Switzerland has released a 200-page intelligence dossier on Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor at Auschwitz known as the “Angel of Death” for conducting horrific medical experiments on prisoners, including children.
The Swiss Federal Intelligence Service (FIS) published the dossier on Thursday, making the records available to the public after years of restrictions on access. Some passages have been redacted to protect intelligence sources and the personal data of third parties.
Mengele, a German physician and member of the SS, worked at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp during the Second World War, where he carried out experiments on prisoners and participated in the selection of inmates for the gas chambers.
After the war, Mengele escaped Europe using a false identity and eventually fled to South America. He lived in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil, where he died in 1979 after suffering a stroke while swimming.
The newly released Swiss records could shed further light on his movements after the war and his connections to Switzerland. The dossier had been held by the Swiss Federal Archives since 2001 after being transferred there by the predecessor of the country’s intelligence service.
Access to the file had previously been restricted until the end of 2071. Switzerland’s intelligence service had rejected a request to inspect the records as recently as February 2026.
The decision was challenged by a historian. During the subsequent proceedings, Swiss authorities determined that the Mengele dossier had been examined by the Bergier Commission, which investigated Switzerland’s role during the Second World War. A 2001 government decision required a more liberal approach to public access to records examined by the commission.
The intelligence service announced in May that it would reconsider its decision. On September 8, it formally ordered the release of the dossier with redactions, paving the way for its publication two days later.
The release has also prompted the Swiss Federal Intelligence Service to review its broader policy for granting access to archived intelligence records.
Mengele remains one of the most notorious figures associated with the Nazi concentration camp system. Historians have long sought records that could clarify how he evaded justice after the collapse of Nazi Germany and how European authorities tracked his movements before he disappeared into South America.
