---
title: "Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg"
description: "Learn about Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg, one of the first Nazi Aktion T4 killing centres where carbon monoxide gas was first used in the systematic murder of people with disabilities during the Holocaust."
url: "https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/aktion-t4/euthanasia-centers/toetungsanstalt-brandenburg"
date: "2026-07-31T13:37:00+00:00"
language: "en-GB"
---

![Aktion T4 Hadamar](https://www.normandy1944.info/images/holocaust/aktionT4/brandenburg/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktiont4-Brandenburg-main-1940.jpg)

# Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg

## One of six killing centres established under the Nazi Aktion T4 programme.

Location: Havel Germany

 [](#) [](#)

- [Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg](#)

 ![](https://www.normandy1944.info/images/badges/german/German-helferin-badge.png)

 ![](https://www.normandy1944.info/media/yootheme/cache/ba/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktiont4-Brandenburg-full-view-ba201270.jpg?src=images/holocaust/aktionT4/brandenburg/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktiont4-Brandenburg-full-view.jpg&thumbnail=800,450,&hash=2afbcfbe)Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg main facility full view

 ![](https://www.normandy1944.info/media/yootheme/cache/eb/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktiont4-Brandenburg-main-facility-eb947281.jpg?src=images/holocaust/aktionT4/brandenburg/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktiont4-Brandenburg-main-facility.jpg&thumbnail=800,450,&hash=8c9d0171)Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg main facility

 ![](https://www.normandy1944.info/media/yootheme/cache/a0/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktiont4-Brandenburg-main-side-view-a01cabda.jpg?src=images/holocaust/aktionT4/brandenburg/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktiont4-Brandenburg-main-side-view.jpg&thumbnail=800,450,&hash=988e0339)Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg main facility side view

 ![](https://www.normandy1944.info/media/yootheme/cache/92/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktiont4-Brandenburg-transport-92325829.jpg?src=images/holocaust/aktionT4/brandenburg/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktiont4-Brandenburg-transport.jpg&thumbnail=800,450,&hash=70ac7462)Grey buses, often with painted-over windows, transported patients to the various Aktion T4 killing centres.

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**Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg** (officially **Landes-Pflegeanstalt Brandenburg a. H.**) was one of the six principal killing centres established under the Nazi [**Aktion T4** ](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/aktion-t4)programme. Located inside a converted nineteenth-century prison in **Brandenburg an der Havel**, the facility operated between **February and October 1940** and became one of the most historically significant locations in the evolution of Nazi mass murder.

Although Brandenburg remained operational for less than a year, its importance extended far beyond the approximately **9,772 documented victims** murdered there. It was at Brandenburg that Nazi physicians, administrators and technical specialists first perfected the use of **carbon monoxide gas** as a systematic killing method. The administrative procedures, deception techniques and technical experience gained at the facility later became the foundation upon which the extermination camps of **Operation Reinhard** were built.

The centre was directed by the **Führer's Chancellery (Kanzlei des Führers)** under the supervision of [**Philipp Bouhler**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/aktion-t4#bouhler) and [**Karl Brandt**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/aktion-t4#brandt), while its daily operations relied upon physicians, police officials and carefully selected civilian personnel. Several men who served at Brandenburg, including **Christian Wirth**, **Dr. Irmfried Eberl** and **August Becker**, would later assume leading positions in the implementation of the Holocaust.

> More than a killing centre, Brandenburg became the experimental laboratory where Nazi Germany developed many of the techniques later used in the industrialised murder of millions during the Holocaust.

### Quick Facts

**Official name:** NS-Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg (Landes-Pflegeanstalt Brandenburg a. H.)
**Location:** Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany
**Programme:** Aktion T4 (Nazi euthanasia programme)
**Operational:** February 1940 – 28 October 1940
**Function:** Killing centre for people with mental and physical disabilities and other victims selected under Aktion T4
**Estimated victims:** 9,772 documented murders
**Killing method:** Carbon monoxide gas in a disguised shower room
**Parent organisation:** Führer's Chancellery (Kanzlei des Führers)
**Principal administrators:** Philipp Bouhler and Karl Brandt
**Medical director:** Dr. Irmfried Eberl
**Historical significance:** Prototype for later Aktion T4 killing centres and Operation Reinhard extermination camps

> Brandenburg was not selected by chance. Its isolated prison buildings, secure perimeter walls and existing cremation facilities made it an ideal location for developing methods that Nazi officials believed could remain hidden from public view.

