Josef Mengele—Hans-Ulrich Rudel

Josef Mengele—Hans-Ulrich Rudel was an alliance of ideological affinity and practical protection. Hans-Ulrich Rudel offered Mengele admiration, counsel, contacts, and repeated help across Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil; Mengele, in turn, confided in a fellow Nazi whose wartime reputation and postwar influence made him both a model and a valuable intermediary. Their relationship culminated in Rudel’s direct role in Mengele’s escape from Paraguay in 1960.

Recognition and Shared Convictions

Mengele regarded Rudel as an exceptional figure well before their alliance became a channel for escape. Rudel had been shot down thirty-two times, lost a leg below the knee, and returned to combat in February 1945. Two months after his operation, he flew a Stuka and destroyed twenty-six Soviet tanks before surrendering to the Allies on 8 May. Hitler had personally awarded him the Knight’s Cross with golden oak leaves, swords, and diamonds. When Rudel showed Mengele the decoration, Mengele looked at him with open wonder and saw in him an exemplar of the racial and military hierarchy he believed in.

Rudel’s standing rested on more than his wartime record. He played tennis with a prosthesis, had climbed Aconcagua, and cultivated an image of physical endurance and continuing action. He and Mengele met at the ABC Restaurant when Rudel passed through Buenos Aires. Although Mengele held only the relatively low rank of SS captain, Rudel treated him as a fellow German warrior. Their friendship therefore offered Mengele recognition from a man whose achievements he considered extraordinary, while Rudel’s attention affirmed Mengele’s preferred image of himself.

Their long conversations revealed that the bond was founded on shared political premises, not simply personal admiration. Neither man drank alcohol; both favoured extended discussion and arithmetical reasoning. They also shared romantic disappointments and a view of their youth in the Weimar Republic as an age of national and moral decline. They blamed Germany’s defeat in the First World War on betrayal, embraced devotion to German people and bloodlines, and understood political life as an uncompromising struggle in which the weak should be eliminated. These convictions gave their companionship an ideological core.

Confession, Counsel, and Political Networks

In Rudel’s company, Mengele enlarged the account of his own past rather than concealing it. He presented himself as a doctor who had served racial purity and the German community, and defended his conduct at Auschwitz as a moral duty. The episode shows the distinction between secrecy about his identity and candour among trusted Nazi associates: with Rudel, Mengele could frame his crimes as service to the cause both men continued to endorse.

Rudel’s usefulness also came from his position in postwar South America. He advised Juan Perón and helped develop the Pulqui II, Argentina’s first South American jet fighter, alongside the German aircraft designer Kurt Tank. He made money as an intermediary between the Argentine air force and German industrial companies, including Daimler-Benz and Siemens-Dornier, and could travel between Europe and South America. He was also connected to Nazi escape and support networks, including ODESSA and Spider, and co-founded the Kameradenwerk relief organisation with Constantin von Neurath. The organisation sent parcels to imprisoned associates and paid legal fees. Rudel’s authority within these circles made his personal assistance part of a much wider web of protection.

That authority included both warning and restraint. When rumours circulated in Buenos Aires about Nazi treasure allegedly transferred to Argentina, Rudel told Mengele not to pursue or discuss it. The advice reflects a recurring feature of their relationship: Rudel did not merely supply encouragement; he also set limits, steering Mengele away from actions he considered dangerous. His influence combined fraternity with operational caution.

Paraguay as Opportunity and Contingency

Rudel helped redirect Mengele’s ambitions towards Paraguay. With support from his father and Hans Sedlmeier, Mengele agreed to represent the family agricultural machinery business in Argentina. Rudel encouraged him to investigate the wider South American market and flew him to Paraguay, where German farming colonies and fertile agricultural districts suggested commercial possibilities. Mengele travelled with equipment catalogues and developed contacts among farmers and German communities. Rudel’s friends in Villarrica offered a further connection to a country where, in Rudel’s account, Nazi networks had longstanding roots.

