Action T4

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Memorial plaque at Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin, 2009
New memorial and information site at Tiergartenstrasse, 2014

Aktion T4 is a term that became common after 1945 for the systematic murder of more than 70,000 people with physical, mental and emotional disabilities in Germany from 1940 to 1941 under the direction of the central office T4 . These murders were part of the murders of the sick during the Nazi era , which killed over 200,000 people by 1945.

In addition to eugenic ideas of eugenics war economic considerations are during the Second World War to justify the " destruction of life unworthy of life " were used. At the same time as the first church protests, the killings were continued decentrally from 1942 after entire parts of the institution were "emptied" by "sanatoriums and nursing homes" (before 1934 the common name: " insane asylum ") .

"T4" is the abbreviation for the address of the former T4 central office in Berlin: Tiergartenstrasse 4 . At the beginning of the action, the office was in the Columbushaus .

Disguising terminology

At the time of National Socialism , the mass murders were carried out under euphemistic names such as Aktion Gnadentod . This action was also known as the annihilation of life unworthy of life and the Nazi murder of the sick . The name for the abbreviation Aktion T4 , which was now in use in the post-war period, was the office headquarters for the management of the murder of disabled people throughout the German Reich , which was located in a villa at Tiergartenstrasse  4 in Berlin-Mitte . The term Aktion T4 cannot be found in the contemporary sources . There the term action - or with a prefixed abbreviation for euthanasia ( Eu-Aktion or just E-Aktion ) - was used. In ancient Greece, the ancient Greek word εὐθανασία euthanasía (from εὖ eu "good, right, easy, beautiful" and θάνατος thanatos "death") stood for the "good death" without a preceding long illness.

Background and historical classification

The so-called euthanasia practiced under National Socialism goes back to eugenic ideas developed around the turn of the century , as popularized among others by the psychologist Adolf Jost . These ideas were concretized by Binding and Hoche's publication, Release for the Destruction of Unworthy Life, published in 1920, and thus found their way into the academic discussion. In the sense of a “ racial hygiene ” and an upbringing of the “ Aryan race ”, these eugenic ideas not only corresponded with the goals of the National Socialist ideology , but the final goal of “annihilating life unworthy of life” was justified in a strongly materialistic way. It was a euphemism for the planned and systematic murder of "hereditary and mentally ill , handicapped and socially or racially undesirable"; the decisions were made according to the files by doctors appointed as experts.

The "Action T4" was part of a gradual realization of the core goals of the National Socialist ideology, the "Aufartung" or "Aufnordung" of the German people. This included various measures - from harmless such as marriage loans, child allowances, tax breaks to the allocation of settler positions and hereditary estates to promote numerous racially desirable offspring. Any "impairment of the German national body" should be prevented by the legally regulated "prevention" of the reproduction of people with a real or alleged hereditary disease as well as socially and racially undesirable people. Ultimately, the means to achieve this was to “eradicate” in the form of the destruction of “life unworthy of living”. “Heal or destroy” were thus the complementary parts of the National Socialist ideology. The Reich Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, was in charge of the legislation on this goal .

  • On September 27, 1939, the first massacre of psychiatric patients in German-occupied Poland occurred in Wejherowo (Neustadt near Gdingen) in West Prussia , which was followed by further murders in many Polish institutions. In the autumn, German sick people from Pomerania were selected by the prison administrators there and taken to German-occupied West Prussia to be shot.
  • In one of the casemates of Fort VII in the occupied Polish city of Poznań (Posen) , several psychiatric patients were murdered by carbon monoxide in a "test gassing" in the second half of October or possibly even before October 9, 1939 . The Nazi leader Himmler (SS) had the operation of this gassing method demonstrated to him on December 12th or 13th, 1939. A little later, the T4 killing centers named below also used this gas.
  • The child euthanasia in 1939 initiated the killing of at least 5,000 hereditary and cognitively or physically impaired infants and children.
  • This was followed shortly after by adult euthanasia, in which around 70,000 residents of sanatoriums and nursing homes and homes for people with disabilities were killed. This also included numerous former army soldiers from the First World War , who lived in sanatoriums due to the severe psychosocial disorders they suffered and were deported to T4 institutions for murder when they were closed.

After "Aktion T4" was discontinued in August 1941 by the Berlin headquarters, which from the beginning was dependent on the protection of Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich , adult "euthanasia" was continued decentralized relatively unobtrusively:

  • The killing of "sick" and "no longer able to work" concentration camp prisoners until the end of the war in three of the former killing centers of "Aktion T4" ( Bernburg , Sonnenstein , Hartheim ) was referred to as " Aktion 14f13 " according to the file number used for this purpose . As part of this action, which was also known as “Sonderbehäne 14f13”, around 20,000 prisoners were murdered.
  • With the " Aktion Brandt " (after Karl Brandt , Hitler's attending physician , from July 28, 1942 authorized representative for the sanitary and health service and from September 5, 1943 head of the entire medical supply and supply system of the " Third Reich "), Heil - and nursing homes for the increasing need for alternative hospitals due to the increasing air war . The patients were concentrated in special institutions in the middle of the empire or in the east. Targeted killings with overdosed drugs or starvation due to malnutrition have drastically reduced their number. This phase after the “official” end of “euthanasia” in August 1941 was referred to as “wild euthanasia” in the first decades after the end of the war and meant the murder of around 30,000 more people.

The approval of the destruction of life unworthy of life , written by Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding , and the outline of human heredity and racial hygiene , in later editions, human hereditary teaching and racial hygiene , written by Eugen Fischer , Erwin Baur and Fritz Lenz , served the Nazis as the justification for the T4 -Program.

Start and organization of "Action T4"

As early as July 1939, Hitler held a consultation with the Reich Health Leader Leonardo Conti , the head of the Reich Chancellery Hans Heinrich Lammers and Martin Bormann as head of the staff of the Fuehrer's deputy . The subject matter was the continuation of the ongoing consultations on the "destruction of life unworthy of life" by including the mentally ill in the killing measures following the child "euthanasia".

Informal letter from Hitler, backdated to September 1, 1939

However, Hitler did not entrust Conti with the implementation, but rather the head of the Fuehrer's office (KdF), Philipp Bouhler , after he was already in charge of the “child euthanasia”. On August 10, 1939, he terminated a conversation with Karl Brandt, Leonardo Conti, the ministerial directors Herbert Linden from the Reich Ministry of the Interior and his own employees, Senior Service Manager Viktor Brack (Head of Main Office II) and Hans Hefelmann (Head of Office IIb) from the KdF as well as a selection of doctors who should be won over as the necessary employees for the implementation of the adult “euthanasia” or later the “Action T4”. In the course of these discussions under the Würzburg University Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology Werner Heyde , who was appointed medical director , the group of employees was expanded to the size that seemed necessary.

