The German Doctor

I've recently watched a rather interesting Argentinian film, The German Doctor. It's a fictional story inspired by partially known real events, the months of exile spent in Bariloche, Argentina, by Nazi Doctor/Researcher/Psychopath, Josef Menguele

It's known that many Nazis found refuge in South America after WWII. One of the main routes to get there went through Spain (that in some cases was not just a stopover, but the final destination), which is not strange as Spain was under the dictatorship of Franco, that during the war had sympathised with Hitler (whatever hatred I feel for Franco and regardless of all the support he received from Germany and Italy during the Spanish Civil War, I have to admit that I don't think he was completely in line with Nazi ideology, though and important part of "his guys", the Falange scum mainly, were real Nazi admirers). What I was not so aware of is that the Argentinian president, Peron, was a nazi sympathizer, so while the large German community established in Argentine well before the War firmly helped the nazis to accomodate in the country, it was the Argentinian government itself who played the major role.

The film tells the story of how Mengele established for some months in Bariloche, helped by the local, pro-nazi, German community (and some "invisible hand" that seemed to fund him). There he continued his genetic "research", focused on a local family where the mother is pregnant with twins and the daugher is a teenager with serious growth problems. This family is fictional, and the stay of Menguele in Bariloche is not proved, but the shocking setting of the large pro-Nazi community with their German, "Nazi youth like" school, is quite realistic. By the way, it's amazing how Bariloche looked like and Alpine ville.

One can find a bit disturbing that for the most part Mengele is depicted as a rather kind, even charming, person, that at first seems pretty involved helping this family, even helping the father, that does not get on well with him since the beginning (indeed, this animosity makes the husband look like unfair). Well, from what I've watched in an old documentary, it's likely that Menguele was a bit like that. You can be a beast with those that you consider inferior, and a correct, kind person with the rest. The fact that Hitler loved his dogs is commonly used as an example.

There's a short but good interview with the writer-director, Lucía Puezo, here. She makes a smart reflection on how paradoxical it is that Nazis ended up finding refuge in such a Mestizo place as South America.

But I was especially interested in their obsession with genetics, with making the perfect race. It is almost a paradox that Mengele, so obsessed with racial purity, should end up in a continent (not only in Argentina – he spent a year in Paraguay and Brazil), where we all have mixed blood.