### The Origins of Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg

The Brandenburg killing centre occupied the grounds of a former nineteenth-century prison situated at **Neuendorfer Straße 90c** in **Brandenburg an der Havel**. Long before Aktion T4 began, the prison had already become associated with political persecution. Between **August 1933** and **February 1934**, it served as one of the earliest **SA-operated concentration camps**, where political opponents of the Nazi regime, including Communists, Social Democrats and trade unionists, were imprisoned and abused.

After the concentration camp closed, much of the prison complex stood unused. As preparations for Aktion T4 accelerated during **1939**, officials from the **Führer's Chancellery** searched for locations that could be converted into secret killing facilities. Brandenburg's high walls, enclosed courtyards and existing prison infrastructure provided both security and privacy, while its sturdy buildings required relatively few structural alterations to accommodate the programme.

Unlike the other Aktion T4 killing centres, which were generally established within existing psychiatric hospitals or sanatoriums, Brandenburg occupied a former prison in the centre of a provincial city. Although this location offered logistical advantages, it would later prove problematic as smoke, odours and unusual transport movements increasingly attracted the attention of local residents.

Construction work began during the closing months of **1939**. Workers converted parts of the prison into administrative offices, reception rooms, changing areas, a disguised gas chamber and adjacent cremation facilities. Every aspect of the layout was carefully designed to move victims efficiently from arrival to death while maintaining the illusion that they were undergoing routine medical treatment.

> The conversion of Brandenburg marked the beginning of a new phase in Nazi policy: the transition from individual killings by injection or starvation to carefully planned, industrial-style murder using poison gas.

### Hitler's Secret Authorisation

Unlike most major government programmes, [**Aktion T4**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/aktion-t4) was never established through a formal law passed by the Reichstag or incorporated into the German legal system. Instead, it operated under a brief confidential authorisation personally signed by [**Adolf Hitler**](https://www.normandy1944.info/home/commanders/life-and-death-of-adolf-hitler), giving selected physicians the power to grant what the regime described as a *"mercy death"* (*Gnadentod*) to patients considered incurably ill. The document was deliberately backdated to **1 September 1939**, the day Germany invaded Poland, allowing Hitler to portray the programme as a wartime necessity rather than a newly introduced policy.

The authorisation, typed on Hitler's personal stationery, instructed **Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler**, head of the Führer's Chancellery and **Dr. Karl Brandt**, Hitler's personal physician, to expand the authority of designated doctors so that patients judged "incurable" could receive a so-called mercy death after careful medical assessment. In reality, no genuine legal safeguards existed. Patients were rarely examined by the physicians making the decisions, families were neither informed nor consulted and those selected had no opportunity to challenge their fate.

Because Hitler understood that the deliberate killing of disabled civilians would almost certainly provoke legal challenges and public opposition, the programme remained deliberately secret. Responsibility was placed not with the **Reich Ministry of the Interior** but with the **Führer's Chancellery (Kanzlei des Führers)**, allowing Aktion T4 to operate outside normal governmental structures. Staff were required to sign strict confidentiality agreements, correspondence was disguised using code names and front organisations and official documents avoided direct references to the killings.

The secrecy surrounding Hitler's authorisation reflected the regime's awareness that the programme had no basis in German law. Although Nazi propaganda presented Aktion T4 as an act of compassion intended to relieve suffering, it was in reality a centrally organised programme of state-sponsored murder directed against people whose lives the regime considered to be *Lebensunwertes Leben* ("life unworthy of life"). Brandenburg became one of the first facilities where Hitler's confidential order was transformed into systematic practice.

> "Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are charged with the responsibility of enlarging the authority of physicians... so that patients who, on the basis of human judgment, are considered incurable can, after the most careful assessment of their condition, be granted a mercy death."
>
>  **Adolf Hitler's confidential authorisation for Aktion T4, backdated to 1 September 1939.**

### The January 1940 Trial Gassings

Before systematic killings began, senior officials of the Aktion T4 programme gathered at Brandenburg during **January 1940** to conduct a series of experimental gassings using bottled **carbon monoxide**. These trials were intended to determine whether gas could provide a faster, more efficient and more controllable method of killing than lethal injections or deliberate neglect.

Among those present were **Karl Brandt**, Hitler's personal physician and co-director of Aktion T4; **Philipp Bouhler**, head of the Führer's Chancellery; **Leonardo Conti**, Reich Health Leader; and chemist **August Becker**, who supervised the technical use of compressed carbon monoxide cylinders. Their observations would shape the operating procedures adopted throughout the Aktion T4 programme.