In October 1939, Hitler finally authorized the head of the KdF Bouhler and Hitler's attending physician Karl Brandt as the medical contact person with the organizational implementation of the "euthanasia" termed killing of "life unworthy of life" in a letter dated back to September 1, 1939, the day the war began ". The letter on Hitler's private stationery has the following wording:

"Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. med. Brandt are responsible for expanding the powers of doctors to be named so that, according to human judgment, incurable patients can be granted death by mercy if their condition is critically assessed. "

This letter of authorization had no legal validity; such a decree should have been countersigned by Hitler and Herbert Linden, printed on official paper and published in the Reichsgesetzblatt . However, there were also law professors who saw a Führer decree (whereby the decree, in order to be valid as such, would have to be issued through the Reich Chancellery) as directly applicable law, including Theodor Maunz . A marginal note by the Reich Minister of Justice Franz Gürtner on the original document shows that Bouhler handed the order over to the Reich Ministry of Justice in 1940.

Since the Führer’s office was not to appear publicly in connection with the measures adopted, a semi-state special administration was formed, which was formally subordinate to Hauptamt II of the KdF, headed by Viktor Brack , and since April 1940 in a villa in Berlin's Tiergartenstrasse 4 and was financed by the Reich Treasurer of the NSDAP. This central office T4 with its managing director Dietrich Allers was divided into the following externally independent institutions:

Garage of the “gray buses” in Hadamar that were used to bring people to the killing centers. Today part of the memorial, 2008
  • Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft (RAG) "Heil- und Pflegeeanstalten", responsible for the registration of the victims with the medical department under Werner Heyde and the administrative department, originally headed by Gerhard Bohne , from spring 1940 by Friedrich Tillmann .
  • “ Gemeinnützige Krankentransport GmbH ” (Gekrat), with the task of transferring the victims to the intermediate or killing centers under the direction of Reinhold Vorberg .
  • “Non-profit foundation for institutional care”, officially the employer of the approximately 400 T4 employees under Willy Schneider until March 1941, Fritz Schmiedel, from February 1942 Friedrich Lorent .
  • “Central clearing office for therapeutic and nursing homes” (ZVSt), handling of costs with the institutional bodies under the direction of Dietrich Allers and Hans-Joachim Becker as representative .

40 " experts " were appointed to select the victims , who were supposed to decide on their fate based on a patient description on registration forms. These assessments were only made on the basis of the files.

In a meeting on October 9, 1939, the number of eligible patients was determined to be about 70,000. The aim was to eradicate incurable hereditary diseases and, at the same time, to reduce the costs of institutional care. The head of the Reich Criminal Police Office in the Reich Security Main Office , Arthur Nebe , had been charged with examining a suitable killing agent. His colleague and head of the chemical-physical department in the Forensic Institute, Albert Widmann , suggested the use of carbon monoxide (CO) for this.

With the circular of October 9, 1939 of the Department IV of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, headed by Leonardo Conti, the relevant sanatoriums and nursing homes were asked to name certain patients using registration forms on which detailed information on illness and ability to work were to be given. The following criteria were specified in an attached leaflet:

The institutions concerned were left in the dark about the fact that the registration forms were used to list the victims of Operation T4 and only referred to the need for a planned economy.

The registration forms returned to the responsible officer Herbert Linden in the Reich Ministry of the Interior were forwarded to the T4 headquarters. After creating an index card, copies of each registration form were made and sent to three experts. The reviewers entered their decision in a box with a black border on the copy of the registration form with a red “+” for “kill” and a blue “-” for “survive”. If an expert could not make a decision, he provided the registration form with a "?" And, if necessary, a comment. The question of whether the patient was rated as fit for work and curable played an important role in the assessment.

In the T4 headquarters, the entries on the copies of the registration form that were examined in this way were transferred to the originals and these were submitted to one of the two senior experts for a final decision. The chief assessors were Werner Heyde and Ministerialdirigent Herbert Linden from the Reich Ministry of the Interior, who was replaced after six months by Hermann Paul Nitsche , from December 1941 also Heyde's successor as medical director of T4. The senior reviewers used the same symbols as the previous reviewers with the exception of the “?”. The four reviewers made the decisions without having seen the patient.

Back at the T4 headquarters, the registration forms marked with a red "+" were handed over to the head of Gekrat, Reinhold Vorberg, along with copies. There, the relocation lists were compiled and sent via the Reich Ministry of the Interior to the institutions concerned and the Gekrat transport teams stationed at the responsible killing institution.

Action T4 in Germany-occupied Poland

  • After the occupation of Poland , inmates of the institution were murdered by the SS and Gestapo in Schwetz and Kocborowo / Conadstein, a district of Prussian Stargard .
  • In the Piaśnica massacre shortly after the occupation of Poland, over 1200 patients from Pomeranian and East Prussian institutions were shot by the SS guard Eimann , under the command of Kurt Eimann , between September and December 1939.
  • In Fort VII in Posen in October 1939 as well as in January 1940 in Brandenburg / Havel experiments on the killing method were carried out.
  • In Chełmno (Kulm), the T4 campaign was continued in contrast to the Reich territory. After the official end of the campaign in the Reich territory, forged death certificates were issued for Jewish and other sick people murdered in Brandenburg in the fictitious asylum Cholm, Post Lublin.
  • The Lange Sonderkommando under Herbert Lange murdered more than 6000 Polish and German patients in 1939/40 in connection with Operation T4 using gas vans in Warthegau and West Prussia .

A total of around 15,000 people fell victim to euthanasia in 20 institutions.

Construction of the killing centers

The following important information is still missing in the following section:
The killing centers in occupied territories ( link )
Help Wikipedia by researching and pasting it .

In the basement of this building in Sonnenstein Castle in Pirna , 13,720 people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness and at least 1,031 prisoners from concentration camps were killed with gas in 1940/41 .

With the registration forms to the individual institutions to record the people in question, a second registration form with questions about the institutions themselves, such as year of construction, size, special facilities, rail connection and the like, was sent out. In this way knowledge should be gained about suitable institutions for the killing of the selected victims.

At the beginning of October 1939 Herbert Linden from the Reich Ministry of the Interior visited the head of the Württemberg Health Service in the Ministry of the Interior, Eugen Stähle , and informed him of the plans of the Reich government to reduce the number of hereditary and mentally ill inmates, combined with the demand to name a suitable institution in Württemberg the “euthanasia” of the named group of patients could be carried out. For this purpose, Steels suggested the Samaritan Institute Grafeneck near Marbach, a district of Gomadingen . This was confiscated on October 12, 1939, cleared of all patients and shortly afterwards rebuilt for the intended purpose. In addition to office and staff rooms, a gas-tight killing room called a “shower room” was set up in a wooden barrack 300 meters from the castle. Three mobile crematorium ovens were installed next to the barrack and the facility was shielded with a wooden fence. The facility was secured from the surrounding area by SS guards. In January 1940, the Grafeneck killing center began its "operation".

