Josef Mengele

The film uncovers a part of the Holocaust that was once thought to be unrecorded, but thanks to Washington D.C. Holocaust Museum's work there is now documentation and photographic evidence of what life was like behind the fences of the death camp at Auschwitz. This film profiles a series of contrasting photos - one series portrays the banality of evil, while the other profiles the horror of life behind the wire.

This portrait that goes against the grain depicts the Führer as a lazy, isolated leader, cut off from reality, incapable of governing without his "apostles". They are Hitler's essential ministers, advisers, rivals, courtiers. They hate each other, and the Führer puts them in competition, often to get the worst out of them. The portraits of Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, Albert Speer but also Rudolf Hoess, the commandant of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp, and Doctor Joseph Mengele trace the rivalries, hatreds and predations that punctuate the entire frightening epic of Nazism. This documentary is composed of a selection of archive images and testimonies from descendants and specialists of this period.

He was one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, infamous for his deadly experiments on twins. But at the end of WWII, he simply disappeared. Despite a global manhunt by Mossad and the allies, he would die a free man, 34 years later, in Brazil. Who was Dr Mengele? What did he do after the war? And why was he never caught? We speak to those who knew him and profile the 'angel of death'.

World in Action was Granada Television’s flagship ITV current affairs series, running from 7 Jan 1963 to 7 Dec 1998, and built a reputation for film-led investigative reporting and a forceful editorial stance. Its journalism produced major public and political repercussions—including investigations associated with miscarriages of justice such as the Birmingham Six—and it also served as a platform for landmark documentary projects, including the first broadcast of “Seven Up!” as part of the strand in 1964.