Excellent book.Couldn't put it down.A touchy subject that most won't write about but if no one does then we will never learn from our past.The author tackles the subject of his life,evils and in the end his loneliness.

That's the feeling one -regretably- obtains after going thru all the pages of this book. One quarter of it is dedicated to his ignominious "works", so it's the only chance we get to know about this criminal; because the other three quarters are about the his wherabouts since the war ended.

There are no first hand testimonies or interviews to peersons who knew him. It all sounds like third person stories, and this is not to question his atrocities at all: there's more than proof to have had him executed many times. I am not looking for necrophilic detail or sadistic descriptions. What I wanted is to know the man closer, his way of thinking, his circumstance, his motivations. The book deals with this very, very, superficially.

The hunt can't be called exactly a hunt, not by far as interesting as the The House on Garibaldi Street (Classics of Espionage) on Eichmann, one of the most exciting books I've read of any subject.

Posner's book lacks substance, grip, interest. A subject like this guy is almost hard not to make it interesting.

A very helpful, scholarly bio with information about Mengele's entire life. A great book for those seeking more than just an overview of Mengele. If you want to know more about Mengele's work, visit the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's website for "Deadly Medicine" exhibition, now at Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta this summer (2007).

Was hard to stay interested in this book. I found it very boring to read.

First of all: A damned good book! Bonechilling material!! Furthermore:
What kind of punishment do you give a man like Mengele?
Deathpenalty? Life in prison? The first one is over too quick and the second one is too easy. No, I think Mengele has got the best punishment he could have. He was 34 years on the run. Never had a moment of peace in his entire life after the ending of WW2. The stress it brought him, even gave him a shorter span of life. He developed a lot of stress related sickness. Always had to look over his shoulder. Did they recognize him? Was this his last day of "freedom"? If he had been sentenced for life in prison he could have reached, like Hess, a respectable age well over 80 years old. Now he died 68 years of age. Alone and forgotten in some Godforsaken place in Brazil. He sticked, untill his dead, to his beliefs about the Nazi's and the Jews. A rigid and untolereant character of a man.
He never got the chance to fullfill a job on his intelectuel level, always lowpaid workman's labour. Never could socialise with people of his intelect. That hurt him like hell. So, in fact, life in "freedom" was in fact life in hell. Never the hell he created for the people who died through his hands or command. But even we, as normal people, couldn't give him, if he had be captured, the torments he gave all those other innocent people. For that, we are to civilised. No, I think it has been for the best that he stayed on the run. He punished himself with it. More then we ever could give to him. I feel sorry for his son Rolf. You only get one biological father in your life and he got this one.

Overall, I felt this was a book worth reading in order to get a good overview of Mengle especially after World War II (which was the focus of this book). At times it seemed to drag when it went into excruiting detail about the different agencies who were trying to catch Mengele and why they all failed.

Overall, I felt this was a book worth reading in order to get a good overview of Mengle especially after World War II (which was the focus of this book). At times it seemed to drag when it went into excruiting detail about the different agencies who were trying to catch Mengele and why they all failed.

It is a very well documented book about nazy criminals. I appreciate the author( I also read the book about Chinese Mafia) and i think is somehow impartial in the context of a jewish ruled world where everything anti-jewish is seen Holocaust-ic. thank You

It is a very well documented book about nazy criminals. I appreciate the author( I also read the book about Chinese Mafia) and i think is somehow impartial in the context of a jewish ruled world where everything anti-jewish is seen Holocaust-ic. thank You

I have only read half of the first chapter so far, which acts as a reason for this review being so short compared to the others. However, despite the lack of reading done so far, this book has proved the to be one of the most useful in my current studies. I am currently researching Josef Mengele for an essay on genocide, and this book is wonderful for my studies. The accounts from Mengele himself have proved hugely useful so far, rather than only hearing every account from a second source. It lets you get right down into Mengele's mind, even if he does not give everything away. Despite the fact that, based on the other reviews, this book does not go very much into the detail of what he did in Auschwitz-Berkenau, this book is extremely useful, and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in seeing what can affect the future choices of someone who, according to the book "Children of the Flames" by Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel, his family would say he was the most friendly and humane of his brothers, could be so influenced as to believe that some races are inferior and can be treated as guinea pigs.

I would recommend this book to any library, public, private, or school, for it has helped my essay substantially so far just from half of the first chapter.

The one chapter about all the horror in Auschwitz is enough to show that Mengele was not a member of the human species and no human attributes should ever be applied to "him" in the past, present, and future. He thought the Jews and other victims were sub-human. Why doesn't this apply to him exponentially? It is absolutely devastating that someone like Mengele, who deserved the absolute worst evaded capture for decades as this book clearly shows. He will now have a much harder time evading capture from God. This book needs to be read by more people in the world so hopefully something more positive in society could come about from these horrors.