Between 1939 and 1941, six euthanasia killing centers were established in the territory of the German Reich. In some cases, numerous killings were carried out even after the "euthanasia stop" ordered by Hitler on August 24, 1941. Medicines were overdosed and malnutrition was used in a targeted manner; In addition, inmates unable to work were killed as part of Operation 14f13 .

T4 killing facility place Today's state Period
Grafeneck Gomadingen Baden-Württemberg January 20 - December 1940
Brandenburg Brandenburg on the Havel Brandenburg February 8 - October 1940
Hartheim Alcove near Linz Upper Austria May 6, 1940 - December 1944
Sunstone Pirna Saxony June 1940 - September 1942
Bernburg Bernburg (Saale) Saxony-Anhalt November 21, 1940 - July 30, 1943
Hadamar Hadamar near Limburg Hesse January 1941 - July 31, 1942

The “euthanasia” facility in Bernburg replaced Brandenburg in the fall of 1940, while Hadamar replaced the Grafeneck killing facility.

The T4 organizers Viktor Brack and Werner Heyde ordered that the killing of the sick could only be carried out by the medical staff, since Hitler's letter of authorization of September 1, 1939 only referred to doctors. The following doctors were employed in the individual Nazi killing centers:

T4 killing facility Killing doctors function Period
Grafeneck Horst Schumann
Ernst Baumhard
Günther Hennecke 		Head of
Deputy, from May 1940 Head of
Deputy 		January - November 1940
January - April 1940
April 25 - December 1940
Brandenburg Irmfried Eberl
Aquilin Ullrich
Heinrich Bunke 		Head of
Deputy
Deputy 		February 1 - November 1940
March 15 - November 1940
August - November 1940
Hartheim Rudolf Lonauer
Georg Renno 		Head of
Deputy 		April 1, 1940 - April 1945
May 1940 - August 1941
Sunstone Horst Schumann
Curt Schmalenbach
Klaus Endruweit
Kurt Borm 		Head of
Deputy
Deputy
Deputy 		June 1940 - August 1941
Autumn - December 1940
December 1940 - April 1941
December 1940 - August 1941
Bernburg Irmfried Eberl
Heinrich Bunke 		Head of
Deputy 		November 1940 - August 1941
November 1940 - August 1941
Hadamar Ernst Baumhard
Friedrich Berner
Curt Schmalenbach
Adolf Wahlmann
Günther Hennecke
Bodo Gorgaß 		Head
Head
Head
Head
Deputy
Deputy 		January - June 1941
June - August 1941
December 1941 - July 1942
August 5, 1942 - April 1945
January 13 - June 1941
June 18 - August 1941

Course of the killings

The euthanasia comprised the registration and assessment of the victims, their removal, their killing and cremation as well as the forgery of death certificates and the delivery of the dental gold.

The persons registered in the original institutions and homes and designated by the experts for euthanasia were transported to intermediate institutions . As a rule, bus transport was organized centrally, and public transport was only used in exceptional cases. In order to enrich them, the institutions of origin were given precise instructions on what should be given to the patient as preparation. As an intermediate station in the euthanasia chain, two to four institutions in the wider vicinity of the killing institutions served , mostly state psychiatric hospitals .

On the one hand, these intermediate institutions served the purpose of concealing the end point: accompanying persons were only allowed to follow the patient as far as there. On the other hand, they served as a stopover so that the killing centers were not overcrowded. In the receiving barracks of the killing center , the people brought in were undressed, measured, weighed, photographed and then shown to the doctors. The personal data was checked and any conspicuous features such as surgical scars noted, which could be important for establishing an alleged cause of death.

To deceive the victims, the gas chambers were equipped with shower heads. Usually 30 or more people were gassed at the same time. The killing was carried out using carbon monoxide gas , which the prison doctor usually allowed to flow in for about 20 minutes. The gas supply was stopped when no further movement could be detected in the gasification room. As a rule, the corpses were cremated in the institution's own crematoria; Gold crowns were broken out beforehand. The crude material thus obtained was about the central service T4 to the Degussa supplied and Feingold processed.

In the registry offices attached to the institutions , death certificates with invented medical histories for natural causes of death were issued. B. Hartheim used the letterhead from Brandenburg and vice versa and the post was even delivered there, there was a courier service car especially for moving files between the institutions. Relatives therefore believed they would die in the institution that was very far away. Personal visits and research on site were misled and further complaint attempts by relatives with long journeys were made more difficult. Possible resistance or even just the effort involved in asking questions was minimized. The cost bearers were billed for accommodation, board and care over weeks and months, although the people were killed immediately upon arrival. The relatives were further misled by sending urns with cremation ashes from the distant institution mentioned in the documents. This also served to enrich the institutions by offsetting the allegedly associated costs.

Information from Hartheim statistics on the number of victims 1940-1941

Internal T4 statistics that have been preserved, the so-called Hartheim statistics , contain the people gassed in the killing centers between 1940 and September 1, 1941.

Institution 1940 1941 total
A (Grafeneck) 9,839 - 9,839
B (Brandenburg) 9,772 - 9,772
Be (Bernburg) - 8,601 8,601
C (Hartheim) 9,670 8,599 18,269
D (sunstone) 5,943 7,777 13,720
E (Hadamar) - 10,072 10,072
total 35,224 35,049 70.273

According to the Grafeneck Memorial , between January and December 1940, between 10,500 and 11,000 people were murdered in Grafeneck. The number 10,654 was named in 1949 by the Tübingen jury court in a trial against a small number of perpetrators.

The Hadamar Memorial reports a total of 10,122 victims in the Hadamar gas chamber for the period between January 13 and August 24, 1941. As part of the "second phase of the murder", the former Hadamar State Hospital again took over the function of a killing facility: from August 1942 to March 26, 1945, a further 4,411 victims died there.

Resistance to the action

Survivor of Aktion T4 with Down syndrome: Walter Kistler

Against the action T4 protesting parents of those affected, prominent religious leaders such as the Catholic side of the quasi-official thus retired bishop of the Diocese of Rottenburg Joannes Baptista Sprollenhaus , the Bishop of Münster , Clemens August Graf von Galen , the Bishop of Berlin , Konrad Graf von Preysing , the provost from Berlin, Bernhard Lichtenberg , the vicar capitular of Paderborn , Auxiliary Bishop Augustinus Philipp Baumann and the Bishop of Limburg , Antonius Hilfrich , as well as from the Protestant side Paul Gerhard Braune , Theophil Wurm and Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, Bielefeld , but also some directors and employees of the homes, in which the victims lived.

