The term "euthanasia" is generally used to describe "mercy killings," but it was employed by the Nazis to describe their systematic killing of various groups of individuals.
Ideological Foundations
When Hitler came to power in 1933, it soon came apparent that the Nazis wanted to create a homogeneous Herrenvolk (master race), superior in mind and body to all other peoples. This goal was to be achieved by multiplying those regarded as racially superior and healthy, and getting rid of all those who were unhealthy or belonged to foreign races.
The T4 Program
As long as the Nazis confined themselves to the sterilisation of children fathered by black troops serving in the post-World War I occupation forces, the "hereditary diseased" and "habitual criminals," the resistance they encountered was remarkably small. The critical point came when doctors and medical aides were asked to participate in the murder of some of their patients as part of the Euthanasia Program. Hitler entrusted the program to Reichsleiter Philip Bouhler, Dr. Karl Brandt, and doctors of their choice, in the late fall of 1939. T4 was the code name for the program, the name deriving from its headquarters on Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin.
First Large-Scale Activities
The first large-scale action seems to have taken place in Pomerania and western Prussia shortly after the Polish campaign. In 1940, four euthanasia institutions went into operation: Grafeneck, in January; Brandenburg, in February; Hartheim, in May; and Sonnenstein, in June. By the end of 1940, 26,459 had been killed and in the first eight months of 1941, 35,049 more.
Growing Criticism and the Official End of the Program
Growing criticism of the Euthanasia Program - such as a sermon given by Bishop Clemens Galen in Muenster on August 3, 1941 - caused Hitler to bring it to an official end, by which time one T4 report said that 70,273 had been killed, and another implied that the figure stood at 93,521. In practice, the killing went on up to the end of the war under better camouflage.
Transfer to the Auspices of Aktion Reinhard
Following the transfer of the Euthanasia Program staff to Aktion Reinhard, its functions were taken over, temporarily, by different institutions. In one place, Meserlitz-Oberwald, 18,000 patients are said to have been killed. At the Nuremberg Trial, it was estimated that the number of euthanasia victims was 275,000. Its victims included inmates of homes for the aged, homosexuals, the residents of welfare institutions, foreign workers, concentration camp inmates, the chronically ill, sick German soldiers, the mentally retarded, and the insane.
