Munich holds two sharply different places in Josef Mengele’s story: it belongs to the remembered world of his student years, and later becomes the city where an attempt to move inconspicuously through Germany ends in police scrutiny. Its significance lies in that reversal. The large city seems to offer concealment, but an ordinary collision makes his identity a matter for the authorities and hastens his departure.

Study and ambition

In a recollection of his youth, Mengele sees himself as a student in Munich, Vienna, and Frankfurt during the upheaval of the 1930s. The passage contrasts his diligence with classmates who spent time drinking, sparring, and playing at importance in the S.A. His studies brought recognition from prominent figures in eugenics and heredity research, including Eugen Fischer and Professor Mollinson, whose recommendation led him to Otmar von Verschuer. That academic trajectory connected the cities of his education to later work at the University of Frankfurt’s Institute for Hereditary Biology and Racial Hygiene and, ultimately, to Auschwitz and the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics.

Munich is named as one part of that formative geography, not as the site of a specific experiment or appointment. In the remembered account, it helps establish the distance between the ambitious student Mengele believed himself to have been and the fugitive who later moves through the same city under pressure. His recollection presents academic recognition as a source of pride; the later Munich episode instead tests whether his former standing and family connections can protect him.

A proposed refuge

After ten days of winter sports, Mengele becomes increasingly apprehensive. He believes that his name is on a list of war criminals, distrusts those around him, and thinks his family fails to understand the danger. He decides to visit a former friend from SS Division Wiking, a pharmacist in Munich. He had hidden with this man for a month after retrieving his notes and samples in the Soviet Zone during his escape, before moving on to a farm.

The plan treats Munich as a practical refuge. Mengele thinks the anonymity of a large city is preferable, intends to travel by car, and relies on Sedlmeier to rent an Opel in his name. He still hopes to spend several days in Günzburg and discuss business with his family, including possible destinations in Argentina, Paraguay, and Chile. The plan is therefore not a settled return to Germany but a temporary visit linked to concealment, family affairs, and the choice of where to go next.

Collision and police attention

On the drive, Mengele listens to the radio and searches for classical music, irritated by reports about the Bundeswehr’s participation in NATO manoeuvres, a Judaeo-Christian friendship circle in Frankfurt, and the Israeli Trade Mission in Cologne. While looking down to adjust the controls, he crashes into a car that has braked suddenly in front of him. The collision is slight, but the encounter that follows exposes how fragile his intended anonymity is.

Mengele offers cash for the damage and urges the other driver not to make a report. She insists that the law must be followed. When she retrieves documents, he becomes aggressive and threatens to leave; she calls the police. Bystanders gather, and one man records the Opel’s number plate. A patrol car arrives, and the officer, puzzled by Mengele’s Argentine papers and heavy Bavarian accent, orders him to remain in Munich until his identity has been verified. The episode turns an effort to avoid attention into a direct encounter with official scrutiny.

Intervention and departure

Once the police leave, Mengele runs to a phone booth and calls his father, trembling. Two hours later, Karl Mengele, his lawyer, the chief of police of Günzburg, and Sedlmeier arrive at police headquarters in central Munich. Sedlmeier carries a black briefcase. The group meets the reporting officer, goes out for a beer, and negotiates an arrangement. The account presents the intervention as a practical effort to resolve the immediate danger, without specifying the terms of the deal.

Mengele flies to South America the following day. Munich’s role in the episode is thus brief but decisive: the city first represents the anonymity he expects a metropolis to provide, then becomes the place where a traffic accident compromises that expectation. The contrast with his recalled student years is equally stark. The earlier Munich belongs to the story of education and ambition; the later one is marked by fear, an identity check, and reliance on others to manage the consequences of his presence.