Lothar Kreyssig from Brandenburg an der Havel was the only German judge to denounce the euthanasia murders. As a guardianship judge, he had noticed that news of the deaths of his handicapped ward increased after a transfer. In July 1940 he reported his suspicion that the sick were being murdered en masse to the Reich Justice Minister Franz Gürtner . After he had been informed that the murder action was being carried out under the responsibility of the Fuehrer's office, Kreyssig filed a complaint against Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler for murder. He strictly forbade the institutions in which his wards were housed from moving them without his consent. Kreyssig, who expected to be arrested immediately, was merely retired.

The Allies had known the action since 1940. In September 1941, the Royal Air Force dropped leaflets over the German Reich (“200,000 unusable”) reporting on Steinhof and Erwin Jekelius.

Cancellation of the action

Excavation and recovery of presumably 220 fatalities from 1942 to 1945 in Hall in Tirol (2011)

Joseph Goebbels noted in his diary on January 31, 1941 : “Discussed with Bouhler the question of the tacit liquidation of the mentally ill. 40,000 are gone, 60,000 still have to go. It's hard work, but also necessary. And it has to be done now. Bouhler is the right man to do this. ”According to the Hartheim statistics mentioned above, the planning target of 100,000 victims mentioned here was not achieved and the diary entry is cited as evidence that action T4 was prematurely terminated.

On August 24, 1941, Hitler gave his attendant Brandt and Reichsleiter Bouhler verbal instructions to end “Operation T4” and to stop “adult euthanasia” in the six killing centers. The so-called “child euthanasia” was continued, however, as was the decentralized killing of disabled adults in individual “sanatoriums and nursing homes” through withdrawal of food and administration of luminal or morphine scopolamine . In addition, in the three killing centers in Bernburg , Sonnenstein and Hartheim, the killing of prisoners who were sick or no longer able to work, known as " Aktion 14f13 ", continued.

According to the historian Götz Aly , the public protest by Clemens August Graf von Galen was the decisive impetus for Hitler to temporarily stop the action, but not the sole reason. The clear statement of high church dignitaries against the killing of the patient would have worked particularly among the Catholic faithful. The breach of secrecy and the unease of the population were noted with concern, especially as the expansion of the war was imminent.

In the systematic selections in the concentration camps as well as in the murder of Jews in extermination camps, office staff and teams who had previously been involved in the T4 campaign were deployed. Uwe Dietrich Adam therefore raised the question of whether the operation should be stopped because these killing specialists were needed more urgently elsewhere.

Personnel continuities

The freed personnel from the other killing centers became the personnel basis for the implementation of the so-called “ Final Solution to the Jewish Question ” ( Shoa ), which began at the same time . This action culminated with the “ Aktion Reinhardt ” in 1942/43 and led to the killing of around 1.7 to 1.9 million Jews in the three extermination camps Belzec , Sobibor and Treblinka . The so-called gas chamber letter from the lawyer Erhard Wetzel, who worked for the Nazi racial ideologist Alfred Rosenberg in the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories as a “Jewish advisor”, represents a political high point of this development . The letter is considered to be the earliest document showing the connection between Aktion T4 and the systematic murder of Jews in Europe . A total of more than 100 of the employees trained and active in “euthanasia” provided the “specialist staff” for the continuation of the murders and the implementation of the “final solution” measures. Some of the most popular names are listed below as examples:

Processing and commemoration after 1945

Criminal law processing

Early post-war trials against those in charge of the institutions put those who ordered or initiated “euthanasia murders” on an equal footing with the immediate perpetrators who then administered lethal injections. The defense strategy that the illegality was not recognized at the time was countered by the court by stating that the killing was clearly illegal . Even the - alleged or proven - rescue of individual victims did not lead to acquittal. Courts judged the crimes to be murder and imposed harsh sentences, including death sentences.

From 1948/49 onwards, judgments changed the legal understanding. Perpetrators were granted a “possibly inevitable error of prohibition ”. As "assistants without a decision of their own", the defendants received lighter sentences. With the decision to kill the T4 headquarters, a decision had already been made, and if individual people were subsequently put on hold by the doctor, this could lead to acquittal. “Euthanasia trials” in the 1950s often ended with minor sentences or acquittals.

In 1965, Fritz Bauer initiated an investigation against sixteen high-ranking lawyers, who on 23/24 April 1941 had attended a meeting in Berlin. There they had officially learned of the killing of the mentally ill and then followed the order without contradiction to submit criminal charges unprocessed to the Reich Ministry of Justice. The preliminary investigations were discontinued in 1970.

Many trials did not follow until late in the 1970s / 1980s. Quite a few were reinstated because they were unable to stand trial (e.g. against Schumann , Bunke , Renno , Endruweit ) or the perpetrators received only small prison sentences (e.g. Ullrich ), were acquitted (e.g. Borm ) or were pardoned after a brief detention (e.g. Gorgass ). Others like Eberl or Lonauer avoided prosecution by suicide. Of the 438 “euthanasia” criminal proceedings initiated by 1999, only 6.8% ended with final judgments, including numerous acquittals.

The association of “euthanasia” victims and forced sterilized persons, founded by Klara Nowak , campaigned for the rehabilitation and compensation of victims and their families from 1987 onwards.

Central memorial and information center at Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin

Richard Serra: Berlin Curves / Berlin Junction, steel, 1986

A national memorial and information site for the victims of the National Socialist “euthanasia” murders was created at the historic location at Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin-Mitte . From the building at this address, an office center under the code name “T4” had organized the systematic murder of patients from sanatoriums and nursing homes in the German Reich. The memorial site was opened on September 2, 2014. Since the 1980s, several forms and events of remembrance had already taken place at this site. In 1988, for example, a steel sculpture by Richard Serra was rededicated as a monument for the victims, and a commemorative plaque was set into the ground next to it. After years of criticism of the lack of visibility of the memorial site, the German Bundestag decided in 2011 to upgrade the existing memorial to the victims of the murders as well as to appropriately honor them at the historical location of the planning and organization of "Action T 4", the Nazi murders in which Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin.

In Salzburg (memorial from 1991); In 2014, 325 victim names were added

Further memorials after 1990

After 1990, memorials were erected that are aimed in particular at medical professionals and researchers: memorials in connection with the National Socialist euthanasia crimes in Munich , Berlin and Salzburg.

Gray buses

Permanently placed replica of the mobile bus in front of the state house of the LVR in Cologne-Deutz.

Since the beginning of 2007 there has been a round table under the leadership of the Topography of Terror Foundation and the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe Foundation , in which those affected, committed citizens, representatives of various institutions and responsible authorities take part. The group has set itself the task of drawing attention to the current grievance and promoting the discussion about an appropriate, dignified redesign of the memorial site as part of the urban redesign of the Kulturforum. A first result of the work was the temporary installation of the " Gray Buses Monument " on January 18, 2008 in front of the Philharmonie. This memorial was dismantled on January 17th, 2009 and will be moved to different cities, so that the memory of the murder of sick and disabled people in the Third Reich also remains in motion.