### Developing the First Gas Chamber

The experimental gassings conducted in January 1940 were not intended as isolated medical experiments but as practical tests to develop a reliable method of mass murder. Officials sought to determine how quickly carbon monoxide could kill, how much gas was required, how victims reacted inside the chamber and whether the process could be repeated efficiently on a daily basis. The conclusions reached at Brandenburg became the operational standard for every subsequent Aktion T4 killing centre.

The gas chamber itself occupied a former prison room that was remodelled to resemble a communal shower facility. White tiled walls, showerheads fixed to the ceiling and ordinary plumbing fixtures were installed to reassure victims that they were about to undergo disinfection or bathing. Once the room had been filled, heavy steel doors were sealed airtight before carbon monoxide from compressed cylinders was released through concealed pipes.

A reinforced observation window allowed physicians and senior officials to monitor the victims throughout the procedure without entering the chamber. These observations were considered essential by the Aktion T4 leadership, who carefully studied the time required for unconsciousness and death while evaluating the technical efficiency of the installation. Although the victims died within approximately fifteen to twenty minutes, the chamber usually remained sealed for considerably longer before staff entered to remove the bodies.

Unlike the later extermination camps, where engine exhaust gases were initially employed before the introduction of **Zyklon B at [Auschwitz-Birkenau](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/auschwitz#Birkenau)**, Brandenburg relied exclusively on chemically pure carbon monoxide supplied in industrial cylinders. This allowed the perpetrators to regulate the concentration of gas with remarkable precision, making the killings highly predictable and repeatable.

> The gas chamber at Brandenburg represented a decisive technological turning point. Murder was transformed from individual acts of killing into a carefully planned administrative process that could be repeated on an industrial scale.

### The Men Behind the Killings

The Brandenburg euthanasia centre brought together physicians, police officers, administrators and technicians who would later occupy some of the most notorious positions within the Holocaust. Many gained their first experience of organised mass murder at Brandenburg before being transferred to other Aktion T4 facilities and eventually to the extermination camps established in occupied Poland.

**Dr. Irmfried Eberl** served as the medical director of Brandenburg and supervised the daily operation of the killing programme. A committed National Socialist physician, Eberl later directed the Bernburg euthanasia centre before becoming the first commandant of **Treblinka extermination camp** in 1942. His inability to manage the overwhelming number of transports led to his dismissal after only a few weeks, but his appointment illustrates the direct transfer of Aktion T4 personnel into the Final Solution.

**Christian Wirth**, a Kriminalinspektor from Stuttgart, established many of the security measures, registration procedures and operational routines at Brandenburg. Known for his organisational ability and ruthless discipline, Wirth later became Inspector of **Operation Reinhard**, overseeing the extermination camps at **Bełżec**, [**Sobibór**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/concentrationcamps/sobibor) and **Treblinka**. His experience gained during Aktion T4 profoundly influenced the administration of these death camps.

**August Becker**, a chemist attached to the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), played a central role in developing the technical aspects of carbon monoxide gassing. His responsibility included obtaining, transporting and regulating the compressed gas cylinders used during the experimental killings. Becker later advised Einsatzgruppen commanders on the use of mobile gas vans in the occupied Soviet Union, demonstrating how techniques developed during Aktion T4 continued to evolve.

Deputy physicians including **Dr. Aquilin Ulrich** and **Dr. Heinrich Bunke** examined arriving patients, supervised the deception process and operated the gas chamber. Their participation illustrates how ordinary medical professionals became active participants in systematic murder under the authority of the Nazi state.

Above the local administration stood **Philipp Bouhler**, head of Hitler's Führer's Chancellery and **Karl Brandt**, Hitler's personal physician. Together they directed Aktion T4 on Hitler's authority. Another influential administrator, [**Viktor Brack**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/aktion-t4), organised much of the programme's logistical and personnel management. Brack would later assist in transferring experienced Aktion T4 staff to Operation Reinhard, helping to establish the extermination camps that murdered more than 1.7 million Jews.

> Brandenburg was more than a killing centre, it became a training ground where many future perpetrators of the Holocaust learned the administrative, technical and psychological methods of organised mass murder.

