Action T4
Action T4 was a program initiated by the Nazi regime aimed at the forced euthanasia of individuals deemed "life unworthy of life," including the incurably ill, as well as mentally and physically disabled people. This initiative began with the targeting of newborns and children with disabilities before expanding to include adults. Although officially lasting only from 1939 to 1941, the euthanasia policy continued in secrecy throughout World War II, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 200,000 to 350,000 individuals. The program was facilitated by a systematic process involving medical professionals who assessed individuals for inclusion based on preconceived criteria, leading to their transport to killing centers where they were killed, often by gas. Public outcry, particularly from religious leaders like Bishop Clemens von Galen, led to the official cessation of the program, but killings persisted covertly. The T4 program significantly influenced the methods of mass extermination later employed in the Holocaust, highlighting the extent to which eugenics and racial purity ideologies permeated Nazi policies. The legacy of Action T4 remains a poignant reminder of the dangers of dehumanization and the ethical dilemmas surrounding medical authority and state power.
Action T4
Action T4 was a Nazi-sponsored program of forced euthanasia, or mercy killing, to eliminate the incurably ill and the mentally or physically disabled from German society. Named after the address of the German office that issued the order, the program at first focused on killing newborns and young children with disabilities, but soon expanded to include disabled adults as well. The T4 program officially lasted only two years, but the policy was continued in secret for the duration of World War II and resulted in more than two hundred thousand deaths. Many of the facilities and processes designed for the program were later used in the attempted mass extermination of the Jewish people.
Origins and History of the Policy
In the early twentieth century, eugenics was a popular field of study among the scientific community. Eugenics is the idea that the human population can be improved through hereditary manipulation—the proliferation of desired genetic traits and the removal of undesirable qualities through selective breeding. In 1920, two German professors, Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche, wrote an influential work on eugenics, Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life. The book argues that the elimination of the mentally disabled from society is justified as compassionate and is necessary for the improvement of the human race.
When Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power in 1933, they brought with them the idea of racial purity and the belief that Germans were naturally superior to all other races. Combining this philosophy with the rationalization found in Binding and Hoche's work, they passed the Nuremberg Laws in 1933, ordering the forced sterilization of those determined to be "hereditarily sick," such as the mentally ill, and those born deaf or blind.
In 1938, Hitler reportedly received a petition from the family of a severely disabled infant asking for permission to allow the "mercy death" of the child. Hitler was said to have used this request as the basis to begin development of a euthanasia program targeting disabled infants and children. The effort was led by Philipp Bouhler, chief of Hitler's chancellery, and Karl Brandt, Hitler's personal physician. In August 1939, the German Health Ministry began requiring all medical personnel and midwives to register newborns or children younger than three who showed severe signs of physical or mental disability. The authorities also requested parents of disabled children bring them to special clinics for an examination.
A panel of three medical experts reviewed reports filled out by the examining physicians and made a decision as to whether the child should be euthanized. If the panel's decision was unanimous, the child was sent to a Children's Specialty Institution and killed either by lethal overdose or starvation. Eventually, the process was modified to include children as old as seventeen and those classified as juvenile delinquents.
In October 1939, Hitler signed a directive to expand the program to include disabled adults. He backdated the order to September 1, 1939, the start of World War II, to give the pretext it was a wartime necessity. The program was codenamed T4, after the address of Hitler's Chancellery in Berlin—Tiergartenstrasse 4. Questionnaires were developed and distributed to hospitals and psychiatric institutions to give the impression the government was conducting a statistical survey. The forms were designed to identify patients with chronic disorders such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, dementia, or encephalitis; those who were deemed criminally insane; individuals who were not of "German blood"; or those who had been confined to an institution for more than five years.
Medical officials examined the questionnaires to determine who met the criteria for inclusion. Beginning in January 1940, government operatives began removing disabled individuals from medical institutions and transferring them to one of six newly created killing facilities in Germany and Austria. Once there, the victims were systematically sent to their deaths in a gas chamber. Their bodies were cremated and their remains were delivered to their families. Death certificates indicated a false cause of death.
Despite attempts to keep the T4 program secret, its existence soon became common knowledge in Germany. On August 3, 1941, Catholic Bishop Clemens von Galen publically criticized the state-sponsored euthanasia, calling it "murder." He condemned the Nazis for their "ungodly behavior." His protest, and the opposition of other members of the German clergy, prompted Hitler to officially halt the T4 program on August 23, 1941. The policy of euthanasia under the Nazis, however, did not stop. They continued killing children and adults with disabilities in secret throughout the war. Local officials were given the authority to determine who was subject to euthanasia. Officials once again used lethal injection and starvation to terminate these individuals to avoid detection. By 1945, the program had again expanded to include the elderly, bombing victims, and foreign workers.
Death Toll and Legacy
Because the German government kept detailed records of the T4 program, it estimated more than seventy thousand disabled individuals were killed at its six gassing facilities from January 1940 to August 1941. Estimates of the total number of people killed in Nazi euthanasia programs during World War II range from two hundred thousand to three hundred and fifty thousand. Both Bouhler and Brandt were arrested at the end of the war. Bouhler committed suicide in custody in 1945; Brandt was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity and was hanged in 1948.
After the T4 program was stopped, many of those involved were reassigned to other extermination facilities in the Eastern areas of German-controlled territory. The knowledge gained in the operation of the euthanasia centers—including the processes of gassing and cremation—was refined and utilized in some of the most notorious Nazi extermination camps, including Auschwitz and Treblinka. An estimated six million Jews and millions of other victims were killed by the Nazis during World War II.
Richard Sheposh
Bibliography
"Euthanasia Program." Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 28 Dec. 2015. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005200
Lifton, Robert Jay. "German Doctors and the Final Solution." New York Times. The New York Times Company. 21 Sept. 1986. Web. 28 Dec. 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/1986/09/21/magazine/german-doctors-and-the-final-solution.html
McFarland, Brynnah. "Nazi Euthanasia Program." Newark College of Arts and Sciences and University College—Newark. Rutgers University. 2013. Web. 28 Dec. 2015.
"Nazi Euthanasia." The History Place. The History Place. 1997. Web. 28 Dec. 2015. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-euthanasia.htm
"Nazi Racism." Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Web. 28 Dec. 2015. http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007679
"The Nuremberg Laws: Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health." Jewish Virtual Library. American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. Web. 28 Dec. 2015. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/nurmlaw1.html
"The Nuremberg Trials: The Doctors Trial." University of Missouri—Kansas City. University of Missouri. Web. 28 Dec. 2015. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/NurembergDoctorTrial.html