Memorial sites in the former killing centers and psychiatric clinics

In the former killing centers, but also in many psychiatric clinics from which the patients were sent to be killed, there are memorials and, in some cases, exhibitions or learning sites with pedagogical-specific processing, for example at the historical locations of the six “euthanasia” killing centers in Hadamar in Hesse, Brandenburg an der Havel in Brandenburg, Bernburg in Saxony-Anhalt, Grafeneck in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Pirna in Saxony and Hartheim in Austria and in the Irsee monastery in Bavaria. In the former Royal Saxon Sanatorium and Nursing Home Großschweidnitz (since 1902) there were thousands of murders of people deported there from 1939/40 ( Nazi patient murders , Aktion Brandt; initially as an intermediate institution for Pirna).

The Treise chapel on the grounds of the Warstein Clinic was expanded to become a memorial for the victims of euthanasia in 1985 and in 2012 to include the names of the victims there

German Society for Psychiatry

On November 26th, 2010, an event entitled “Psychiatry under National Socialism - Remembrance and Responsibility” took place at the DGPPN Congress . As President of the Society, Frank Schneider commented on the responsibility of the predecessor societies of the DGPPN during the Nazi era:

“On behalf of the German Society for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Neurology, I ask you, the victims and their relatives, to forgive you for the suffering and injustice that was inflicted on you in the name of German psychiatry and by German psychiatrists during the Nazi era , and for the far too long silence, trivialization and suppression of German psychiatry in the period afterwards. "

Further research

Memorial in the Hadamar Memorial Cemetery

In 1948 Alice Ricciardi (born von Platen-Hallermund) published her report on partial results of the Nuremberg Trial: The killing of the mentally ill in Germany .

In the 1970s, Ernst Klee researched Aktion T4 largely as a private person, his work made the spread of these mass murders public and, in a second research phase in the 1980s and 1990s, led to a large number of local initiatives. After 1990 around 30,000 medical files from the T4 office were discovered in the files of the former MfS of the GDR . This resulted in new impulses for a systematic evaluation by the German Research Foundation , because for the first time there was a wide range of information on the victims.

Exhibitions

The exhibition Captured, Persecuted, Destroyed: Sick and Disabled People under National Socialism was opened in 2014 in the German Bundestag under the patronage of Federal President Joachim Gauck as a traveling exhibition of the German Society for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychosomatics and Neurology (DGPPN) in cooperation with the Stiftung Denkmal für die murdered Jews of Europe and the Topography of Terror Foundation , which has since been seen in many national and international locations.

See also

literature

Standard works

further reading

  • Götz Aly , Angelika Ebbinghaus , Matthias Hamann: Separation and death. The clinical execution of the unusable (= contributions to National Socialist health and social policy . Issue 1). Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-88022-950-3 .
  • Thomas Beddies, Kristina Hübener (Ed.): Children in Nazi psychiatry . Series of publications on the history of medicine in the state of Brandenburg, Volume 10. be.bra Berlin-Brandenburg Wissenschaft Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-937233-14-8 .
  • Mathias Beer: The development of gas vans during the murder of the Jews , in: Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte , issue 3, vol. 35, 1987, p. 403–417 website page view 87 ff. (PDF; 8 MB).
  • Udo Benzenhöfer : “Children's Department” and “NS Child Euthanasia”. Studies on the History of Medicine under National Socialism , Volume 1. GWAB, Wetzlar 2000.
  • Bettina Brand-Claussen, Thomas Röske, M Rotzoll (ed.): "Cause of death: euthanasia". Covert murders during the Nazi era . The Wunderhorn, Prinzhorn Collection, Heidelberg 2002, ISBN 3-88423-204-5 .
  • Klaus-Peter Drechsel: Judged, measured, murdered. The practice of euthanasia until the end of German fascism . Duisburg Institute for Language and Social Research , Duisburg 1993, ISBN 3-927388-37-8 .
  • Heinz Faulstich : Death from hunger in psychiatry 1914–1949 . Lambertus, Freiburg im Breisgau 1998, ISBN 3-7841-0987-X .
  • Petra Fuchs, Maike Rotzoll u. a. (Ed.) "Forgetting about annihilation is part of annihilation itself". Life stories of victims of the National Socialist "euthanasia". Wallstein, Göttingen 2007, ISBN 978-3-8353-0146-7 .
  • Margret Hamm (Ed.): "Unworthy of life": life destroyed. Forced sterilization and "euthanasia" . Publishing house for academic writings, Frankfurt 2005, ISBN 3-88864-391-0 .
  • Annette Hinz-Wessels: Tiergartenstrasse 4. Control center for the National Socialist euthanasia murders. Links-Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-86153-848-6 .
  • Annette Hinz-Wessels u. a .: For the bureaucratic handling of a mass murder. The “euthanasia” campaign as reflected in new documents . In: VfZ 53 (2005) (PDF; 6.9 MB), pp. 79-107.
  • Friedrich Karl Kaul : Nazi Murder Action T4. A report on the first industrial murder of the Nazi regime . VEB Verlag Volk und Gesundheit, Berlin 1973.
  • Helmut Kramer : “Holding a court day over ourselves”. Fritz Bauer's trial on the involvement of the judiciary in institutional murder, in: Hanno Loewy, Bettina Winter (ed.): Nazi “euthanasia” in front of the court. Fritz Bauer and the limits of legal coping . Campus, Frankfurt 1996, pp. 81-131. ISBN 3-593-35442-X .
  • Hanno Loewy, Bettina Winter (ed.): Nazi “euthanasia” in court. Fritz Bauer and the limits of legal coping . Campus, Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-593-35442-X .
  • Thomas Matzek: The Murder Castle. On the trail of Nazi crimes in Hartheim Castle . Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-218-00710-0 .
  • Christian Merkel: "Death to the idiots!" Eugenics and euthanasia in the legal reception of the German Empire during the Hitler era . Logos, Berlin 2007, ISBN 3-8325-1284-5 .
  • Christoph Mundt (Ed.): Psychiatric Research and NS “Euthanasia” . Das Wunderhorn, Heidelberg 2001, ISBN 3-88423-165-0 .
  • Uwe Henrik Peters : Nazi Psychiatry, Rise and Fall . ANA Publishers, Cologne 2011, ISBN 978-3-931906-16-0 .
  • Raimond Reiter: Psychiatry in the Third Reich in Lower Saxony . Tectum, Hannover 2007, ISBN 978-3-8288-9312-2 .
  • Winfried Suess:
    • The “people's body” in war. Health policy, health conditions and the murder of the sick in National Socialist Germany 1939–1945 . Series: Studies on Contemporary History, 65. Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-486-56719-5 .
    • Bishop von Galen, the Catholic protest and the stop of "Action T4" . In: Martin Sabrow (Ed.): Forms of public outrage in the Nazi state and in the GDR . 1st edition. Wallstein Verlag, 2004, ISBN 978-3-89244-791-7 .
  • Franz Schwarzbauer, Andreas Schmauder, Paul-Otto Schmidt-Michel (eds.): Remembrance and commemoration. The Weißenau memorial and the culture of remembrance in Ravensburg . Series: Historische Stadt Ravensburg, 5th UVK, Konstanz 2007, ISBN 978-3-89669-625-0 .
  • EF Torrey, RH Yolken: Psychiatric genocide: Nazi attempts to eradicate schizophrenia . In: Schizophrenia Bulletin 36, 2010, pp. 26-32. ( Review by Heinz Hafner , ZI Mannheim )
  • Klaus Vellguth : The history of human dignity and its brutal disregard. Comments on the history of ideas on human dignity and experiences with disregard for human dignity in Germany , in: Klaus Krämer / Klaus Vellguth (Ed.): Menschenwürde. Discourses on universality and inalienability (ThEW 8), Herder Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau, 2016, ISBN 978-3-451-33615-7 . Pp. 129-153.

