American Horror Story’s Real-Life Inspirations, Ranked by Accuracy

Dr. Arthur Arden from Asylum is clearly based on the Nazi physician Josef Mengele. At the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, Mengele performed inhumane experiments on prisoners, including children. The show gives its Dr. Arden a secret Nazi past, a history of gruesome medical experimentation, and a grotesque fascination with altering the human body. These details directly echo Mengele’s documented crimes at Auschwitz. Although his secret laboratory at Briarcliff and the monstrous creatures he engineers are horrific inventions that belong strictly to American Horror Story.