Aktion T4 was the name for the mass murder by involuntary euthanasia in Nazi Germany's eugenics program based on "mercy killing" and mandatory sterilization. The program started in October 1939 on the orders of Adolf Hitler. The office that had to implement this Sonderprogram worked under the leadership of
Philipp Bouhler a German senior Nazi Party functionary who was both a Reichsleiter (National Leader) and Chief of the Chancellery of the Führer of the NSDAP. He was also the SS official responsible for the Aktion T4 euthanasia program that killed more than 250.000 disabled adults and children in Nazi Germany, as well as co-initiator of Aktion 14f13, also called "
Sonderbehandlung" ("special treatment") that killed between 15.000 - 20.000 concentration camp prisoners.
Also appointed as an organiser was
Karl Brandt Hitler's personal physician. Trained in surgery, Brandt joined the Nazi Party in 1932. A member of Hitler's inner circle at the Berghof, he was selected by Philipp Bouhler, the head of Hitler's Chancellery, to administer the Aktion T4 euthanasia program. Brandt was later appointed the Reich Commissioner of Sanitation and Health (Bevollmächtigter für das Sanitäts- und Gesundheitswesen). Accused of involvement in human experimentation and other war crimes, Brandt was indicted in late 1946 and faced trial before a US military tribunal along with 22 others in United States of America v. Karl Brandt. He was convicted, sentenced to death and later hanged on 2 June 1948.
The name T4 is derived from the address of their office, Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin.
Goal
The goal of the program was to preserve the genetic purity of the Germanic people by systematically murdering people who were disfigured, disabled or suffering from some form of psychiatric illness. Arguments to justify this murder were the in Nazi eyes "meaningless existence" and the "meaningless suffering" of these patients. The purification program was called "mercy killing" because the Nazi doctors saw it as an act of mercy and presented it as the most humane way to put these sick out of their suffering. This thesis belonged to Karl Brandt, Gruppenführer in the SS and Generalleutnant in the Waffen-SS. He was sentenced to death in the Medical Trial, one of the Nuremberg Trials, and later hanged. In addition, there were also economic considerations: those who worked in the care of the disabled could not serve as a soldier or work in the war industry.
Disabled children were separated from their families and taken to special hospitals. The media at the time responded to the fear that within a few years a large part of the German people would be mentally disturbed, reason to act as quickly as possible. The word "euthanasia" was not used in Nazi propaganda, leaving the real intentions of the Nazis (at the beginning) undiscovered. The program was later expanded to include adults, most of whom underwent compulsory sterilization.
Where did it take place
The exterminations took place in:
The involuntary euthanaisa was carried out by gassing, asphyxiation, injections, poisoning, starvation and drug overdoses. The first experiments with gas vans were carried out in March 1940 at the hospital in Kochanowka near Łódź. Soon after, the Nazis conducted further experiments in which they poured carbon monoxide from the exhaust of a truck into a closed room. Many of these exterminations were overseen by psychiatrists Carl Hans Heinze Sennhenn and Werner Villinger. Sennhenn supplied hundreds of brains to Nazi researchers. Werner Villinger conducted experiments on humans before sending them to death. Even before the Holocaust, the first gas chambers were built in Hartheim, where adults in particular were killed with carbon monoxide.