Regional and local studies

  • Working group for research into National Socialist “euthanasia” and forced sterilization (ed.): The Saxon special route in Nazi “euthanasia” ; Reports of the working group, volume 1. Klemm & Oelschläger, Münster / Ulm 2001, ISBN 3-932577-50-7 .
  • Working group for research into National Socialist "euthanasia" and forced sterilization (ed.): Psychiatry in the Third Reich - focus on Hesse ; Reports of the working group, volume 2. Klemm & Oelschläger, Münster / Ulm 2006, ISBN 978-3-932577-51-2 .
  • Working group for research into National Socialist “euthanasia” and forced sterilization (ed.): Contributions to Nazi “euthanasia” research 2002 ; Reports of the working group, volume 3. Klemm & Oelschläger, Münster / Ulm 2003, ISBN 3-932577-52-3 .
  • Gerhard Baader , Johannes Cramer , Bettina Winter: “Relocated to Hadamar”. The story of a Nazi "euthanasia" institution . In: Historical series of publications by the State Welfare Association of Hesse . State Welfare Association Hessen, Kassel 1991, ISBN 3-89203-011-1 .
  • Udo Benzenhöfer, Thomas Oelschläger, Dietmar Schulze, Michal Šimůnek: “Child Euthanasia” and “Youth Euthanasia” in the Reichsgau Sudetenland and in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia ; Studies on the history of medicine under National Socialism, Volume 5. GWAB, Wetzlar 2006, ISBN 3-9808830-8-6 .
  • Werner Blesch, Konrad Kaiser a. a .: They want to get us on the side. Deportation and murder of 262 disabled people from the Johannesanstalten Mosbach and Schwarzach in 1940 and 1944 . In: Mosbach in the Third Reich, issue 2 . City of Mosbach, Mosbach 1993.
  • Jutta M. Bott: That's where we come from, that's where we participated. Realities of life and dying in Lippe's Lindenhaus sanatorium and nursing home during the Nazi era . In: Lippische Studien Volume 16. Institute for Lippische Landeskunde, Lemgo 2001, ISBN 3-9807758-9-5 .
  • Christoph Braß: Forced Sterilization and "Euthanasia" in Saarland 1935–1945 . Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2004, ISBN 3-506-71727-8 .
  • Karl Cervik : Child Murder in the Ostmark: Child Euthanasia under National Socialism 1938–1945 . LIT Verlag, Münster 2001, ISBN 3-8258-5551-1 .
  • Peter Chroust et al. a. (Ed.): "Should be transferred to Hadamar". The victims of the euthanasia murders from 1933 to 1945. Exhibition catalog . Mabuse, Frankfurt am Main 1989; ISBN 3-925499-39-3
  • Michael von Cranach : Psychiatry under National Socialism - The Bavarian Hospitals and Nursing Institutions between 1933 and 1945 . Oldenbourg, Munich 1999; ISBN 3-486-56371-8 .
  • Gerda Engelbracht: The deadly shadow of psychiatry. The Bremer Nervenklinik 1933–1945 . Donat Verlag, Bremen 1997, ISBN 978-3-931737-18-4 .
  • Bernhard Frings: All patients are to be reported ... NS “euthanasia” and sanatoriums and nursing homes in the diocese of Münster . Aschendorff, Münster 1994, ISBN 3-402-03269-4 .
  • Eberhard Gabriel, Wolfgang Neugebauer (Ed.): Pioneers of Destruction? From forced sterilization to murder. On the history of Nazi euthanasia in Vienna , Part II; Vienna: Böhlau, 2002, ISBN 3-205-77122-2 .
  • Uta George, Stefan Göthling (Ed.): What happened in Hadamar during the Nazi era? A catalog in easy language (= Understanding history . Volume 1). Hadamar Memorial, 2005.
  • Alfred Hagemann (Ed.): "Euthanasia" in the Nazi state: Grafeneck in 1940. State Center for Civic Education Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart 2000.
  • Frank Hirschinger: Approved for extermination. Halle and the Altscherbitz State Hospital 1933–1945 . Böhlau, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-412-06901-9 .
  • Ute Hoffmann: cause of death "angina". Forced sterilization and “euthanasia” in the state sanatorium and nursing home in Bernburg . Ministry of the Interior of Saxony-Anhalt, Magdeburg 1996
  • Michael Hubenstorf: Dead and / or living science: The intellectual networks of the Nazi patient murder campaign in Austria . In: Eberhard Gabriel, Wolfgang Neugebauer : From forced sterilization to murder . Böhlau, Vienna 2002.
  • Kristina Hübener (ed.): Brandenburg sanatoriums and nursing homes in the Nazi era . Series of publications on the history of medicine in the State of Brandenburg, 3rd be.bra Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-89809-301-8 .
  • Uwe Kaminsky: Forced sterilization and "euthanasia" using the example of educational care institutions and sanatoriums and nursing homes of the Inner Mission in the Rhineland 1933 to 1945 . Rhineland, Cologne 1995.
  • Jörg Kinzig , Thomas Stöckle (Ed.): 60 years of the Tübingen Grafeneck Trial: Considerations from a historical, legal, medical-ethical and journalistic perspective . Psychiatry and History Publishing House, Zwiefalten 2011, ISBN 978-3-931200-17-6 .
  • Thomas Oelschläger: On the practice of NS child “euthanasia” using Austria as an example . In: Monthly Pediatric Medicine , Volume 151, Issue 10. Springer Verlag, October 2003.
  • Christine Ruth-Müller, Hans-Ludwig Siemen: Why they had to die. The ordeal and extermination of disabled people from the Neuendettelsau nursing homes in the “Third Reich” . Individual works from the church history of Bavaria, 66th volume. Neustadt ad Aisch 1991, ISBN 3-7686-9112-8 .
  • Peter Sandner: Administration of the murder of the sick. The Nassau District Association under National Socialism. Psychosozial-Verlag, Giessen 2003, ISBN 3-89806-320-8 . ( Review ; online as PDF files - via university publications )
  • Hans-Werner Scheuing: "... when human lives were weighed against material assets." The Mosbach asylum in the Third Reich and the euthanasia discussion today . Universitätsverlag Winter, Heidelberg 2004, ISBN 3-8253-1607-6 (to the Johannes-Anstalten Mosbach ).
  • Gerhardt Schmidt: Selection in the sanatorium 1939–1945 . New edition with additional texts, edited by Frank Schneider. Springer, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-642-25469-7 .
  • Harry Seipolt: Forced sterilization and Nazi "euthanasia" in the Aachen region . Alano Herodot, Aachen 1995; ISBN 978-3-89399-217-1 .
  • Frank Sparing, Marie-Luise Heuser (Eds.): Hereditary biological selection and "euthanasia": Psychiatry in Düsseldorf during National Socialism , clear text, Essen 2001, ISBN 978-3-89861-041-4 .
  • Ingo Harms: "Wat mööt wi smachten here ..." starvation and "euthanasia" in the sanatorium in Wehnen in the "Third Reich" . Dr.- und Verlag-Cooperative, Oldenburg 1996, ISBN 3-925713-25-5 .
  • Gabriele Rünger: The victims of racial hygiene - forced sterilization, euthanasia and racial madness. In: History Association of the District of Euskirchen e. V. (Ed.): National Socialism in the District of Euskirchen - The brown past of a region. Euskirchen 2006, ISBN 3-935221-72-X .
  • Bernhard Richarz: Healing, caring for, killing. On the everyday history of a sanatorium and nursing home up to the end of National Socialism. Publishing house for medical psychology in the publishing house Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1987, ISBN 3-525-45690-5 . The sanatorium and nursing home is Eglfing-Haar near Munich.
  • New Synagogue Foundation Berlin, Centrum Judaicum . WE Platz and Volkmar Schneider (ed.): Death sentence by registration form . Part 1. Medical murder in the Nazi state: Contributions to Action T4 . Hentrich and Hentrich, Teetz 2006, ISBN 3-938485-26-4 (= Against displacement and forgetting. Volume 1).
  • New Synagogue Foundation Berlin, Centrum Judaicum. WE Platz and Volkmar Schneider (ed.): Documents from a killing center. Part 2. Died in the institutions . With a contribution: The Nazi “euthanasia” in a psycho-social perspective by Miriam Rieck , Hentrich and Hentrich, Teetz 2008, ISBN 978-3-938485-59-0 (= Against displacement and forgetting , volume 4).

