Persecutions of Siniti and Roma, Hereditary Ills, Asocials and Homosexuals
Source: M. Burleigh and W. Wippermann, The Racial State, Germany 1933-1945 (Oxford, 1991), pp.113-122, 136-156, 167-176, 182-192.
From an "intelligence test form" used to establish "mental and hereditary illnesses" from 1933:
Intelligence Test Form
Orientation
(What is your name?)
(What are you?)
(How old are you?)
(Where do you live?)
(What year is it?)
(Which month?)
(What is the date?)
(What day of the week is it?)
(How long have you been here?)
(Where is this place?)
(Which building are you in now?)
(Who brought you here?)
(Who are the people around you?)
(Who am I?)
Educational ability
(Home town/village)
(Belonging to which province?)
(Capital of Germany?)
(Capital of France?)
(Who was Luther?)
(Who was Bismarck?)
(What type of state do we have at present?)
(Who discovered America?)
(When is Christmas?)
(What does Christmas mean?)
(Further questions of a similar type)
(How many days in the week?)
(forwards and backwards)
General knowledge
(Where does the sun rise?)
(Why is there day and night?)
(Why does on build houses higher in towns than in the countryside?)
(What does it mean to boil water?)
(Why do children go to school?)
(Why do courts exist?)
(Types of money?)
(What does it cost to send a letter?)
(Prices of foodstuffs?)
Differences between:
(Mistake ΓÇô lie?)
(Loan ΓÇô gift?)
(Parsimony ΓÇô saving?)
(Lawyer ΓÇô public prosecutor?)
(Stairs ΓÇô ladder?)
(Pond ΓÇô stream?)
Special questions concerning working life
Make a sentence using the following three words:
Hunter ΓÇô Hare ΓÇô Field
Soldier ΓÇô War ΓÇô Fatherland
Spring ΓÇô Meadow ΓÇô Flowers
School ΓÇô Education ΓÇô Life 6
The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Progeny was not only applied to people who were in no sense either ill or "hereditarily ill", but was also radicalised. In September 1934 Hitler advised the Reich Physicians' Leader Dr Wagner that pregnancies could be terminated in the case of hereditarily ill women, or women who had become pregnant by a hereditarily ill partner'. 7 The question of abortion on "eugenic grounds" had also been both debated, and in some cases practised, in the Weimar Republic, despite the fact that it was prohibited by clause 218 of the law. The advent of the National Socialist regime at first represented no difference of policy. On the contrary, measures to combat infractions of the law carrying out abortions on "hereditarily ill" women. The Nazi leadership took note of this. On 26 June 1935 they promulgated the Law amending the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Progeny. 8 This sanctioned abortions within the first six months of pregnancy (!), in the case of women who had been categorised as "hereditarily ill" by the Hereditary Health Courts.
From the Law amending the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Progeny of 26 June 1935:
The government of the Reich has decided upon the following law, which hereby takes effect:
Individual clauses
The Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Progeny of 14 July 1933 (Reichsgesetzblatt 1, p. 529) will be amended as follows:
In c.9 sentence 1, instead of "emergency period of one month", insert "emergency period of fourteen days".
Following c.10a insert:
If, by virtue of the law, a Hereditary Health Court has decided upon the sterilisation of a woman who is pregnant at the time the operation is carried out, the pregnancy may be terminated, with the consent of the woman concerned, unless the foetus is already capable of independent life, or unless the termination of the pregnancy entails a serious danger to either the life or health of the woman herself.
The foetus is to be regarded as being incapable of independent life if the termination takes place before the completion of the sixth month of pregnancy.
In c. 11 paragraph 1, sentences 1 and 3 and paragraph 2 the words "and termination of pregnancy" are to be inserted after the word "sterilisation".
Clause 14 is to be interpreted as follows:
Sterilisation, or the termination of a pregnancy, as well as the removal of the gonads, which are not in accordance with the stipulations of the law, are authorised and to be carried out only if a physician has decided in accordance with the dictates of medical skill that this would forestall a grave threat to the life or health of the person concerned, and only with that person's consent.
