Early Life and Family
Josef Mengele was born the eldest of three children on March 16, 1911 to Karl and Walburga (Hupfauer) Mengele in Günzburg, Bavaria, Germany. His younger brothers were Karl Jr and Alois Mengele. Mengele's father was a founder of the Karl Mengele & Sons company, a company that produced farm machinery for milling, sawing, and baling.
In 1935, Mengele earned a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Munich. In January 1937, at the Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene in Frankfurt, he became the assistant to Dr. Otmar Freiherr von Verschuer, who was a leading scientist mostly known for his research in genetics, with a particular interest in twins. In addition, Mengele studied under Theodor Mollison and Eugen Fischer, who had been involved in medical experiments on the Herero tribe in South-West Africa, now Namibia.
On July 28, 1939, Mengele married Irene Schönbein, whom he had met while studying in Leipzig. Their only son, Rolf, was born in 1944. Five years after Mengele fled to Buenos Aires in 1949, his wife Irene divorced him. She continued to live in Germany with their son. On July 25, 1958, in Nueva Helvecia, Uruguay, Mengele married Martha Mengele, widow of his deceased brother Karl. Martha had arrived in Buenos Aires in 1956 with her son, Karl-Heinz Mengele.
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