### The Victims

Systematic gassings commenced during **February 1940**. According to the post-war [**Hartheim Statistics**](https://www.normandy1944.info/holocaust/aktion-t4/euthanasia-centers/hartheim-euthanasia-centre), exactly **9,772 people** were murdered at Brandenburg before the facility ceased operations in October of the same year. Although most victims came from psychiatric institutions across Germany, the programme steadily expanded to include a wider range of groups whom the Nazi regime considered "life unworthy of life" (*Lebensunwertes Leben*).

The majority of victims suffered from psychiatric illnesses, intellectual disabilities, epilepsy or severe physical disabilities. Many had lived peacefully in hospitals or care institutions for years before being selected for transfer on the basis of questionnaires reviewed by anonymous medical experts. These assessments were often made without the doctors ever examining the patients personally.

Among the earliest victims were several hundred mentally ill offenders transferred from forensic psychiatric institutions throughout Prussia. Nazi officials argued that these patients represented both a medical and criminal burden upon society, making them suitable candidates for the euthanasia programme.

Children and adolescents also became victims. Many were transported from the nearby **Görden State Hospital**, where physicians selected children with neurological disorders or developmental disabilities for execution. Before cremation, some victims underwent post-mortem examinations during which their brains were removed for medical research. Disturbingly, specimens collected through these killings continued to be used in neurological studies for years after the Second World War.

Beginning in the summer of **1940**, Brandenburg assumed another historically significant role. Following directives issued by the Reich Ministry of the Interior, Jewish patients confined in psychiatric hospitals throughout Germany were systematically collected and transported to Aktion T4 killing centres. At Brandenburg these men and women were murdered solely because they were Jewish rather than because of any medical diagnosis. Historians regard these transports as one of the earliest centrally organised programmes targeting Jews for systematic killing within the German Reich itself.

The selection of victims demonstrated the gradual radicalisation of Nazi racial policy. What had begun as a programme directed against disabled patients increasingly expanded to include groups selected according to ideology, race and perceived social value, a development that foreshadowed the wider genocide that followed during the Holocaust.

### The Killing Process

By the spring of **1940**, the killing process at Brandenburg had become a carefully organised sequence of administrative and technical procedures designed to murder large numbers of people while maintaining an appearance of medical legitimacy. Every stage, from the selection of victims to the issuing of death certificates, was planned to minimise resistance, maximise efficiency and conceal the true nature of the programme.

Most victims arrived aboard the grey buses operated by the **Gemeinnützige Krankentransport GmbH (Gekrat)**, a front organisation established by Aktion T4 specifically to transport patients between hospitals and killing centres. The buses had their windows painted over, preventing both passengers and onlookers from seeing inside. As reports of these mysterious vehicles spread throughout Germany, they gradually became feared symbols of disappearance and death.

Upon arrival at Brandenburg, patients were escorted into the former prison buildings where they surrendered their personal belongings and identification documents. Men and women were usually separated before attendants instructed them to undress for what they believed would be a routine medical examination or communal bath. Medical staff carried out only a brief visual inspection, primarily to identify gold teeth, prosthetics or other items of value that could later be recovered from the bodies.

Each victim received an identification number, while clerks prepared paperwork that would later support falsified death certificates. Physicians selected fictitious causes of death, such as pneumonia, heart failure or stroke, before the victims had even entered the gas chamber. In many cases, photographs were taken for institutional records shortly before the killings.

Once preparations had been completed, victims were led into the chamber disguised as a shower room. Believing they were about to be disinfected, many entered without resistance. After the heavy doors had been sealed, compressed carbon monoxide was released into the room through concealed pipes. Physicians observed the process through a reinforced inspection window while monitoring the effects of the gas. Death generally occurred within fifteen to twenty minutes, although staff usually waited considerably longer before reopening the chamber to ensure no one remained alive.

Specially assigned personnel, commonly referred to as ***Brenner*** ("burners"), then entered the chamber to remove the bodies. Gold teeth, dental bridges and other valuable materials were extracted before the corpses were transported to the adjoining crematorium. The bodies were cremated almost immediately, leaving little physical evidence of the murders.

> Every stage of the process, from transport and registration to gassing, cremation and paperwork, formed part of a single bureaucratic system in which murder had become an administrative routine.

### The Machinery of Deception

The success of Aktion T4 depended not only upon secrecy but upon an elaborate system of deception designed to mislead relatives, hospital staff and civil authorities. Brandenburg became one of the first centres where these methods were refined into standard administrative practice.

Patients selected for transfer were rarely informed of their true destination. Instead, institutions received orders stating that specialised treatment or relocation to another medical facility was necessary. Families were discouraged from visiting after the transfer, often being told that wartime conditions or quarantine regulations made contact impossible.

