Watching soap operas, barbecues with friends and enjoying strudel from the local German patisserie.
It sounds like a blameless life of comfortable retirement.
But this was how Nazi doctor Josef Mengele – the monstrous ‘Angel of Death’ who inflicted untold misery on thousands of prisoners at Auschwitz – spent his final years.
The war criminal’s life in hiding in South America – mainly in Argentina and then in Brazil – is revealed in new book Hiding Mengele: How a Nazi Network Harbored The Angel of Death, by Brazilian author Betina Anton.
Mengele opened up about his life in dozens of letters sent back to his family in Germany – who kept their secret even as he was hunted by the authorities.
It was, as Ms Anton writes, a life ‘so prosaic’ that he bore ‘no resemblance to the malignant person who had sent thousands of innocent people to the gas chambers in Auschwitz.’
‘Although he always felt anxious and fearful of being caught at any moment, especially by the Mossad, he had enough freedom to do whatever he pleased,’ she adds.
She also reveals his unrepentant ‘hateful racism’, telling how at one point he raged over the number of black actors who featured in a hit Brazilian soap opera.
Nazi doctor Josef Mengele – the monstrous ‘Angel of Death’ who inflicted untold misery on thousands of prisoners at Auschwitz – escaped to South America after the Second World War. Above: Mengele photographed while living under his assumed identity (left); standing at a train window in his SS uniform, 1945 (right)
Mengele (center) joins a barbecue with friends at the house he lived at in Sao Paulo from 1975 until his death in 1979
The search involving Mossad – Israel’s feared intelligence agency – and Simon Wiesenthal, the world’s most famous Nazi hunter, ultimately failed in its ultimate goal of capturing Mengele.
The Nazi died from a heart attack aged 67 while swimming off the coast of Bertioga, Sao Paulo, in 1979.
Six years later, intelligence provided by German police led the authorities to open a weed-covered tomb in a small cemetery in the town of Embu, 17miles from Sao Paulo.
There, they found the remains of one of the world’s most hunted war criminals, who had been buried under the false identity – that of a Nazi sympathising friend – he had been using for years.
Ms Anton tells how it was her own former kindergarten teacher, Liselotte Bossert, who harboured Mengele for ten years of his time on the run – and then tried to ensure that his death would be kept secret.
Mengele was notorious for medical experiments on twins at Auschwitz, the most notorious of the Nazis’ network of death camps in occupied Poland.
He is alleged to have been responsible for the deaths of around 400,000 Jews.
The doctor was said to enjoy the procedures, despite the fact that he often inflicted immense pain and suffering on his victims.
He particularly interested in twins and people with conditions such as dwarfism.
After Nazi Germany’s defeat, Mengele was briefly taken prisoner by American troops, but was released because he did not feature on a list of major war criminals.
In 1949, he fled Germany for good, ultimately sailing to Argentina – where he lived under his own name until 1959.
He then moved first to Paraguay and then to Brazil. His passage into the country was eased by the real Wolfgang Gerhard, who he initially stayed with.
Mengele later spent a decade being hosted by Bossert and her husband and children.
Mengele lived for a decade with kindergarten teacher Liselotte Bossert and her husband and children. Above: The war criminal with his friend and her children
Josef Mengele’s foreign identity card, in the name of Wolfgang Gerhard, who was a friend of his
Mengele’s driving license, which was in the name of his friend, Wolfgang Gerhard
It was while living with them that he was particularly fearful of Mossad turning up and capturing him.
Ms Anton tells how he became so nervous that he, ‘swallowed an excessive amount of hair from his moustache and accumulated a ping-pong ball-sized clump of hair that caused a blockage in his intestines.’
After the ‘difficult year’ of 1974, in which Mengele’s youngest brother had died aged 60, the fugitive had become a ‘hot potato’ who ‘no one wanted’ in their homes, Ms Anton says.
In 1975, Mengele was forced to move to a small bungalow owned by Liselotte in the Eldorado region of Sao Paolo.