Individual fates

Movies

Web links

Commons : Action T4  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Case study documented with individual evidence: State lunatic asylum Domjüch → Period of National Socialism (1933–1945)
  2. ^ A b c d e f Nasierowski Tadeusz: Zagłada osób z zaburzeniami psychicznymi w okupowanej Polsce: Początek ludobójstwa ”(The annihilation of the mentally disturbed in occupied Poland) . Eneteia Wydawnictwo Psychologii i Kultury, Warszawa 2012, ISBN 9788361538431 .
  3. ↑ Andreas Baumgartner: The forgotten women of Mauthausen . 1st edition, Verlag Österreich, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-7046-1088-7 . (P. 18, footnote 25)
  4. ↑ akens.org
  5. ↑ Ute Gerlant: There's no holding back on this inclined plane , p. 4 (PDF), accessed on October 10, 2015.
  6. ↑ Klaus Dörner names October 15, 1939 (in: Die ZEIT, No. 36 of September 1, 1989, page 65 ) - Zdzislaw Jaroszewski (Ed.): The murder of the mentally ill in Poland 1939–1945 . Warsaw 1993, ISBN 978-3-926200-94-5 dated p. 83 to “the beginning of the second half of October” - Volker Rieß: The beginnings of the destruction of 'life unworthy of living' ..., p. 304, writes “possibly still mandatory October 9th ".
  7. ↑ Date “Morning of October 13th” by Volker Riess: The beginnings of destruction 'life unworthy of life' ..., p. 306. - Date “12. December “from Peter Longerich: Heinrich Himmler. Biography. Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-88680-859-5 , p. 446.
  8. ↑ "found 15" " Udo Wohlfeld: The thanks of the fatherland are certain to you! The chaos in soldier souls , Apolda 2014, ISBN 3-935275-33-1 .
  9. ↑ Hans-Walter Schmuhl : Sterilization, "Euthanasia", "Final Solution". Hereditary health policy under the conditions of charismatic rule. In: Norbert Frei (Hrsg.): Medicine and health policy in the Nazi era. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1991 (= writings of the quarterly books for contemporary history. Special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , pp. 295–308, here: pp. 304 f.
  10. ^ Henry Friedlander: The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution 1997.
  11. ↑ Roth and Aly give in their section The “Law on Euthanasia for the Terminally Ill” - minutes of the discussion on the legalization of the National Socialist institutional murders in the years 1938–1941 in Karl Heinz Roth (ed.): Registration for destruction. From social hygiene to the "assisted suicide law" . Berlin 1984, p. 111 Max de Crinis as author.
  12. ↑ Hitler's letter in the Order to Bouhler and Dr. Karl Brandt to increase the authority of physicians to perform euthanasia ( Memento from May 26, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) (Nürnberger Document PS-630)
  13. ↑ Ernst Klee: "Euthanasia" in the Third Reich - The "Destruction of Life Unworthy of Living". 2nd edition Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2010. P. 115 Z: 4-8.
  14. ↑ Jürgen Seul: "Papa" Maunz and Hitler's Führer Orders. lto.de from September 1, 2012 , accessed on September 1, 2012.
  15. ↑ Organizational scheme of the T4 campaign at the State Center for Civic Education Baden-Württemberg (M11)
  16. ↑ Registration form in facsimile at the State Center for Political Education Baden-Württemberg (M16)
  17. ↑ Leaflet in facsimile at the State Center for Political Education Baden-Württemberg (M17)
  18. ↑ Akcja T4 w Chełmie ( pl )
  19. ↑ Theo R. Payk: Psychiatrists and psychotherapists . Job profiles in medical and psychological medicine. 1st edition. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-17-022193-2 .
  20. ↑ on Grafeneck see illustration at deathcamps.org
  21. ^ Map of the killing centers
  22. ↑ Norbert Frei : Introduction. In: Norbert Frei (Hrsg.): Medicine and health policy in the Nazi era. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1991 (= writings of the quarterly books for contemporary history. Special issue), ISBN 3-486-64534-X , p. 7–32, here: p. 28.
  23. ↑ Ernst Klee: 'Euthanasia' in the Third Reich , completely revised. New edition Frankfurt / M. 2010, ISBN 978-3-596-18674-7 , p. 145.
  24. ^ Photo of Gekrat buses in front of the Eichberg institution ( Memento from December 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  25. ↑ For details on the gas chambers and the killing process in Grafeneck, Pirna-Sonnenstein, Hartheim, Bernburg and Hadamar see Günther Morsch, Bertrand Perz: New Studies on National Socialist Mass Killings durch Poisongas. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940938-99-2 , pp. 100-152.
  26. ↑ Henry Friedlander : The Road to Genocide. From euthanasia to the final solution . Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-8270-0265-6 , p. 170.
  27. ↑ chap. 2.2 Euthanasia in Grafeneck at the State Center for Political Education Baden-Württemberg
  28. ^ Page from Hartheimer Statistics ( Memento from October 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), facsimile of the Documentation Archive of the Austrian Resistance (pdf, 160kB) / These figures also from Henry Friedlander: The way to the Nazi genocide. From euthanasia to the final solution. Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-8270-0265-6 , p. 190 and Ernst Klee (Ed.): Documents on "Euthanasia". Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag Nr. 4327, Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-596-24327-0 , p. 232.
