Mengele: The Complete Story

Based on their examination of more than five thousand pages of Dr. Josef Mengele's personal writings and other documents, the authors reconstruct the events of his thirty-year exile in South America

Based on five years' research and exclusive access to family papers, this highly engrossing book gives the fullest account yet published of Josef Mengele's life. Posner, a Manhattan attorney, and Ware, a British journalist, also examine the efforts to bring the doctor to trial and draw conclusions about why he was never caught. They separate fact from legend, account for the false trails that enticed West German and Israeli agents and self-appointed Nazi hunters, and describe the media circus in 1985 when the grave of the "Angel of Death" was finally found. The book is filled with startling touches, such as Mengele's first wife's comments after visiting her husband at Auschwitz when he was conducting his "experiments." The book is an exciting chronicle of escape, evasion, close calls and fearful loneliness. Through extended quotes from a diary Mengele kept from May 1960 until shortly before his death in 1979, plus the comments of many people who knew him at various stages, a memorable multifaceted portrait of "the world's most hated man" emerges. Photos. 50,000 first printing; $20,000 ad/promo; author tour. (June
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This well-written biography is far superior to Gerald Astor's The "Last" Nazi: the life and times of Dr. Joseph Mengele ( LJ 11/1/85). Through Mengele's son, the authors were given access to their subject's letters and private diaries. Judicious use of these materials represents the book's greatest strength. Though Mengele's nightmarish Auschwitz activities almost defy rational analysis, the authors have done their best. Fully two-thirds of the study, however, addresses Mengele's years of evasion, and it is here that a more "human" Mengele emergeslonely, frightened, and totally remorseless. Clearly documented and frequently exciting, this is the one popular account that libraries should acquire. Mark R. Yerburgh, Trinity Coll. Lib., Burlington, Vt.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.