Removal of the gonads of a man can be performed only with his consent, and only if this has been recommended by the medical officers of the courts or administrative authorities as being necessary to free him from a degenerate sexual drive which might result in further infringements of paragraphs 175 to 178, 183, 223 to 226 of the Penal Code. Recommendations for castration in criminal trials or custody proceedings remain unaffected.
Berlin the 26th June 1935
The Fuehrer and Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler
The Reich Minister of the Interior Frick
The Reich Minister of Justice
Dr Guertner 9
The precise relationship between these racially-motivated measures and the so-called "euthanasia" program has yet to be established. Permission for the destruction of worthless life' had been demanded by the lawyer Karl Binding and the psychiatrist Alfred Hoche in their eponymous book published in 1920. 10 This sparked off an animated public discussion. Their inhuman demands, expressed in a commensurately inhuman and utilitarian language, were not categorically or clearly refuted by physicians, theologians, and lawyers. This suggests how widespread subscription to selective breeding and racial extermination, albeit in the guise of "eugenics" rather than the ideology of a particular political party, had become in the Weimar Republic. It is also suggested by the apparent lack of public reaction to Hitler's espousal of the most extreme elements in the "eugenic" case. In the course of a speech to the Nuremberg Party rally on 5 August 1929, Hitler declared that If Germany was to get a million children a year and was to remove 700,000-800,000 of the weakest people, then the final result might even be an increase in strength'. 11 It was already obvious from these words that what Hitler envisaged had nothing whatsoever to do with "euthanasia", if that is taken to mean painlessly ending the life of a terminally ill person either at their own request or with the consent of their relatives. Hence, throughout what follows the word "euthanasia" is employed as a cosmetic term for murder.
The question of compulsory sterilisation continued to occupy the foreground in the years immediately after the Nazis came to power. However, Hitler held to his plans for a "euthanasia" program. According to the testimony of the Reich Physicians' Leader Dr Wagner, Hitler told him in 1935 that in the event of war he would take up the question of euthanasia and enforce it', because such a problem would be more easily solved in war-time'. 12 This is not the only evidence that the National Socialists planned to solve the problem of the asylums in a radical way' in the course of a war which would be one of racial extermination.
The "euthanasia" program was finally precipitated by the Knauer case in the winter of 1938-9. 13 A man called Knauer petitioned Hitler asking that his deformed child, who was in a clinic at the university of Leipzig, be killed. Hitler sent Brandt, the physician to his retinue, to investigate, with powers to authorise the child's death if the circumstances warranted it. Brandt, and the Head of the Chancellery of the Fuehrer, Philipp Bouhler, who wished to enlarge the scope of his agency beyond answering letters to Hitler, were then authorised to deal with further requests in a similar way.
Brandt and Bouhler formed and ad hoc group called the Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Serious Hereditarily- and Congenitally-based Illnesses consisting of officials from the Chancellery of the Fuehrer, representatives of the Reich Ministry of the Interior, and carefully selected physicians. 14 This committee constituted the clearing-hofor reports on deformed births sent in by physicians and midwives throughout the Reich. The reports, ostensibly designed to clarify scientific questions in the field of congenital deformities', were then forwarded to three paediatricians (Professor Heinze, Werner Catel and Dr Ernst Wentzler), who marked the forms with a "+" or "ΓÇô " according to whether the child was to die or survive. The children concerned were subsequently transferred to special "paediatric clinics" where they were either starved to death or given lethal injections. Their deaths provided research "material" for a number of university-based psychiatrists and neurologists because, as one professor put it, thanks to the program [i.e. "euthanasia"], a rapid anatomical and histological clarification can be achieved'. In the course of this initial "children's euthanasia" program, at least 5,200 infants, children, and adolescents were killed.
