The Boys From Brazil

In September 1974, a man known as "Senhor Aspiazu" arrives at a Japanese restaurant in São Paulo, Brazil, to host a private dinner. The man is Dr. Josef Mengele, the fugitive Nazi war criminal, living in a jungle compound in South America. He has summoned six former members of the SS, the Nazi paramilitary organization, who live under the protection of the Kameradenwerk, or Comrades Organization, a network that shelters former Nazis. After dinner, Mengele briefs them on a mission he calls "holy": Over the next two and a half years, 94 men in nine countries must die on or near specific dates. The targets are roughly 65 years old, mostly retired civil servants. Mengele refuses to explain why, distributes new identities and diamonds, and insists every death must look accidental.

Unbeknownst to Mengele, a young American named Barry Koehler from Evanston, Illinois, has infiltrated the restaurant and recorded the briefing. Barry retreats to his hotel and calls Yakov Liebermann, a renowned but financially struggling Nazi-hunter based in Vienna. He relays the plan and names several SS men, but before he can play the tape, Mengele's bodyguards burst in and stab him to death. Mengele takes the cassette and picks up the phone, listening as Liebermann calls for Barry, but hangs up without a word. The operation will proceed: Liebermann has no proof.

Weeks later, Liebermann approaches Sydney Beynon, a Reuters correspondent, for help. Liebermann's wife has died, he has lost a kidney, and his War Crimes Information Center now operates from his apartment. No authorities will act without evidence, and Barry has vanished. Liebermann asks Beynon to collect Reuters clippings reporting violent deaths of men aged 64 to 66 across Europe and North America. Beynon agrees reluctantly.

The killings begin on schedule. In Gladbeck, Germany, the SS man Kleist befriends a retired civil servant named Emil Döring, then lures him into a demolition-site passageway the next night, where a pre-loosened wall drops on him. Other killings proceed in Denmark and the United States. At a Heidelberg lecture, Liebermann poses a "hypothetical question": Why would Mengele want to kill 94 civil servants aged 65? An elderly professor observes that Mengele's medical background must be relevant. A shrewd blond student named Klaus von Palmen suspects the question is not hypothetical and later offers to help Liebermann investigate.

Mengele monitors the operation from his compound, painting red checks on a wall chart as killings are confirmed. His liaison, Colonel Seibert, warns that the Organization's leader nearly recalled the six killers after learning about Liebermann's questions. When the Reuters clippings arrive, Liebermann identifies 11 possible victims. Klaus and other contacts investigate across Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and England, but every dead man proves unremarkable. Liebermann abandons the investigation.

During a January 1975 speaking tour in the United States, Liebermann visits the widow of Jack Curry in Lenox, Massachusetts. When Curry's son appears, Liebermann is stunned: The boy is gaunt, sharp-nosed, dark-haired, with pale-blue eyes, virtually identical to the son of the murdered Döring. Both fathers were 65, both mothers are in their early forties, and both boys are adopted. Liebermann connects this pattern to Mengele's obsession with twins at Auschwitz. He contacts Klaus and his investigator Goldschmidt in Denmark; all confirm that each dead man had a young son matching the same description. Liebermann traces the adoptions to the Rush-Gaddis Agency in New York, where Frieda Maloney, a former concentration camp guard, worked as a file clerk.

In a Düsseldorf prison, Maloney confirms the scheme. A man from the Organization instructed her to find applications matching precise criteria: the husband born between 1908 and 1912, the wife between 1931 and 1935, white Christian with a Nordic background, the husband in a civil-service occupation. Over two and a half years, about 20 remarkably alike baby boys were delivered by Brazilian couriers. She placed them with families across America and Canada. Among the names she remembers are the Wheelocks of New Providence, Pennsylvania.

A biologist, Professor Nürnberger, provides the final piece. He explains cloning: The nucleus of a body cell is inserted into an egg whose own nucleus has been removed, producing a genetic duplicate. The placement with similar families was designed to replicate environment as well as biology. When Liebermann notes that Mengele has brown eyes, unlike the blue-eyed boys, Nürnberger confirms the donor must be someone else. Liebermann makes the connection: Adolf Hitler's father was a civil servant who died at 65, when his son was nearly 14. The boys are clones of Hitler, and the fathers are being killed to replicate the pivotal loss of Hitler's adolescence.

The Organization, alarmed by Liebermann's investigation, recalls all six killers. Mengele is furious but resolves to act alone. Disguised and carrying a fake Paraguayan passport, he poses as Barry Koehler's father and tricks Liebermann's secretary into revealing his itinerary. Liebermann, having estimated from the adoption timeline that Henry Wheelock's death is imminent, plans to drive to New Providence to warn him. Mengele, tipped off by a phone call to his hotel, races there first, poses as Liebermann at the door, and shoots Wheelock in the cellar.

Liebermann arrives and senses something wrong: The man's clothing is too urban, and his consonants betray a suppressed German accent. Mengele reveals himself, draws his gun, and boasts about the cloning. Liebermann lunges toward a closed door behind which Wheelock's Dobermans are trapped. Mengele fires repeatedly, wounding Liebermann in the chest, hip, and hand, but Liebermann wrenches the door open. The dogs burst out and pin Mengele on the settee, his gun empty.

Bobby Wheelock, the 13-year-old son and one of Hitler's clones, arrives home from school. Mengele tries to manipulate him, revealing that Bobby is adopted and declaring him a genetic duplicate of Adolf Hitler destined for greatness. Bobby is skeptical, noticing a pro-Israel bumper sticker on the car outside that contradicts Mengele's story. He calls Mengele "the biggest nut I ever met" and gives the dogs their kill command. The Dobermans attack and kill Mengele. Bobby agrees to call the police only after Liebermann promises never to reveal that Bobby ordered the killing. Bobby finds a typed list of all 94 names in Mengele's coat, which Liebermann pockets.

Liebermann recovers in the hospital. Mengele's identity is not publicly revealed. At a farewell lunch for Rabbi Moshe Gorin, leader of the militant Young Jewish Defenders (YJD), Gorin demands the 94 boys be killed. Liebermann argues that killing children was Mengele's business, not theirs, and that attention could attract fanatics who might nurture the boys into what they were designed to be. He excuses himself to the restroom, tears the list to pieces, and flushes it down the toilet. Gorin is furious; Liebermann replies that Nazis caused the Holocaust: "People who would even kill children to get what they wanted." They part in anger.

In a brief epilogue, one of the unnamed cloned boys sits alone in his darkened room, drawing a vast domed stadium filled with cheering people focused on a single man on a central platform. He reflects that life is easier now that his father is gone. A Strauss waltz plays downstairs as he adds dot-mouths to the tiny figures. He thinks the roaring crowd sounds "sort of like in those old Hitler movies."