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HarveyKeitelErichMuhsfeldt
Josef Mengele The Grey Zone

I'm back, with my first proposal of the year, and a dual one to start. This is one I've had my eye on for a while, and although I meant to do them in late 2024, other things got in the way, and I wasn't entirely sure of how well they would qualify, especially the second candidate, but I rewatched parts of the movie before making this as a way to clear my memory, and I am more confident in them qualifying now. There's also a John Malkovich candidate I'll probably want to propose at some point, from a similar movie to this one that I haven't seen yet, but want to see, while I wouldn't normally state that, but I bring it up in context to this proposal being a grim WW2 era movie, that one being set post WW2, and when and if I get there, you can call that one a spiritual sequel to this one. As I am writing this, this is the 25th of January, two days from now will be the 80th anniversary since the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Red Army, and it's also been one month since Christmas began (I did have a potential Christmas special in mind, but oh well, maybe next year). This is my fifteenth proposal, my third dual proposal (I almost made it a triple proposal, and I'll get to that in a minute), and there are three going at the moment, with my most recent being last October.

What is the work?[]

The Grey Zone is a particularly grim Holocaust era movie set inside of the above mentioned Auschwitz. The film, to put it gently... it makes other holocaust movies like Schindler's list and The Pianist like sunshiny by comparison, as the film deals with the real life Sonderkommando units; Jewish prisoners assigned by the SS to aid in the murder and cremation of their fellow Jews, in return for more humane conditions such as better food, alcohol, cigarettes, and to survive a little bit longer. Those same Jews plot an uprising against the camp, hoping to destroy the crematorium, and save as many lives as they can, though it will likely mean their own deaths. The film stars David Arquette (who should do more deep acting), Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel (who plays our lead villain), Natasha Lyonne, and Mira Sorvino. Tim Blake Nelson directs, and showed this movie to Steven Spielberg, who liked it enough to want to publish the film through Dreamworks. It is based primarily on memoirs and the eyewitness accounts of Dr. Miklos Nyiszli.

Who are Erich Muhsfeldt and Josef Mengele? What have they Done?[]

Erich Muhsfeldt (played by Keitel himself), is the Oberschafuhrer of Auschwitz, with Josef Mengele being a scientist works as a mad doctor there. They were both real people too. Muhsfeldt makes his first appearance checking in on the Jews he assigned to the crematorium, while he implicitly threatens to have them killed and replaced, and they pick up on his remarks. Mengele, in his only actual scene in the movie, meets with Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, where he informs the latter of his plans to upgrade his experiments, while Nyiszli is visibly uncomfortable with this, which Mengele clearly notices, but makes him go along with it anyways, while Nyiszli insists that he needs more staff.

Muhsfeldt, frequently converses with Nyiszli, partially for medical reasons, and to check in on what he and Mengele are up to (in one instance, we see a corpse on their operating table, and jars with creepy things in them, and more to the point gallstones, which Mengele has apparently taken an interest in), and general conversations about things like the ongoing war and the fate of the prisoners (Muhsfeldt makes it clear that he intends to kill them all despite Nyiszli obviously not wanting that), and Nyiszli's family, who is being kept alive in exchange for Nyzili's help. But more on point, they also talk because Muhsfeldt has gotten wind of the fact that there might be an uprising and insists on Nyiszli informing him of whatever he can find out. Nyiszli, is of course, reluctant to assist, and says that the other prisoners don't trust him.

As the movie progresses and more Jews are selected for the gas chambers, Muhsfeldt uses all means necessary to stamp out any potential revolution. His guards ruthlessly torture prisoners, and in one particularly grisly scene, they make them all stand in a lineup, where they are shot to break the rebels while a particularly sadistic interrogator states "We could say we didn't want to be doing this, but that wouldn't be true", so they take their own lives to protect the others. And when Muhsfeldt catches Abramovics in an area he's not supposes to be, the former briefly questions him before shooting and killing him, causing a young girl who survived the gas chambers to scream out and be discovered.

Muhsfeldt reluctantly agrees to keep the girl alive at Nyiszli's insistence, believing that Nyiszli will be more talkative, but Nyiszli seemingly gets the upper hand by extorting Muhsfeldt, telling the latter that he will reveal his drinking problem to his superiors, while the uprising commences. The insurgents are able to destroy a crematorium, and put up a decent fight, but are unfortunately stopped by the Nazi guards, who then proceed to liquidate the prisoners, as Muhsfeldt had repeatedly stated his intention to do many times earlier in the film. Muhsfeldt then sees Nyiszli hiding in Mengele's operating room, where they argue for a moment, but... Muhsfeldt chooses to let Nyiszli live, and instead sends him back to work for Mengele, which causes Nyiszli to vomit, as Muhsfeldt faces him with and icy smile. Muhsfeldt then sends him outside, while he and the girl are forced to watch the inmates get killed and then sends the girl to run for her life before shooting her.