Following each killing, officials at the **Special Civil Registry Office Brandenburg II (Sonderstandesamt Brandenburg II)** prepared forged documentation intended to conceal the crime. Death certificates listed fabricated causes of death, while dates and places were frequently altered to make it appear that patients had died naturally elsewhere. In some instances, the reported date of death was deliberately delayed so that hospitals or guardians could continue to be billed for the patient's care.

Standardised letters expressing sympathy were mailed to relatives together with urns that supposedly contained the ashes of their loved ones. In reality, because multiple bodies were cremated together, the ashes almost never belonged to the individual named on the accompanying certificate. Personal belongings were often withheld or destroyed, making independent verification virtually impossible.

To further obscure the programme, patient files were regularly transferred between different Aktion T4 institutions before official notification of death was issued. This administrative paper trail made it extremely difficult for families to determine where or when their relatives had actually been murdered.

> The deception practised at Brandenburg was so systematic that many families remained unaware of the true circumstances surrounding the deaths of their relatives until decades after the Second World War.

### Public Awareness and the Closure of Brandenburg

Despite the extensive efforts to maintain secrecy, Brandenburg's location within a densely populated urban area made complete concealment impossible. Residents living near the former prison noticed an increasing number of grey buses arriving under police supervision, while smoke and the unmistakable smell of burning human remains frequently drifted across neighbouring streets and schools.

Rumours spread rapidly throughout Brandenburg an der Havel. Local inhabitants began referring to the mysterious vehicles as *"death buses"* and many families with relatives in psychiatric institutions came to fear the arrival of the grey transports. Complaints regarding smoke, soot and unpleasant odours reached local authorities, making it increasingly difficult for the Aktion T4 administration to continue operations unnoticed.

In an attempt to reduce public attention, the cremation facilities were relocated during the summer of **1940** to a more isolated site at **Paterdamm**, approximately six kilometres from the city centre. Although this measure lessened some of the visible smoke, it failed to restore the secrecy upon which the programme depended.

By the autumn of 1940, the Führer's Chancellery concluded that Brandenburg's urban location presented unacceptable risks. On **28 October 1940**, the final victims were murdered. Shortly afterwards, the gas chamber equipment, administrative records and much of the experienced staff were transferred to the newly established killing centre at **Bernburg**, where operations resumed within weeks.

### From Brandenburg to the Holocaust

The closure of Brandenburg did not mark the end of its influence. Instead, it represented the beginning of a new and even more destructive phase in Nazi policy. The experience gained by physicians, administrators, police officers and technicians at Brandenburg became invaluable as Nazi leaders expanded their plans from the murder of disabled patients to the systematic extermination of Europe's Jewish population.

Many of Brandenburg's most experienced personnel were transferred first to other Aktion T4 killing centres and later to **Operation Reinhard**, the programme established to murder the Jews of occupied Poland. Christian Wirth became Inspector of the Operation Reinhard camps, while Dr. Irmfried Eberl briefly commanded Treblinka. Other former Aktion T4 staff served at Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka, where they applied the organisational methods, deception techniques and killing procedures first developed during the euthanasia programme.

Historians therefore regard Brandenburg as far more than an early euthanasia centre. It served as a laboratory in which the Nazi regime tested not only the technical use of poison gas but also the bureaucratic systems, trained personnel and administrative procedures that would later enable the industrialised murder of millions during the Holocaust.

> Brandenburg demonstrated how ordinary offices, medical professionals, civil servants and police officials could be integrated into a single system designed to kill on an industrial scale, a model that would soon be expanded across occupied Europe.

### Aftermath and Legacy

Following the closure of Brandenburg in **October 1940**, the former prison buildings were reused for other purposes during the Second World War. Although the killing centre itself ceased to operate, the methods developed there continued to shape Nazi policy. The physicians, administrators, police officials and technicians who had refined the use of poison gas, deception and bureaucratic organisation during Aktion T4 carried their experience into later phases of the Holocaust.

When Operation Reinhard commenced in occupied Poland during **1942**, many former Aktion T4 personnel assumed senior positions at the extermination camps of **Bełżec**, **Sobibór** and **Treblinka**. They brought with them practical experience gained at Brandenburg and the other euthanasia centres, including the organisation of transports, registration procedures, deception techniques, gas chamber operations and the disposal of bodies. Although the victims and scale of the killings changed dramatically, the administrative principles first tested during Aktion T4 remained strikingly similar.

