A German doctor who was born on the 16 March 1911 and died on the 7 February 1979. Following the Nazi rise to power, Mengele joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and the SS in 1938, eventually making the rank of captain. Mengele is most well-known for his role as a doctor at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Mengele supervised the selection of arriving transports of prisoners, determining who was to be killed and who was to become forced labour. His other main role was performing human experiments on camp prisoners. Mengele escaped Germany following the end of the Second World War, and died in hiding in 1979 after having a stroke when swimming.