The ending text reveals that Nyiszli and his family got out alive, while Muhsfeldt was justly executed for his crimes. No mention is made of what happens to Mengele though, and if we take real life into account, then that would mean that Mengele fled to South America before he died of natural causes in 1979, escaping justice for his crimes. He wouldn't be the only Nazi to have done that though (Adolf Eichmann, and possibly Hitler himself if you're a conspiracy theorist also fled).


Redeeming Qualities?[]

Ah... well, Muhsfeldt does have a sort of weird "friendship", with Nyiszli, as they talk regularly, and Muhsfeldt is usually nice to him, and seems mildy impressed by Nyiszli's knowledge of history and German culture and society, and he keeps the latter's wife and daughter alive... but it's more professional and necessitated than anything else. You see, Mengele needs Nyiszli for his medical expertise, and they without saying it, are effectively holding his family hostage, while Muhsfeldt does take in active interest in what they are doing, mostly out of Morbid curiosity. That and he frequently grills Nyiszli for information, and also gets angry with him when the latter makes medical suggestions. At the end of the film, he lets Nyiszli live, but it's implied that he's only doing it because he wants the latter to suffer by making him help Mengele in his inhumane experiments, and he forces him to witness the other inmates and the girl get killed, and made it clear that he intended to kill them all anyways.

He does have a few backhanded moments of claiming the high ground, like when he shows pity for the world they Germany loses the war, and he shows disgust at the Sonderkommando for helping murder their fellow Jews, but the first instance just comes off as nationalistic, with Nyiszli himself pointing out the flaws in his claims, and the second one is hypocritical since he is the main person forcing them into that. Any redeeming quality he arguably has is just him being a self-righteous hypocrite, especially since he frequently brags about how he is going to kill all of the prisoners, and several other inmates see right through him. While the real Muhsfeldt did have a wife and children, they are never mentioned in the movie, much less whether he loved them or not.

Mengele, on his end, shows the same cold jovialness the Muhsfeldt displayed in all of his scenes with Nyiszli, but other than that no.

Heinous Standard?[]

General Standard[]

They are perfect here. Muhsfeldt not only tortures and kills Jewish prisoners, including children, but also forces them to do the same, while planning to kill them all anyways. Mengele, is trickier, since he only appears onscreen once, and we don't see him gratuitously experimenting on anyone, nor do we necessarily know what they entail. But... we do see vague glimpses of them, notably the above mentioned jars and gallstones, and a corpse of one of his victims, and the psychological pain it causes Nyiszli is clearly visible. Also, the entire reason Muhsfeldt sends him back to work for Mengele is because he knows that doing so will punish him more psychologically than killing him would, and follows it up with "We have work to do", so there's that. They are both clear fans of psychological torture, and they both have at least partial complicity in each other's crimes.

In-Story Standard[]

Muhsfeldt is the most heinous character in the film. While there is the one particaluarly sadistic guard that I considered also proposing (maybe one of you would like to do that, maybe I myself still will later down the road), but he is working for Muhsfeldt, and anything else bad that goes on at Auschwitz happens with Muhsfeldt's full knowledge and approval, that is of course when his not outright ordering it. While he does make mention of having people he answers to, they are never seen or even mentioned by name, and he is the main villainous focus of the story, and makes it clear through his actions and subtle sadism that he is not just following orders. While he is aware of and to some extent complicit in Mengele's cruel experiments, they are still treated first and foremost as Mengele's thing.

System Standard[]

More the same as mentioned above. While historically the Holocaust was of course a large scale atrocity that plagued Europe in WW2, the film is a relatively small scale and personalized movie, with the focus being entirely on the Auschwitz prisoners, and Muhsfeldt is the most prominent Nazi we see in the film, and he is of course the one who is focused on the most heavily with other Nazis being background or left out. Hitler is not once mentioned in the movie (and neither is the United States for that matter), though some other events Hitler orchestrated like the Night of the Long Knives are, but are given little to no context, with them being limited one-off lines. I'd say he is more in the clear in this regard than Amon Goeth, as while he may have been the worst of the bunch within the movie, it still made it a point to showcase Goeth was not the only monster, with the grander scale being given much more focus, here the focus is very personalized and limited, with Muhsfeldt being without a doubt the main monster of the movie. Mengele is mostly in the clear here too, mostly thanks to how unique his crimes are.

Final Verdict[]

I strongly believe they qualify, Muhsfeldt particularly, but Mengele as well (though I was admittedly unsure about it for a bit). What say you?