Following Germany's defeat in **1945**, investigators gradually uncovered the true purpose of Brandenburg. Documents recovered from Aktion T4 offices, survivor testimonies from hospital staff and evidence presented during post-war trials revealed how the euthanasia programme had served as an important precursor to the Holocaust. While several leading organisers, including **Karl Brandt** and **Viktor Brack**, were convicted and executed after the Doctors' Trial and subsequent proceedings, many lower-ranking participants escaped justice or resumed civilian careers in post-war Germany.

Today, memorials and historical exhibitions in **Brandenburg an der Havel** commemorate the thousands of victims murdered under Aktion T4. The site serves not only as a place of remembrance but also as a warning of how medicine, law and government institutions can become instruments of persecution when stripped of ethical responsibility.

> Brandenburg reminds us that the Holocaust did not begin with the extermination camps. It evolved through a series of deliberate decisions in which physicians, civil servants, police officers and administrators transformed discrimination into organised mass murder.

### Key Dates

**August 1933:** Brandenburg Concentration Camp established inside the former prison complex.
**February 1934:** Brandenburg Concentration Camp closed.
**Late 1939:** The prison complex selected for conversion into an Aktion T4 killing centre.
**January 1940:** Experimental carbon monoxide gassings carried out in the newly completed gas chamber.
**February 1940:** Systematic killings begin.
**July 1940:** Jewish psychiatric patients increasingly transported to Brandenburg under Reich-wide deportation orders.
**28 October 1940:** Final gassings carried out.
**November 1940:** Staff, equipment and administrative organisation transferred to Bernburg.
**1942:** Former Brandenburg personnel assume key roles in Operation Reinhard extermination camps.

 Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg

 ![Hadamar](https://www.normandy1944.info/images/holocaust/aktionT4/brandenburg/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktiont4-Brandenburg-main-facility.jpg)

###  Victims

####  Patients gassed: Unknown

##  Patients murdered: ± 9,772

---

#####  In operation from:

####  August 1933 - 28 October 1940

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####  Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg map

 ![](https://www.normandy1944.info/templates/yootheme/assets/images/consent_placeholder_map.svg) ![](https://www.normandy1944.info/templates/yootheme/assets/images/consent_icon_openstreetmap.svg)OpenStreetMap service required
to load this map.

 ![](https://www.normandy1944.info/templates/yootheme/assets/images/consent_icon_openstreetmap.svg)OpenStreetMap service required
to load this map.

- Havel Germany

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 [ Visit the website of this memorial ](https://www.sachsenhausen-sbg.de/publikationen/die-euthanasie-anstalt-brandenburg-an-der-havel/ "adsdfsadfas")

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This page was updated on: 31 July 2026

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 Remember Otto Hummel

 ![](https://www.normandy1944.info/images/holocaust/aktionT4/brandenburg/Aktion-T4-Brandenburg-victim-Otto-Hummel.png)

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 | Victim's personal data file |
|---|
| Born: 12 August 1903 |
| Died: 1 June 1940 in Brandenburg/Havel |
| Came from: Landesheilanstalt Alt-Scherbitz |
| Victim of the Aktion T4 programme |

**Otto Hummel** was admitted to the **Landesheilanstalt Alt-Scherbitz** at the age of 25. The surviving medical records, now preserved in the **Bundesarchiv** (**German Federal Archives)**, reveal little about the man himself. Instead, they reduce him to bureaucratic labels, describing him as being of **'German blood'** and suffering from what the institution described as **'severe mental deficiency with a tendency towards antisocial behaviour'.** Like thousands of other psychiatric patients in Nazi Germany, Otto became little more than a file in a system that increasingly viewed disabled people as a burden on society.

In **1932**, Otto's father, **Friedrich Hummel**, appealed to the institution for permission to allow his son to return home. Otto worked in the hospital's coal department and his father hoped he could once again become part of the family. The request was refused. Officials concluded that, despite Friedrich Hummel's good intentions, he was "unable to protect society from the patient." The decision left Otto confined to the institution.

By **1940**, Nazi Germany had begun implementing **Aktion T4**, the secret euthanasia programme that targeted people with mental illnesses and disabilities. Patients were selected for transfer to specially designated killing centres under the false pretence of receiving further medical treatment.

