The Dark Story of Josef Mengele — 34 Years on the Run and a Grave With Another Man's Name

In June 1985, police in Embu, Brazil, opened a grave marked "Wolfgang Gerhard". The skull they lifted out belonged to the most wanted fugitive of the 20th century: Josef Mengele, the Auschwitz doctor prisoners called the Angel of Death. This documentary is not about his crimes in detail. Those belong to his victims. It is about the man himself: the vain, charming son of a rich factory family from Günzburg, the ambitious young scientist, and the fugitive who escaped justice for 34 years. Under the names Fritz Hollmann, Helmut Gregor and Wolfgang Gerhard, he lived on a Bavarian farm, in Buenos Aires, in Paraguay and on a farm near São Paulo, while Israel, West Germany and Nazi hunters searched for him. In 1985 the search ended at a cheap grave, and in 1992 a DNA test closed the case. CHAPTERS 0:00 Embu, June 1985 — the grave 2:10 The Hunt — February 1985 5:00 File 01 — The Factory Owner's Son 7:14 File 02 — The Scientist 10:01 The Hunt — May 1985 12:12 File 03 — The Soldier 14:16 File 04 — The Ramp 17:47 File 05 — Vanishing 20:33 File 06 — The Ratline 22:17 The Hunt — June 1985 24:19 File 07 — Señor Gregor 26:58 File 08 — The Net Tightens 29:40 File 09 — The Tower 32:48 The Hunt — The Skull 34:51 File 10 — The Last Visitor 37:39 The Hunt — 1992, the DNA test 38:40 Epilogue — The Lesson Sources: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Auschwitz Memorial; Deutsche Biographie; Deutsches Historisches Museum (LeMO); City of Günzburg; Israel Police report (Jewish Virtual Library); CIA Reading Room; University of Leicester; UPI (1992); Cabinet Magazine; BBC Mundo; CANDLES Holocaust Museum; Wikipedia. Maps: Natural Earth; historical borders: historical-basemaps (A. Ourednik). Borders and routes are approximate. Documents marked RECONSTRUCTION are reconstructions, not copies of originals. Music and sound effects were created for this video. This is an educational history documentary. It does not glorify or promote Nazism or any extremist ideology. We remember the victims and honour the survivors, among them Eva Mozes Kor. Photo credits: Yad Vashem (Auschwitz Album, 1944) and USHMM (Höcker Album, 1944), public domain; U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, Israel GPO, Archivo General de la Nación (Argentina): public domain; Library of Congress (FSA/OWI, no known restrictions); Nationaal Archief / Anefo (CC0); Bundesarchiv (CC BY-SA 3.0 DE); Governo do Estado de São Paulo (CC BY 2.0); Jackdawson1970 (CC BY-SA 3.0). CC BY / BY-SA via Wikimedia Commons and Flickr: BadSwan, Manuel Lampre, Florian Schott, Lars K. Jensen, milan.boers, archer10 (Dennis), Adam Jones, Sammlung Risch-Lau (Vorarlberger Landesbibliothek), tedeytan, Lukaaz, Franzfoto, roger4336, Dietmar Rabich, Marlis Decker, Hpschaefer, -wuppertaler, Flocci Nivis, Reinhardhauke, Helmlechner, Carsten Steger, Crunchydillpickle, Seattle Municipal Archives, dustpuppy, Möbius, Cassowary Colorizations, Vince Alongi, loritoarai, Altstadt, Büschel, G.Piezinger, Diego3336, markhillary, Rhys A., fototaube, Klaus Bärwinkel, Anosmia, MelisaTG, Gaetano Morvillo Neto, Gerd Eichmann, David Shankbone. CC0 / public domain: Lopezsuarez, Rudolph Buch, svensmail, Aussie~mobs, GovHolcomb, WWII in View. Other images: free licences or public domain via Wikimedia Commons (authors on each file page). #WW2 #Mengele #History