Dr. Mengele Passport Found

[Leroy]

Well...at least it has a green cover! It must be the real thing!

(Looks sort of like your Serbian one, D.)

[alexanderautogr]

A search in the German internet brings up an article in "Der Spiegel" with the alleged names used by Mengele:
(http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-330311.html)

"After going underground in Bavaria for four years, he obtained a Red Cross passport in 1949 and escaped to South America, where he spent 30 years traveling through Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil under a host of fake names: Fritz Fischer, Walter Hasek, Dr. Helmut Gregor-Gregori, José Aspiazi, Friedrich Edler von Breitenbach, Dr. Henrique Wollmann and, finally, Wolfgang Gerhard."

No mention of leaving Europe with an Italian passport, nor any mention of the name "Gegor Hellmuth".

Also one can find a photograph of a genuine Brasilian passport for "Wolfgang Gerhard" with the original fingerprint of Mengele. That one has no resemblance to the one in the second passport which was photographed and published with the one in question.

All on the internet and full of red flags!

I really think a little due dilligence would have been nice before placing articles in all kinds of newspapers and having the local TV report of the "the most important thing I’ve ever owned." There were four months between October 2014 and January 2014 to do at least some research! Does not shine a good light on military experts!

But I guess it was worth the publicity and this one will also die down.

Herr D -

The fact that the fingerprints don't match doesn't really worry me, as the signatures are so far off as well. Also, in 1953 Mengele was stateless so any passport he carried would have been bogus. But the "second passport" is so egregious in its phoniness that even Mengele would never have carried it.

My suspicion is what I've said all along: a crafty forger, at some point in time (I suspect recently), disassembled a couple of passports and reconstructed them with copies of Mengele's photo, "lifted" revenue stamps from other passports, used bogus ink stamps, etc. In defense of Craig, I'll say that no one else on this forum picked up on these tell-tales, nor did the press, and much of the evidence I obtained was acquired only in the past few days, and only by chance.

I myself learned a long time ago that if it's too good to be true...it's fake. And I've had to eat more crow than you can believe. And...it can happen to anyone.

The really important thing is to conclusively determine if the passport is a latter-day fake, and if so, prosecute the forger. When this same thing happened to me, I went berserk. I would expect that after a careful and very timely analysis, Craig will do the same.

[BrianK]

Remind me not to go to the MAX.

[Craig Gottlieb]

I have been really busy lately with some other stuff, in addition to being sick with the flu, and haven't read the 4 pages or so that have bloomed since my absence here. But let me say, and let it be confirmed later with other people with whom I am consulting heavily ...

One of the most challenging things facing me with this piece, is that it is most probably NOT an Italian Passport that was sanctioned by the Italian Government, and has at least one BOLD FACE lie in it … that it was issued to Helmuth Gregor in 1947. We know that to be patently false on both accounts. That's not "Helmuth Gregor" and it was NOT issued in 1947 (when Mengele was on a farm in Bavaria and NOWHERE near Italy). Accordingly, this passport presents a serious challenge as it must be presumed to be a forgery as in "fake ID." This means that can only be met with forensic analysis of the passport itself, in addition to Third Party corroboration of the provenance. As I said, it's a "self-authenticating" document, which is to say that it is also "self-refuting" if certain physical characteristics do not play out in the piece's favor. Rest assured, that I am performing EVERY due-dilligence test, involving the Italian Embassy, several museums worldwide, photographic experts, passport collector specialists, authorities in Argentina, etc. I will leave NO stone unturned to either authenticate or refute this important artifact as a piece of history (which I believe it to be).

[Killerbee]

Alexanderautogr:

Thank you for your cursory analysis... I'm quite impressed and most here would yield to your experience & expertise.

Question: What are your thoughts "IF" this passport is authentic and, if I recall correctly, was part of a government document archive in Argentina or wherever, could there be an ownership issue? I wonder if a documented trail of ownership has been established for up coming legal reasons? Craig?

Jim

[Sal Williams]

A search in the German internet brings up an article in "Der Spiegel" with the alleged names used by Mengele:
(http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-330311.html)

"After going underground in Bavaria for four years, he obtained a Red Cross passport in 1949 and escaped to South America, where he spent 30 years traveling through Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil under a host of fake names: Fritz Fischer, Walter Hasek, Dr. Helmut Gregor-Gregori, José Aspiazi, Friedrich Edler von Breitenbach, Dr. Henrique Wollmann and, finally, Wolfgang Gerhard."