In **June 1940**, the **36-year-old Otto Hummel** was removed from **Landesheilanstalt Alt-Scherbitz** and transported to **Brandenburg an der Havel**, where the former prison had been converted into one of the first **Aktion T4 killing centres**. Shortly after his arrival, he was murdered in a **carbon monoxide gas chamber**. Like thousands of other victims of Aktion T4, his family almost certainly received a falsified cause of death, a common practice used by the Nazi authorities to conceal the systematic murder of psychiatric patients.

Otto was one of five children born to **Friedrich Hummel** and his wife. Institutional records describe the family as living in "poor circumstances." Friedrich earned a living as a rag dealer and lived with his family at **Kleine Ulrichstraße 8**, in a densely populated working-class district. After Otto's mother died, he relied on public assistance while trying to support his family.

For decades, Otto Hummel existed only as a patient file preserved in the archives. Today, remembering his story restores the identity the Nazi regime tried to erase. He was not murdered because of anything he had done, but because the state declared his life unworthy of living. Behind every Aktion T4 victim was a person whose life had value long before the Nazi regime declared otherwise.

The biography of Otto Hummel is published with permission of Robert Parzer (Gedenkort T4) and [www.zeit-geschichten.de](https://www.zeit-geschichten.de/)

 The first experimental carbon monoxide gassings carried out at Brandenburg during January 1940 helped establish the methods later used throughout the Aktion T4 programme. Several members of the Brandenburg staff, would later play leading roles in the Operation Reinhard extermination camps, demonstrating the direct continuity between the Nazi euthanasia programme and the Holocaust

### Public Awareness and the Closure of Brandenburg

Despite the extensive efforts to maintain secrecy, Brandenburg's location within a densely populated urban area made complete concealment impossible. Residents living near the former prison noticed an increasing number of grey buses arriving under police supervision, while smoke and the unmistakable smell of burning human remains frequently drifted across neighbouring streets and schools.

Rumours spread rapidly throughout Brandenburg an der Havel. Local inhabitants began referring to the mysterious vehicles as *"death buses"*, and many families with relatives in psychiatric institutions came to fear the arrival of the grey transports. Complaints regarding smoke, soot and unpleasant odours reached local authorities, making it increasingly difficult for the Aktion T4 administration to continue operations unnoticed.

In an attempt to reduce public attention, the cremation facilities were relocated during the summer of **1940** to a more isolated site at **Paterdamm**, approximately six kilometres from the city centre. Although this measure lessened some of the visible smoke, it failed to restore the secrecy upon which the programme depended.

By the autumn of 1940, the Führer's Chancellery concluded that Brandenburg's urban location presented unacceptable risks. On **28 October 1940**, the final victims were murdered. Shortly afterwards, the gas chamber equipment, administrative records and much of the experienced staff were transferred to the newly established killing centre at **Bernburg**, where operations resumed within weeks.

### From Brandenburg to the Holocaust

The closure of Brandenburg did not mark the end of its influence. Instead, it represented the beginning of a new and even more destructive phase in Nazi policy. The experience gained by physicians, administrators, police officers and technicians at Brandenburg became invaluable as Nazi leaders expanded their plans from the murder of disabled patients to the systematic extermination of Europe's Jewish population.

Many of Brandenburg's most experienced personnel were transferred first to other Aktion T4 killing centres and later to **Operation Reinhard**, the programme established to murder the Jews of occupied Poland. Christian Wirth became Inspector of the Operation Reinhard camps, while Dr. Irmfried Eberl briefly commanded Treblinka. Other former Aktion T4 staff served at Bełżec, Sobibór and Treblinka, where they applied the organisational methods, deception techniques and killing procedures first developed during the euthanasia programme.

Historians therefore regard Brandenburg as far more than an early euthanasia centre. It served as a laboratory in which the Nazi regime tested not only the technical use of poison gas but also the bureaucratic systems, trained personnel and administrative procedures that would later enable the industrialised murder of millions during the Holocaust.

> Brandenburg demonstrated how ordinary offices, medical professionals, civil servants and police officials could be integrated into a single system designed to kill on an industrial scale, a model that would soon be expanded across occupied Europe.

### Aftermath and Legacy

Following the closure of Brandenburg in **October 1940**, the former prison buildings were reused for other purposes during the Second World War. Although the killing centre itself ceased to operate, the methods developed there continued to shape Nazi policy. The physicians, administrators, police officials and technicians who had refined the use of poison gas, deception and bureaucratic organisation during Aktion T4 carried their experience into later phases of the Holocaust.

