Word: gunzburgs
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From the very beginning, the Mengele story has been riddled with irony and anomaly. Born in 1911 into the affluent family that controlled Gunzburg's main industry, Josef mastered his studies with ease and by his mid-20s had earned doctor of philosophy and medical degrees. After World War II broke out, Mengele decided that he could best serve Hitler's Reich as an SS doctor. In 1943 he was assigned to Auschwitz-Birkenau...
...decades the well-respected family in the picturesque Bavarian town of Gunzburg had kept the secret, much as Sicilian clans honor omerta, the code of silence. Stories about searches for and sightings of the Auschwitz death doctor had come and gone, but the Mengeles of Gunzburg said nothing, never offering so much as a sliver of information about Josef Mengele's possible fate to the West German investigators assigned to the case. "Not once," said - Hans-Eberhard Klein, the federal prosecutor who has handled the West German part of the probe since 1974. "Never...
Even as Rolf and Dieter finally spoke out, attempts last week to question other Mengeles proved unsuccessful. In Gunzburg (pop. 19,000), the town where most of the clan resides, family members were "not available," either at their homes or at the headquarters of Karl Mengele & Sons, the family-run farm-machinery and hydraulic-press concern that is Gunzburg's largest employer. In Munich, 120 miles to the southeast, some Mengele relatives were so wary of newsmen that they took nameplates off their doorbells...
Nonetheless, the Mengeles seemed certain to retain the loyalty of many of Gunzburg's citizens, in large measure because of local pride in and reliance on the Mengele firm. The company was founded in 1907 by Karl Mengele, Josef's father and the man to whom the family's passion for privacy and self-reliance can be traced. During his military service in World War I, the elder Mengele left his wife in charge of his business, establishing a tradition of keeping the firm securely in family hands...
...revenues amounted to $82 million. The firm is run by Dieter Mengele and his cousin Karl-Heinz and is considered a fair employer and a generous civic donor. According to local police, the Mengeles have never reported a threat against their lives or their properties. Advertising signs saying MENGELE-GUNZBURG dot the sides of roads in the vicinity of the town; the firm's slogan, MENGELE -- THE BETTER IDEA, is splashed across the side of a plant building, clearly visible to motorists passing on a nearby expressway...