Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
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 16 (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
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. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A biography of the so-called ""Angel of Death,"" whose grisly medical experiments on Jewish twins at Auschwitz put him high on every Nazi-hunter's list of most wanted men. Posner, a New York lawyer, who is recognized as a leading authority on Mengele, researched this book for five years, long before the discovery last year of Mengele's remains in Broil. In researching it, he was ultimately provided more than 5,000 pages of letters, diaries, and other biographical writings of Mengele by Rolf, Mengele's son. This account, then, will take the title of ""definitive"" over several other books recently or soon-to-be published. Among the revelations Posner offers is the incredible fact that for a brief time after the war, Mengele was actually incarcerated by American soldiers under his own name, but as a result of ignorance and the disorganization of the Americans, he managed to escape. Mengele seems to have led almost a charmed life in this respect. In 1962, the Israeli Mossad came practically face-to-face with him, before being recalled to Israel because of government priorities. Posner also tells of a plot hatched by the Mengele family to fake Josef's death. (The Mengele family name had been for years--and still is--synonymous with farm machinery in Bavaria. To this day, they own large property holdings around the world, including farmland in America's Midwest.) Readers can be grateful that Posner does not overdo the grisly details of Mengele's experiments. (Auschwitz accounts only for one-eighth of the book.) What Posner does offer is a cloak-and-dagger account of the attempts to locate Mengele in Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, and of Mengele's frantic attempts to stay one step ahead of his would-be captors. A sound, respectable work of research. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
