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42 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Insight into the dark side of genocide, April 22, 2000
This review is from: Mengele (Mass Market Paperback)
Though genocide is something that continues to fill evening news and panel discussions on clashes and conflicts in countries that seem like an eternity away, this book explores the dark side to the Holocaust, darker than normal because, in this unbelievable biography, genocide and Nazi evil is given a human face in the form of the smiling and smartly-dressed SS doctor, Josef Mengele. Known greatly by survivors and Holocaust historians/scholars, there is little literature out there that paints a complete portrait of this man, from his spoon-fed existence in Bavaria to his existence and later death in several South American havens, which, by sheltering this infamous Nazi, unwittingly spat in the face of international justice and law. The full story of his escape and hiding from the international community is described. Everything one could ask for on Mengele is contained within the pages of this book, sometimes shocking, sometimes sinister, sometimes bewildering, and often very thrilling. Posner's book reads like a fast-paced thriller, in which the reader is transported back into time and placed before the spectacle of Mengele, the "Angel of Death." This is the first book by Posner read by the reviewer, and he admits that he was (and continues to be) very impressed. Meticulously researched and even given access to Mengele's unpublished and largely unused diaries and autobiography (still not released by the Mengele family), this biography stands out over all other 'attempts,' for they all fail miserably to even try to surpass or compete against Posner's masterpiece. He is to be commended on a fine job in painting a vivid portrait of Mengele. Hopefully, readers will begin to see the truth behind the many distortions surrounding the Holocaust and its perpetration - and that the perpetrators of this nightmarish bloodbath were human beings like everyone else, not a label of dissent that brings about a rift between Holocaust (or any other genocidal) perpetrators, and thus ensuring that genocide continues forever. Most certainly, Mengele's deeds were monstrous, but their monstrosity does not change the fact that he was still human, just like us. If we forget this fact, then genocidal forces existing within the souls of us all will continue forever. Find out all this for yourselves, fellow readers, and read this book.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Complete Story of the Manhunt of the 20th Century, December 30, 2001
A comprehensive account of the education, career, life as a fugitive, and strange death of one of the most notorious of the Nazi war criminals. Posner and Ware use thoroughly researched historical sources, including Mengele's own autobiography to tell this story. To his education and strange doctoral thesis in anthropology on "Racial Morphological Research on the Lower Jaw Section of Four Racial Groups," to his bizarre medical career involving his well know human experimentation and his less well known job of interviewing and examining subjects to determine their racial purity, the authors do a fine job of recounting Mengele's early education and career. Of greater interest, however, is the story of his escape from Europe and life on the run in various South American countries. The story of how he was able to evade for 33 years the most comprehensive manhunt (probably in history), makes for interesting reading. The book recounts how he was able to make and maintain strategic friends and alliances, in South America, and hold onto contacts, friends, and family still living in Germany. Included is the story of a fascinating account of the visit of his son Rolf, about 1 year before his father's death, in a secret rendezvous in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in which Rolf confronted his father and made him justify his involvement in some of histories worst atrocities. This book shows how the world's most hunted man was able to evade capture, cultivate friends and alliances, and even receive medical care under an assumed identity. In light or recent events, raises questions in the reader's mind if such a notorious figure (such as Osama bin Ladin) could do as well, escaping capture over a manhunt lasting decades. A truly interesting story, well worth the moderate time investment to read. ...
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54 of 68 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Mengele: A Study in Unapologetic and Pitiless Evil, September 10, 2000
I do not claim to be an expert in holocaust studies, but I suspect that the collaboration of Gerald Posner and John Ware on this work dealing with the diabolically evil Josef Mengele is among the very best analysis of the Nazi phenomenon ever put together. The fact that these two gentlemen were essentially outsiders who found themselves thrust into a world and a mind set alien to their everyday life may have provided them with the objectivity and clear thinking needed to truly pursue such an enigma as Mengele. William Shirer and other foreign journalists had to control an overwhelming urge to laugh at the Nazis while covering their meetings in the late 1920's and early 30's. Nobody took these comical losers seriously. The consensus was that the Adolph Hitler and his bizarre cronies would shortly disappear into political oblivion never to be heard from again. Josef Mengele was barely a teenager during this time and lived in a solidly upper middle class family that probably would have snubbed Hitler, the former WW1 corporal, if their paths had ever crossed. The young Mengele was raised a staunch Catholic, a religious belief system he would later reject for the secular absolutist faith of Nazism. Nonetheless, it is virtually certain that the pervasive anti-Semitism of German Catholicism was Mengele's first introduction to an intense hostility towards Jews he would forevermore embrace. Mengele, an unexceptional student, had a driving ambition to succeed and make a name for himself. It appears that Mengele was indifferent about politics when he opted to study "anthropology and human genetics, so I could study the whole range of medicine." This fateful educational choice, though, would allow Mengele to offer talents to the Nazis who were more than willing to reward the young medical student with the respect and position he so desperately desired. Mengele was a quintessential result of a politically correct educational system that prohibited the academic freedom and search for truth valued as a mandatory norm in viable democratic societies. Nazi dogmas pervaded every department of the universities during Mengele's critical intellectual formative years. Dissent was not tolerated. There simply was no such thing as a give and take exchange of ideas that would have revealed the Nazi views on race and ethnicity as ludicrous ramblings of immature and hateful minds. The new introduction by Michael Berenbaum failed miserably to even deal with the threat of political correctness to the educational and political institutions of modern day America. Does Berenbaum mistakenly perceive that Liberals may occasionally goof up, but the real enemy is always to the Right? Could this also explain the peculiar infatuation of many American Jews with Evita Peron? Posner and Ware aptly prove that Juan and Evita Peron provided shelter to fugitive Nazis and were never friendly towards Jews. Do Evita's socialist economic ideas somehow make her seem more virtuous and humane? Why were there not protests and rage directed towards Andrew Lloyd Webber when his musical was released some twenty years ago? Also, the authors never once address the socialistic economic policies of the Third Reich. Hitler's Germany was never in any way, shape, or form, a paragon of conservative Libertarian economic values. Why do Liberal prefer to downplay, if not outright ignore this fact? Mengele was sane and easily grasped the reality that people and institutions adhering to the values of Western Civilization would severely take him to task if they ever got their hands on him. Often those who primarily advocate a therapeutic way of looking at the world prefer to believe that someone who commits the horrifying crimes of a Josef Mengele are mentally unbalanced. How does someone torture and murder children and not even require copious amounts of alcohol and drugs to get through the day? The vast majority of us, thankfully, would not inflict such cruel suffering on animals much less our fellow human beings. Yet, other than Mengele's proclivity of losing his temper at any given moment, the man would have probably pass a series of tests dealing with his sanity with flying colors. Many people, especially Mengele's own family, protected him. The only thing one can say in their defense is that they perhaps deluded themselves into believing that someone so dear could not actually commit such horrifying deeds. Mengele, the convinced Nazi, evaded justice on this side of the grave. The only real price he paid during his last years was that of extreme loneliness and severely restricted finances. "Mengele: The Complete Story" reads like a fictional thriller. The book, needless to add, is not escapist entertainment. It may, however, be a moral obligation to read in order to more completely understand how such monstrous incidents occurred in the not so distant past. We might even learn how to limit such crimes against humanity in our own century.
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