For as long as there has been heavy metal there have been accusations of Satanism. Those who do not understand or appreciate the music often dismiss not only the artists but also the fans as being evil, awash with sin and damned to face an eternity burning in the fires of Hell. Urban legend in the late 1960s claimed that Led Zeppelin had signed a deal with the Devil himself, something that legendary blues guitarist Robert Johnson had been accused of several decades earlier. Are Kiss part of Satan’s army? Is Alice Cooper really a witch? Is Marilyn Manson the true Antichrist? The religious protesters and moral watchdogs that have camped outside their concerts throughout their careers would certainly think so, and this reputation has always found its way into popular culture, thus only adding to the fear that heavy metal is the Devil’s music.
Yet for Slayer, one of the original thrash metal acts to emerge from the American alternative music scene during the early 1980s, they were accused of being something much worse. Due to their 1986 track Angel of Death, which depicted the horrifying war crimes of Auschwitz scientist Josef Mengele during the Second World War, the band have spent the last quarter of a century being labelled by the mainstream as Nazi sympathisers. And no matter how many times they have gone on the offensive and tried to justify their lyrics, this is an urban legend that refuses to die. They were the perfect target; with such a brutal name as Slayer, an album called Reign in Blood and a track titled Angel of Death, they had set themselves up to be singled out as dangerous and morally corrupt.
While the likes of W.A.S.P., Judas Priest and Black Sabbath had been included on the PMRC’s list of ‘Filthy Fifteen’ songs that were offensive and potentially dangerous, only two were cited for their supposed references to the occult; Mercyful Fate‘s Into the Coven and Venom‘s Possessed. Yet most musicians had stayed clear of the Holocaust due to war still being fresh in the minds of those who had lived through it, so for a band called Slayer to sing songs about Nazi experiments left a sour taste in the mouths of mainstream America. Even now, over twenty-five years later, the name Slayer is synonymous with Auschwitz and, to those ignorant to the facts, even Devil worship. “If there is a God, why did he create Slayer? Does God like metal?” posed Spin’s review in their September 1986 issue. “Does God want kids from Southern California to sing songs about decapitation? OK, so maybe God did not create Slayer. Maybe the Devil created Slayer. Then if so, how did he do it?”
Guitarist Jeff Hanneman, the man responsible for Angel of Death, had been inspired to write the song after reading about Josef Mengele, a Nazi doctor who earned the moniker the “angel of death” due to the sadistic experiments that he conducted on his prisoners while serving at Auschwitz. Despite having studied philosophy at Munich University and medicine at Frankfurt am Main University, Mengele’s main interest was in genetics and by 1937, at the age of just twenty-six, he was accepted into the Nazi party and the SS the following year. “The prisoners who survived Auschwitz remember a German soldier and doctor who took pleasure in leading the selection process,” explained author Holly Cefrey in her book Dr. Josef Mengele: The Angel of Death. “His personality was a combination of pleasantness and perversity. He stood on the railway platform in an impeccable uniform with white gloves. He often had a cheerful expression on his face, and was heard humming classic music by many prisoners.”
Mengele remained at the concentration camp throughout the war until the beginning of 1945, when the Soviet army liberated the remaining prisoners. In Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp Helena Kubica says, “Well aware that the war was lost and that capture by Allied troops meant a death sentence, he decided to run and hide. Unlike most other SS men, he didn’t have his blood type tattooed under his armpit, so he stood a good chance of eluding capture, On January 18th 1945, Mengele departed from the camp, taking with him the documents containing the results of his research.” While the Nazis had countless doctors conducting experiments on prisoners throughout the war, few earned the barbaric reputation that Mengele received from those who survived the horror.
Hanneman’s interest in the Nazis was in part due to his father, who had served in the Second World War and had told his son stories of what he had seen while fighting in Europe. Having researched Auschwitz and, specifically, Mengele, when it came time to write material for their third album he utilised his newfound knowledge in his lyrics. Angel of Death documented in graphic detail many of the brutal experiments that were conducted either at Mengele’s hands or at his order. While lines such as “showers that cleanse you of your life” are relatively subtle references to the gas chambers where prisoners were executed, other more explicit passages included, “Pumped with fluid inside your brain, pressure in your skull begins pushing through your eyes. Burning flesh drips away, test of heat burns your skin, your mind starts to boil.”
What protesters have found most offensive about the song is that Hanneman did not condemn Mengele’s crimes in his lyrics, instead merely documenting the facts and leaving the listener to make up their own mind. “I know why people misinterpret it – it’s because they get this knee-jerk reaction to it,” Hanneman told KNAC.com in 2004. “When they read the lyrics, there’s nothing I put in the lyrics that says necessarily he was a bad man, because to me – well, isn’t that obvious?!?!?! I shouldn’t have to tell you that.” Regarding the repeated accusations of being Nazi sympathisers due to Angel of Death, frontman Tom Araya once said, “We’ve got a Cuban drummer and a Chilean singer and bass player: two people who would’ve been in the gas chambers if the Nazis got a hold of us. So how can we be Nazis? It’s so ridiculous. We don’t really ignore it, but we kind of let it go and eventually hope you stop asking and figure it out.”
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