Argentina opens files on Mengele, revealing how Nazi ‘Angel of Death’ evaded capture

The documents were released earlier this year under President Javier Milei’s declassification initiative.

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Argentina’s newly opened intelligence archives provide a detailed picture of how Josef Mengele — the Auschwitz doctor known for killing prisoners through medical experiments — spent years living comfortably in South America after World War II.

The documents, released earlier this year under President Javier Milei’s declassification initiative, reveal that authorities possessed extensive information on his activities but rarely acted on it.

Material in the files shows that by the time Argentina registered him as an immigrant in 1950, officials already had enough records to identify him as the same SS commander who selected victims at Auschwitz and carried out lethal procedures on twins.

Eyewitness accounts included in the collection describe him as a sadistic figure who carried out abuses in full view of his victims.

Investigative folders compiled by Argentine intelligence include immigration documents, surveillance summaries, photographs, international correspondence, foreign-language memos, and passport copies bearing his assumed identities.

The material suggests that various agencies tracked him separately but never consolidated their findings, allowing him to settle openly, acquire business interests and property, and even petition Argentine courts to restore his real name.

By the mid-1950s, officials were aware that he had married his brother’s widow, was raising her son, and operated a medical laboratory with financial help from his family.

An arrest request from West Germany arrived in 1959, but a judge dismissed it as politically driven.

After that, and with international scrutiny growing, Mengele disappeared into Paraguay and later Brazil.

A 1960 memo written after he had already left the country described his investments and noted his initial arrival using an Italian passport under the name Helmut Gregor.

Despite the late timing, intelligence officers continued to monitor press reports and exchange information with foreign agencies.

Records indicate he moved between rural safehouses in Brazil with assistance from Nazi sympathizers before dying in 1979 while swimming near São Paulo state. His remains were conclusively identified years later through forensic and DNA analysis