When Operation Reinhard commenced in occupied Poland during **1942**, many former Aktion T4 personnel assumed senior positions at the extermination camps of **Bełżec**, **Sobibór** and **Treblinka**. They brought with them practical experience gained at Brandenburg and the other euthanasia centres, including the organisation of transports, registration procedures, deception techniques, gas chamber operations and the disposal of bodies. Although the victims and scale of the killings changed dramatically, the administrative principles first tested during Aktion T4 remained strikingly similar.

Following Germany's defeat in **1945**, investigators gradually uncovered the true purpose of Brandenburg. Documents recovered from Aktion T4 offices, survivor testimonies from hospital staff and evidence presented during post-war trials revealed how the euthanasia programme had served as an important precursor to the Holocaust. While several leading organisers, including **Karl Brandt** and **Viktor Brack**, were convicted and executed after the Doctors' Trial and subsequent proceedings, many lower-ranking participants escaped justice or resumed civilian careers in post-war Germany.

Today, memorials and historical exhibitions in **Brandenburg an der Havel** commemorate the thousands of victims murdered under Aktion T4. The site serves not only as a place of remembrance but also as a warning of how medicine, law and government institutions can become instruments of persecution when stripped of ethical responsibility.

> Brandenburg reminds us that the Holocaust did not begin with the extermination camps. It evolved through a series of deliberate decisions in which physicians, civil servants, police officers and administrators transformed discrimination into organised mass murder.

![](https://www.normandy1944.info/images/holocaust/aktionT4/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktiont4-hadamar-letter-hitler.jpg)

Letter by Adolf Hitler authorising the killing of the "incurably sick" by means of a "mercy death".

 Gedenkstätte Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg

The Brandenburg euthanasia centre occupies a unique place in the history of Nazi Germany. Although fewer than **10,000 people** were murdered there, its historical significance reaches far beyond the number of victims. Within the walls of a converted prison, the Nazi regime developed the technical methods, administrative procedures and trained personnel that would later be employed on a vastly greater scale during the Holocaust.

The victims of Brandenburg were among the first to be murdered in purpose-built gas chambers under direct state authority. They included men, women and children whose lives were judged by Nazi ideology to be without value. Their deaths marked the transition from policies of persecution and forced sterilisation to systematic, industrialised killing.

Understanding Brandenburg is essential to understanding the Holocaust itself. The facility demonstrates that genocide did not emerge suddenly in 1942 but evolved through years of planning, experimentation and bureaucratic normalisation. The lessons learned at Brandenburg were carried eastward, where they became part of the machinery that would ultimately murder millions of innocent people across occupied Europe.

#### Can Brandenburg still be visited today?

In **August 2012**, the **Brandenburg Memorial Foundation** opened a permanent memorial dedicated to the victims of the Nazi euthanasia programme in **Brandenburg an der Havel**. Located within the former farm building of the Old Prison and only a short distance from the site of the original gas chamber, the memorial features a permanent exhibition spanning approximately **120 square metres**. Through photographs, documents and personal stories, the exhibition explores the planning, implementation and perpetrators of the systematic murder of more than **9,000 people** with mental illnesses and disabilities who were killed at Brandenburg between **January and October 1940**.

#####  Liberated by:

![](https://www.normandy1944.info/media/yootheme/cache/88/Soviet-Red-Army-Hat-Star-badge-881a60c4.png?src=images/patches/Soviet-Red-Army-Hat-Star-badge.png&thumbnail=200,215,&hash=069a1f0e)

###   Forces of the 1st Belorussian Front os the Soviet Army

 Tötungsanstalt Brandenburg perpetrators

 ![](https://www.normandy1944.info/images/holocaust/aktionT4/Bernburg/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktion-t4-bernbrug-Irmfried_Eberl.jpg)

### Dr. Irmfried Eberl

Medical Director

 ![](https://www.normandy1944.info/images/holocaust/aktionT4/brandenburg/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktion-t4-brandenbrug-Christian-Wirth.jpg)

### Christian Wirth

Administrative Director

 ![](https://www.normandy1944.info/images/holocaust/aktionT4/brandenburg/d-day-normandy-beyond-aktion-t4-brandenbrug-Heinrich-Bunke.jpg)

### Dr. Heinrich Bunke

Deputy physician

 ![](https://www.normandy1944.info/images/holocaust/aktionT4/Aktion-T4-no-picture.jpg)

### Dr. Aquilin Ulrich

Deputy physician

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