The Nazi would prepare his own coffee in the mornings, but did have a maid.
He had two dogs, Zigan and Buzi, who would be waiting for him when he returned from grocery shopping.
The mass murderer also enjoyed walks in the forest, where would pick raspberries.
And, twice a week, he would travel into what he called the ‘city’ – southern Sao Paulo – to run errands. This could include sending letters and paying the electricity bill.
While out, he enjoyed buying a piece of strudel from a German patisserie.
On Wednesdays, he would be visited by Liselotte’s husband Wolfram Bossert, who would sometimes be joined by his wife and their children.
On Sundays, his gardener Luis, who was a teenager when he started working for the war criminal, would come to chat.
The young man had no idea of Mengele’s real identity.
He would bring his sister and they would watch TV with the war criminal, who sometimes mention that he had been in the Second World War.
But Mengele did not shield his overt racism.
Mengele (centre) seen with Auschwitz commandant Richard Baer (left) and former commandant Rudolf Hoess in the grounds of the SS retreat outside Auschwitz, 1944
A photograph taken by a police photographer in Buenos Aires in 1956, for Mengele’s Argentine identification document
Mengele with Nazi geneticist Hans Grebe. Mengele was notorious for medical experiments on twins at Auschwitz. He is alleged to have been responsible for the deaths of around 400,000 Jews
He told Luis not to interact with black people and it was to him that criticised the hit soap opera Escrava Isaura (The Slave Isaura), saying there were too many non-white people in it.
In a letter to ex-wife, Martha, in 1976, Mengele described buying new furniture for his house, including a sofa, two armchairs and an ornate table for his TV.
He told her: ‘My cage is becoming more and more habitable, but I wonder: why so many places to sit? Seldom does any of the few people I know come to visit!’
By then, the Nazi suffered from difficulty walking, frequent cramps and continued to be hit by ‘unbearable’ migraines he had had since his teenage years.
He was also hospitalised after suffering a stroke. Although he was discharged, he remained frail for the rest of his life.
He was still well enough to enjoy a barbeque with friends, which was organised in the garden of his home by his friend Norberto Glawe.
His son Rolf visited him in Brazil in 1977, more than 20 years after the pair had gone on a skiing holiday to Switzerland.
Rolf claimed not to have learned that his father was alive until 1960. On the skiing holiday, he was told that Mengele was an uncle.
The younger Mengele used the passport of a friend to avoid arousing suspicion. He spent a week with his father, who later wrote of their time together.
He said the reunion ‘went as I’d hoped, all in all it was positive’.
But he added: ‘The two of us got on well, even though we didn’t share many similarities.
‘In our political views, however, we are so far apart that I considered such discussions pointless and avoided them.’
Mengele’s final days were spent in Bertioga, on the coast. There, in February 1979, he stayed with Liselotte and her family.
It was while with them that he drowned after having a heart attack while in the sea.
The Mail’s report from June 1985, after Mengele’s body was exhumed and his false identity revealed
The Daily Mail front page on June 8, 1985, when a picture of Mangele living as Wolfgang Gerhard was released
The Daily Mail’s original report of the exhumation of Mengele’s remains
Ms Anton writes: ‘Mengele would die in the arms of his friends, after drowning in the sea.
‘Despite the deep fear of ending his existence without love and without affection, he took his last breath surrounded by his faithful protectors.’
It was Liselotte who ensured that Mengele was buried with the name of his friend, Wolfgang Gerhard, who had given him his Brazilian identity documents in 1971.
After what were believed to be his skeletal remains were exhumed in 1985, forensic tests provided adequate confirmation.
Rolf Mengele said the family had remained silent about his father’s death to avoid endangering those who had been sheltering him.
In a statement, he expressed the ‘deepest sympathy’ for his father’s victims.
DNA testing in 1992 provided definitive confirmation that the exhumed bones belonged to Mengele.
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Read more at DailyMail.co.uk