  29. ^ Grafeneck Memorial (accessed November 22, 2010).
  30. ^ Hadamar Memorial (accessed November 22, 2010).
  31. ↑ R. Dilloo, Andreas Bohnenstengel : Walter, 53 (Down syndrome). In: ZEITmagazin No. 37, 1996 , pp. 8-15.
  32. ^ Thorsten Noack: Nazi euthanasia and the international public. Campus Verlag, 2017, ISBN 978-3-593-50803-0 , p. 112 ( limited preview in Google book search).
  33. ↑ https://sites.google.com/site/euthanasiestiftung/ Resistance- gegen-die-euthanasie--aktion/-euthanasie--flugblatt-der- alliierten
  34. ↑ The quote can be found with other figures from Ralph Georg Reuth: Joseph Goebbels - Tagebücher, Volume 4, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-492-21414-2 , p. 1525. In the new edition, published in 1998 by Elke Fröhlich, are the Numbers corrected as reading errors and as stated here. See: Heinz Faulstich : Goebbels' diaries and the termination of "Action T4". In: Christian Gerlach (Ed.): "Average offender" - action and motivation. ( Contributions to the history of National Socialism , vol. 16), Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-922611-84-2 , p. 211.
  35. ↑ Heinz Faulstich: Goebbels' diaries and the termination of "Action T4". , P. 211.
  36. ↑ Götz Aly (ed.): Aktion T4 1939–1945. The “euthanasia” headquarters at Tiergartenstrasse 4 ; Berlin 1989², p. 89.
  37. ↑ Götz Aly (ed.): Action T4 1939–1945… . P. 90.
  38. ↑ Brigitte Kepplinger : 'Destruction of life unworthy of life' under National Socialism: The 'Action T4'. In: Günther Morsch, Bertrand Perz: New studies on National Socialist mass killings by poison gas. Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-940938-99-2 , p. 86.
  39. ^ Sara Berger: The Nazi extermination camps in Poland. Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka perpetrators and organization. (Diss.) Hamburger Edition HIS, Hamburg 2013.
  40. ^ Uwe Dietrich Adam: Contribution to the discussion. In: Eberhard Jäckel and Jens Rohwer: The murder of the Jews in World War II . Frankfurt / M. 1987, ISBN 3-596-24380-7 , p. 87.
  41. ↑ Susanne Benzler, Joachim Perels: Justice and State Crimes - About the legal handling of Nazi 'euthanasia'. In: Hanno Loewy , Bettina Winter (eds.): Nazi “euthanasia” in court. Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-593-35442-X , p. 20.
  42. ↑ Susanne Benzler, Joachim Perels: Justice and State Crimes - About the legal handling of Nazi 'euthanasia'. In: Hanno Loewy, Bettina Winter (Hrsg.): Nazi 'euthanasia' in court. Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-593-35442-X , p. 27.
  43. ↑ Willy Dreßen: Nazi "euthanasia" processes in the Federal Republic of Germany through the ages. In: Hanno Loewy, Bettina Winter (eds.): Nazi “euthanasia” in court. Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-593-35442-X , p. 56.
  44. ↑ Hanno Loewy, Bettina Winter (ed.): Nazi “euthanasia” in front of the court. Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-593-35442-X , pp. 145-181.
  45. ↑ Jürgen Schreiber: Guilt without atonement. The legal processing of the National Socialist “euthanasia” in the Federal Republic of Germany. In: Aktion Sühnezeichen (Hrsg.) Zeitschriftzeichen 01/2010, p. 17 / Dirk W. de Mildt (Hrsg.): Tatkomplex NS-Euthanasie. The East and West German criminal judgments since 1945 , Amsterdam 2001, ISBN 978-90-8964-072-7 .
  46. ↑ Information page on the T4 memorial in Berlin , accessed on April 3, 2018.
  47. ^ Memorial and information site for the victims of the National Socialist "euthanasia" murders on stiftung-denkmal.de, accessed on October 14, 2017.
  48. ↑ German Bundestag printed matter 17/5493, 17th electoral period: Memorial site for the victims of the Nazi “euthanasia” murders. Application by the CDU / CSU, SPD, FDP and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen parliamentary groups of April 13, 2011, pdf, accessed on October 14, 2017.
  49. ↑ Overview on dasdenkmaldergrauenbusse.de
  50. ↑ Commemoration in Großschweidnitz (2017, page under construction)
  51. ^ DGPPN: Speech Schneider. (No longer available online.) In: www.dgppn.de. Archived from the original on December 22, 2016 ; Retrieved December 19, 2016 .
  52. ↑ Introductory sentence in: Psychiatry under National Socialism , declaration of November 23, 2010.
  53. ↑ Ulrike Winkelmann: Storm-proof and earth-grown . In: taz , August 27, 2005. On the publication history of your book and that of Alexander Mitscherlich and Fred Mielke (1947: The dictate of human contempt. The Nuremberg Medical Trial and its sources ).
  54. ↑ Horst von Buttlar: Researchers open inventory of terror . In: Spiegel Online - Wissenschaft , October 1, 2003.
  55. ↑ DFG : W. Eckart, M. Rotzoll, G. Hohendorf at the University of Heidelberg , September 2006, conference
  56. ↑ G. Hohendorf, M. Rotzoll, P. Richter a. a .: The victims of the National Socialist "euthanasia campaign T4" - first results of a project to open up medical records of killed patients in the Federal Archives in Berlin . In: Der Nervenarzt 2002: 73: 1065-1074.
  57. ↑ recorded, pursued, destroyed. Sick and handicapped people under National Socialism . ( Memento of June 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) DGPPN website , accessed on June 14, 2016.
  58. ^ Review by Johannes Vossen, 2004.
  59. ↑ Reading sample
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on September 6, 2005 .