fundamental right of people known as ‘right to life’. But during World War 2 the Nazi philosophy considered the Jews, Gypsies, even the disabled people as sub-humane. Therefore, when the Nazis used to send these so-called ‘disgraced’ people to concentration camp to use their manual labor to reduce war-related workload or simply to give them quick death in gas chamber, in the mind of a Nazi they were doing it for the betterment of the future world. The SS officers like Mengele used to get promotions based on the number of people they authorized for the gas chamber. Most of the Nazis argued in Nuremberg Trial that the process of death was quick and can be considered as Mercy Killing, given the misery those people used to suffer in concentration camp. But Mengele did not even comply with this cruel and inhumane philosophy. He wanted to prove the ‘Social Darwinism’ and ‘Eugenic Theory’ scientifically and also to find a cure to fatal diseases by doing laboratory experiments on 3000 Jewish children. These children’s intense suffering made the gas chamber look like a kinder option. But according to Mengele’s argument, it is the most ethical thing to do, because, scientifically proven ‘Inferior Race’ theory will result in the end of the war. Moreover, finding the cure to fatal diseases will bring welfare to all mankind.

Ethical Frameworks

• The two ethical frameworks I will be focusing on are Utilitarianism and duty ethics.
• According to duty ethics it is people's moral duty to act a certain way in which they want everyone to behave.
• As a doctor, Menegele would not have wanted every other doctor to take their patients for laboratory experiments. Because Mengele would choose his human "guinea pigs" based on their race. This philosophy would completely backfire if a person from some other race considers Dr. Mengeles race as inferior.
• one of the significant defense of Dr. Mengele's action was that he did the human experimentation for the greater good of the man kind; like finding the cure to any fatal disease.
• however, finding the cure to any disease was not certain and on the contrary his experiment killed atleast 3000 children.
• According to utalitarianism, in the long run the genocide of Jewish, roma, and disabled people created significant harm.
• His actions don't comply with the theory of utilitarianism becauase he raised the bar of cruelty done to the inmates and prisoners of war all over the world.

What is the Milgram Test?

• The Milgram experiment looked at the justifications provided by those convicted of genocide during World War II.
• The defense of many of the nazi officers and soldiers was that they were simply carrying out instructions from their superiors.
• While the Milgram experiment demonstrated that humans are vulnerable to authority and found justification for destructive obedience of the soldiers, it also shows that being obedient is not always right.

How is The Milgram test Linked with the Nuremberg Defense?

• Nuremberg Defense is also known as 'following superior orders' which was provided by the Nazi soldiers during the Nuremeberg trials in 1945-46
• The most compelling aspect of this defense was normal human beings are capable of carrying out orders which will definitely lead to destruction of millions of human lives
• In 1963 the Milgram test was specifically designed to understand the psychology behind harmful obedience of general people to evil authoritive figures.

Does the Milgram test validate Mengele's Actions?

Milgram Test or Nuremberg Defense of destructive obedience does not validate the action of Josef Mengele. Josef Mengele was one of the most senior SS officers in Auschwitz Concentration Camp and there was no pressure on him from his superiors to conduct heinous human experiments on the Jewish children. It was completely his choice which was not manipulated by anybody.Moreover, Mengele in his after Auschwitz life never showed any remorse for his actions during ww2. The subjects of Milgram Test showed extreme distress for hurting another human being during and after the experiment.Though the subjects in Milgram Test yielded to the pressure of the authority, they were ensured the victims will not face any real harm other than getting mild to high voltage electric shock. On the other hand, there was no question the human guinea pig of Mengele would suffer from mutation, disfigurement, fatal diseases if not death.

Post war consequences of Mengele's actions

1. Guatamala Syphillis experiment

• US infected about 696 Guatemalan prisoners with Syphilis and Gonorrhea , without their knowledge in 1946-48 for experiment purpose. There is a connection between the US experimentation and Josef Mengele's twin experiments as the previously mentioned one was done right after his trial in 1945 and revealation of his experimentation method on Jewish children.

2. Nuremberg Code

• The formation of the Nuremberg code was in 1947, because the horror in Nazi medical laboratory came out during the Nuremberg Trial. The court established a new standard of ethical medical behaviour for the post WWII human rights era.

Lessons Learned

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1. New standard of Human Experiment 2. UDHR 19483. Independance of colonized countries from racism

• Most of the countries in pre WWII era was taken into the colony of powerful states because the colonized race was considered inferior and uncivilised. The Nazi philosophy about the superior and inferior race and its destructive nature made the entire world realise the tradition of colonisation cannot go on

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MLA8 Citations

"Auschwitz Gets A New Doctor: “The Angel Of Death”". HISTORY, 2010, https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/auschwitz-gets-a-new-doctor-the-angel-of-death.

Bergman, Barry. "Echoes Of Mengele And Tuskegee, This Time In Guatemala". Berkeley News, 2011, https://news.berkeley.edu/2011/03/18/syphilis/.

Blakemore, Erin. "Why The Nazis Were Obsessed With Twins". HISTORY, 2019, https://www.history.com/news/nazi-twin-experiments-mengele-eugenics.

Broder, Jonathan. "AUSCHWITZ SURVIVORS RECALL HORROR OF NAZI EXPERIMENTS". Chicagotribune.Com, https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1985-02-07-8501080137-story.html.

Fenigstein, Allan. Were Obedience Pressures A Factor In The Holocaust?. 2021, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283834040_Milgram%27s_shock_experiments_and_the_Nazi_perpetrators_A_contrarian_perspective_on_the_role_of_obedience_pressures_during_the_Holocaust.

G. Marwell, David. "How Did Josef Mengele Become The Evil Doctor Of Auschwitz? (Published 2020)". Nytimes.Com, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/books/review/mengele-david-g-marwell.html.

J. Vansuch, Bryan. MENGELE’S ETHICS: AN ANALYTICAL APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING JOSEF MENGELE’S MOTIVES. Georgetown University, 2011, https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/553409/vansuchBryan.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.

"Josef Mengele | Biography, Death, Angel Of Death, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica, 2021, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Josef-Mengele.

Mengele's Human Experimentation | Nazi Hunters. 2014, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFpcFScVKog.

Milgram Experiment - Big History NL, Threshold 6. 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOYLCy5PVgM.

Onn Leong, Chee. Nuremberg Code - Ethics Of Experimentation. 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1c26q0oxoE.

Image Links:

https://www.dw.com/en/a-german-town-and-josef-mengele-auschwitz-angel-of-death/a-52114089

https://biographics.org/josef-mengele-biography-german-schutzstaffel-officer-physician-in-concentration-camps/

https://www.history.com/news/nazi-twin-experiments-mengele-eugenics

https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-30933718

https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/remembering-auschwitz-eyes-present

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/josef-mengele

https://www.yadvashem.org/gathering-fragments/stories/torn-families/malek.html

https://thesituationist.wordpress.com/2007/12/22/the-milgram-experiment-today/

https://theintercept.com/2018/03/15/washington-breaks-out-the-just-following-orders-nazi-defense-for-cia-director-designate-gina-haspel/

https://edaksel.com/2020/04/10/how-nazi-medical-experiments-affected-human-rights/

https://forward.com/life/423595/growing-up-with-mengele/

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story/2017/02/guatemala_syphilis_experiments_worse_than_tuskegee.html

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=d367e14956a8458eb639304b66892d71

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/25/nazis-escaped-on-red-cross-documents

https://jewishmuseummd.org/events/auschwitz-through-the-lens-of-the-ss/

Thank you