The relationship thus made a possible refuge appear at the same time as a business opportunity. Mengele came to regard Paraguay as a useful fallback if Argentina became unstable. That calculation gained force after Juan Perón’s fall in 1955, when the new authorities unsettled German-linked businesses and Rudel was placed under house arrest in Córdoba. Mengele considered Paraguay but initially stayed out of politics, stopped performing illegal abortions, and waited for the political storm to pass. His temporary decision not to leave did not dissolve the connection: Paraguay remained an option made more accessible by Rudel’s contacts.

Mengele’s relationship with Rudel was sustained by shared social life as well as strategic planning. At a gathering for Mengele’s fortieth birthday in March 1951, Rudel joined a circle of Nazi associates who presented him with an engraving of Albrecht Dürer’s Knight, Death and the Devil. The gift gave material form to a fellowship built around military self-image and a shared refusal to accept defeat as final. Later, as Mengele spent more time in Paraguay, he moved among people Rudel knew and introduced him to, including contacts in the German communities and circles close to the Paraguayan regime.

Protection Against Extradition

When legal pressure forced Mengele to leave Argentina, Rudel again became a key intermediary. In 1959, after a court in Freiburg issued an arrest warrant charging Mengele with multiple cases of murder and attempted murder, Hans Sedlmeier warned him that delay was no longer safe. Mengele needed to sell property and shares, close bank accounts, and find refuge. Rudel helped him seek Paraguayan citizenship, where the absence of an extradition treaty between West Germany and Paraguay offered a legal shield. When Mengele asked for a rural hiding place in a German community, Rudel turned to Alban Krug, who owned a farm in the Nueva Bavaria enclave near the Argentine border.

Rudel also intervened as the extradition danger developed. Requests moved slowly through Argentine and West German offices, while authorities in Paraguay knew an application was coming. Rudel approached the Paraguayan interior minister on Mengele’s behalf, portraying him as a politically pursued doctor who could be useful to Paraguay. In November 1959, Paraguay granted Mengele citizenship, a residence permit, a certificate of good behaviour, and an identity card, despite the problem that he had not met the required five-year residency period. Rudel’s intervention did not operate alone: it worked through personal contacts and a state willing to treat citizenship and sovereignty as barriers to foreign prosecution.

The alliance also overlapped with an attempted international hunt. Isser Harel planned for Mossad agents to capture Mengele shortly after the planned abduction of Adolf Eichmann in Buenos Aires. Mengele’s growing exposure and the danger to those around him made his Paraguayan refuge increasingly precarious. Meanwhile, Rudel remained a source of practical reassurance and assistance. His importance lay not in a single rescue but in helping connect Mengele to people, documents, and political protections across borders.

The Final Escape and Its Consequences

In September 1960, as Mossad monitored the movements of Mengele’s wife and son and approached Krug’s farm, Mengele decided that he had to disappear again. Rudel supplied a Mauser pistol and a new Brazilian identity card bearing the name Peter Hochbichler. Mengele separated from his wife and son, who returned to Europe without saying goodbye. He burned his notes and German passport and destroyed his Auschwitz specimens. At dawn in October, Rudel and Krug drove him by jeep to the Brazilian border. Krug urged him that the struggle was not over; Mengele did not turn back as he entered the jungle.

The escape marks the decisive outcome of the relationship. Rudel had helped Mengele convert admiration and ideological fellowship into a working system of mobility and concealment: first a Paraguayan refuge, then citizenship, a rural hiding place, and finally a route into Brazil under an assumed identity. After Mengele left, Rudel also informed Paraguayan President Alfredo Stroessner of his departure, while Paraguayan authorities continued to resist West German efforts to secure cooperation. The alliance could not make Mengele’s fugitive life secure, but it repeatedly bought him time and helped him evade the legal consequences of his crimes.