The Six-Day War enters the narrative through Josef Mengele’s reaction to it from exile in Brazil. Watching the conflict unfold on television, he interprets Israel’s victories not as distant news but as another sign of a world turning against the political order he still clings to; the war compounds the fear and disillusionment already stirred by the arrest of Franz Stangl.

Background and Context

In February, Brazilian authorities arrested Franz Stangl, the former commandant of Sobibor and Treblinka, at his home in São Paulo and swiftly extradited him to West Germany. When the news became public, Gerhard hurried to Serra Negra to tell Mengele that he was considering speaking in Stangl’s defence. Mengele calmed him and urged him to curb his neo-Nazi activities around São Paulo, which could attract police attention and lead investigators to Mengele himself.

The War Through Mengele’s Eyes

In June, Mengele followed the Six-Day War daily on a television set that Geza Stammer had given his sons a few weeks earlier. He regarded Gamal Abdel Nasser as treacherous and compared him unfavourably with Juan Perón. The narrative presents Mengele as unable to accept the defeat of the Arab armies or Israel’s gains in Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Sinai, and Palestine. His response exposes how he filtered events through old political loyalties rather than confronting the realities of the changing world around him.

Consequences and Significance

The conflict adds to the torment Mengele already feels over Stangl’s capture. The two events are linked in the account by their effect on his sense of security: a prominent former camp commandant has been seized and extradited, while the war’s outcome confirms, for Mengele, that the political landscape is shifting beyond his control. The Six-Day War is therefore presented less as a military chronicle than as a measure of his isolation and his inability to make sense of a world that no longer belongs to him.