No mention of leaving Europe with an Italian passport, nor any mention of the name "Gegor Hellmuth".

Also one can find a photograph of a genuine Brasilian passport for "Wolfgang Gerhard" with the original fingerprint of Mengele. That one has no resemblance to the one in the second passport which was photographed and published with the one in question.

All on the internet and full of red flags!

I really think a little due dilligence would have been nice before placing articles in all kinds of newspapers and having the local TV report of the "the most important thing I’ve ever owned." There were four months between October 2014 and January 2014 to do at least some research! Does not shine a good light on military experts!

But I guess it was worth the publicity and this one will also die down.

You and your pesky facts.

[Thorsten B.]

Seeing it being touched with ungloved fingers in the press photo is not a good start.

Let´s say: unprofessional promotion.

[Jean-Loup]

"A forgery can be identified at great distance - proving something completely authentic is another matter and requires careful attention. "

Yes, you are indeed correct that some fakes stand out, but to proove an item authentic with certainty is much more difficult, in fact perhaps never possible to do with absolute certainty.

Thank you for your wonderfull preliminary analysis that you have posted here, and that seems to indicate that this passport would be one of more easily identified forgeries.
However, considering that this item may be a period forgery, caution is needed.

JL

[Tom B]

I just have a hard time with fantastic "findings" after the Hitler Diaries and many other to good to be believed "discoveries" in recent years. Tom

[alexanderautogr]

Alexanderautogr:

Thank you for your cursory analysis... I'm quite impressed and most here would yield to your experience & expertise.

Question: What are your thoughts "IF" this passport is authentic and, if I recall correctly, was part of a government document archive in Argentina or wherever, could there be an ownership issue? I wonder if a documented trail of ownership has been established for up coming legal reasons? Craig?

Jim

If the passport is "authentic", meaning a contemporary piece and not born yesterday, once canceled (as Craig's piece is) it is common practice that it would be returned to the original owner. I've been told that the police-issued papers he has relate to his "good standing". If so, they would likely have been given to him for his use. Craig has also said that these items emanated from the files of Mengele's secretary.

Assuming all of this is true, I see no governmental issue except in the unlikely case of replevin - a particularly nasty governmental practice of seizing documents based on the claim that one they are government property, they're always government property.

[alexanderautogr]

"A forgery can be identified at great distance - proving something completely authentic is another matter and requires careful attention. "

Yes, you are indeed correct that some fakes stand out, but to proove an item authentic with certainty is much more difficult, in fact perhaps never possible to do with absolute certainty.

Thank you for your wonderfull preliminary analysis that you have posted here, and that seems to indicate that this passport would be one of more easily identified forgeries.
However, considering that this item may be a period forgery, caution is needed.

JL

Detecting the DATE the item was forged could be a challenge. Of course, there's no such thing as carbon dating of modern paper, etc.

Craig and his experts will have to examine a host of clues in the passport, primarily the photograph (is it first generation? a laser or other copy as I found in items from likely the same seller?), the rubber stamps used (do they match those on unrelated "non-Mengele" forgeries?), the ink, glue, binding, covers, and so on. If the passport was "washed", was it done using a modern technique?

Quickest route: see what else the same seller has recently sold. Is it authentic? Is he passing lots of material known to be fake? What are his methods and were they applied in the case of the passport? That's the approach I would take.

[Tora_Tora_Tora!]

The first thing jumped to my eyes was the picture.....very poor quality and glued instead than fixed with rivets as italian passports of that era.....

[Tora_Tora_Tora!]

pic

[alexanderautogr]

Note the genuine passport shown also bears no revenue stamps, and bears an official "Passaporti" hand stamp. That's not to say that foreign-issued passports weren't created in a different manner, but...

[Craig Gottlieb]

Actually, my research has shown so far that passports were not issued "centrally" and this allowed for two things. 1) Variation with respect to how they were filled out and b) the stronger chance that a provincial official could be bribed. This information comes from a museum in Canada, who has on display about 12 passports of this type. Many have "bollo" revenue stamps, many do not. Some photos are glued in, some are riveted in. Makes thing THAT much more difficult. Picture to follow.