In the summer of 1939, Hitler instructed Dr Leonardo Conti, a Nazi medical-bureaucratic pluralist with positions in both the State and Party hierarchies, to organise a "euthanasia" program for adults. 15 His unwelcome involvement was soon short-circuited by Bouhler and his deputy Viktor Brack, who reasserted control from the Chancellery of the Fuehrer. In the autumn, Brack and Bouhler organised a series of meetings to determine both the scope of the projected program and the most suitable methods to be adopted. The argument that more hospital beds would be needed for a coming war apparently enabled university-based scientists to overlook the fact that the program had no legal basis whatsoever. Their involvement in turn lent murder a spurious air of scientific "respectability". The question of "how" was resolved by the Head of the Reich Criminal Police, Arthur Nebe, who set the Criminal Technical Institute to work devising the most efficient method of killing. The question of "who" was worked out by the steering-group, which arrived at a global figure of "65,000-70,000" persons to be affected by "rationalisation", arrived at in the following way:
The number is arrived at through a calculation on the basis of a ratio of 1000:10:5:1. That means out of 1,000 people 10 require psychiatric treatment; of these 5 in residential form. And of these, one patient will come under the program. If one applies this to the population of the Greater German Reich, then one must reckon with 65,000-70,000 cases. 16
With the question of "who" resolved in this impersonal global manner, the processes were inaugurated which determined the individual patients who were to die. The Reich Ministry of the Interior despatched forms to all asylums and clinics to be completed for each patient. These supplied details about the latter's race, state of health, and capacity to work. The completed forms were then centrally processed and duplicated, and sent in batches of 150 to expert "assessors". 17 The "assessors", whose number increased, marked the forms with a red "+" if the patient was to be killed or a blue "ΓÇô "if he or she was to survive. Doubtful cases, marked with a "?", were resolved by higher "assessors", whose number included the medical layman Viktor Brack. Some of the "assessors", who were paid on a piece-work basis, regarded the form-filling clerical work as a worthwhile end in itself, with one, Dr Josef Schreck, congratulating himself on having processed 15,000 forms "very conscientiously" within nine months. The "assessors" never saw the patients.
"Form 1" of 1941 is reproduced below:
Form 1
File number:
Name of the asylum:
in...
Christian and surname of the patient:
Place of birth:
Date of birth:
Last residence:
Place:
District:
Marital status:
Confession:
Race (1):
Address of closest relatives:
Regular visits, and from whom?
Name and address of legal guardian:
Person responsible for the costs of care:
Duration of stay in this asylum:
Duration of stay in other asylums:
Where and for how long:
Ill since when
Twin: yes/no
Mentally ill relatives:
Diagnosis:
Predominantly bed-ridden: yes/no
very disturbed: yes/no
under restraint: yes/no
Incurable physical illness: yes/no
war wounds: yes/no
In the case of schizophrenia: final stage
good recovery
In the case of feeble-mindedness: debility
imbecility
In the case of epilepsy: psychological changes
average frequency of attacks
In the case of geriatric illnesses: serious confusion
incontinence
Therapy (Insulin, malaria, etc.)
lasting results: yes/no
Committed under paragraph 51, 42b Penal Code etc. by:
Crime:
Previous offences:
Nature of activities: (Exact description of work and capacity to work e.g. agricultural labour, does not achieve much ΓÇô metal workshop, good skilled worker ΓÇô no vague descriptions like housework, but more precisely, like, for example, cleaning the rooms. Always state whether the person is constantly, frequently, or temporarily occupied.)
Can anticipate early release:
Remarks:
This space is to be left blank
Place, date:
Signature of the medical director or his representative
German or related blood, Jew, part-Jew I or II Grade, Negro (half-caste), Gypsy (part-Gypsy) etc. 18
The following is taken from the guidelines issued by Bouhler and Brandt concerning the assessment of the "hereditarily ill" of March 1941:
Elimination of all those who are unable to perform productive tasks even within the asylums, and not only those who are mentally dead.
