Das Verschwinden des Josef Mengele

Dr. Josef Mengele entschied im KZ Auschwitz, wer als „arbeitsfähig“ eingestuft und wer sofort ermordet wurde. Zudem unternahm er mörderische Experimente an den Häftlingen. Verantworten musste sich Mengele für seine Verbrechen nicht, er lebte bis zu seinem Tod 1979 in Südamerika. Serebrennikows Spielfilm erzählt in trostlosem Schwarz-Weiß verschiedene Episoden aus der Nachkriegszeit, in denen sich Mengele als reueloser Nazi vor allem selbst bemitleidet und in paranoider Angst vor der Entdeckung lebt. Eine einzige Auschwitz-Rückblende kommt wie ein farbiger „Urlaubsfilm“ des Grauens daher – offenbar die schönste Zeit in seinem Leben. (Lars Penning)

Am 17.10. in Anwesenheit von Kirill Serebrennikov.

Widely known as the Angel of Death for his crimes against humanity, Nazi physician Josef Mengele escaped trial by adopting and living under various false identities in Latin America, much like other architects of the Holocaust. In post-war Germany, his son—largely unaware of the atrocities committed by his father—sets out to uncover the truth about him. Kirill Serebrennikov portrays Mengele as both pathological and disturbingly ordinary. He appears as an abusive husband, a despotic lover, an egocentric father and an isolated radical above all. Despite being socially ostracised, he remains unrepentant. August Diehl’s performance captures all these contradictions—remorseless yet tormented, obsessive yet delusional, manic yet impotent—in one of the actor’s most complex roles to date. As Nazi ideology collapses, Mengele’s worldview does not falter but instead crystallises into a perverse sense of righteousness. His stance reflects not the banality of evil, but its grotesque elevation: a belief in his own superiority fuelled by a distorted sense of victimhood. In this way, the film becomes a commentary on contemporary structures of perpetration and impunity that persist without external systems of accountability. (Evgeny Gusyatinskiy)

Kirill Serebrennikov: RAGIN (2004), PLAYING THE VICTIM (2006), YURI’S DAY (2008), CRUSH (2009), BETRAYAL (2012), THE STUDENT (2016), LETO (2018), PETROV’S FLU (2021), TCHAIKOVSKY’S WIFE (2022), LIMONOV: THE BALLAD (2024)