War veterans who either distinguished themselves at the front or were wounded or decorated are to be excluded. Decisions concerning distinguished service at the front or decorations are to be made by Herr Jennerwein (Brack). Cases like these, which occur in our asylums are to be deferred until Herr Jennerwein has made his decision on the basis of documentary records. Otherwise, war service is no protection from inclusion in the action.
In the case of geriatrics, the greatest restraint: inclusion only in drastic circumstances, e.g. criminality or asocial behaviour. In the latter cases, the records are to be consulted and photocopies of extracts are to be made available. The senile do not include patients with psychoses which themselves come within the scope of the action like schizophrenia, epilepsy etc., or who have merely grown old.
In special cases of senility the evidence will be submitted to Herr Jennerwein.
Only Reich Germans shall be included in the action, therefore no Poles. The intention is to collect together all Poles in purely Polish asylums in the eastern provinces. Czechs with German citizenship in asylums outside the Protectorate can be included. Czechs with Czech citizenship should be pushed into the Protectorate. In cases where it is impossible to establish citizenship, this is to be established wherever possible by our representatives.
In cases where it is still not possible to establish citizenship, the case is to be deferred until a final discussion with Secretary of State Frank. 19
In the course of October 1939 the ever-widening circle of those involved in the "euthanasia" program received authorisation from Hitler in the form of a laconic and informal note on his personal writing paper. Backdated, symbolically to 1 September 1939, the document read: Reich Leader Bouhler and Dr. med. Brandt are charged with responsibility to extend the powers of specific doctors in such a way that, after the most careful assessment of their condition, those suffering from illnesses deemed to be incurable may be granted a mercy death.' 20 In fact, before the official "euthanasia" program got under way, ad hoc measures had been adopted in occupied Poland. Between 29 September and 1 November 1939, SS units shot about 4,000 mental patients in asylums in the region of Bromberg. 21 In October, the Gauleiter of Pomerania, Franz Schwede-Coburg, traded the asylums in his territory for the SS and Wehrmacht to use as barracks in return for an SS unit being deployed to shoot the inmates in discreet forest clearings. Finally, during December 1939 and January 1940, the SS Special Commando Lange gassed 1,558 patients from Polish asylums in specially adapted vans in order to make rfor military and SS barracks. The SS charged 10RMs for each person thus disposed of.
The official "euthanasia" program, which commenced shortly afterwards, acquired a complex organisational "front" designed to cover the wires leading back to the Chancellery of the Fuehrer and hence to Hitler. Department II of the Chancellery formed a Reich Association of Asylums which operated from the Columbus-Haus on Potsdamer Platz, and then from April 1940 from a villa on Tiergartenstrasse 4, from which the program took its code name "Aktion T-4". 22 Several of the leading bureaucrats involved used false names (e.g. Brack called himself "Jennerwein" after a famous nineteenth-century poacher) or wrote down false job descriptions in hotel registers when inspecting out of the way asylums. The operational side of the program was dealt with by the Community Foundation for the Encouragement of Asylums, which hired personnel and dealt with property contracts, and a phoney company called the Community Patients Transport Service Ltd (Gekrat) run by Brack's cousin, which acquired postal vans to move patients to the asylums chosen for killing. Postal vans would be relatively unobtrusive in remote areas, and they could be repaired in a nation wide network of depots.
References:
6 Reichsgesetzblatt 1933 , Part 1, pp. 1032ff.
7 Bock, Zwangssterilisation , pp. 97ff.
8 Gesetz zur Aenderung des Gesetzes zur Verhuetung erbkranken Nachwuchses vom 26.6.1935', Reichsgesetzblatt 1935 , Part 1, p. 196.
9 Ibid.
10 Karl Binding, Alfred Hoche, Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens. Ihr Mass und ihre Form (Leipzig, 1920).
11 Hitler's speech to the Nuremberg Party Rally on 5 August 1929, cited by Bock, Zwangssterilisation , p. 24.
12 See Klee, Euthanasie', p. 52 and Johannes Tuchel (ed.), Kein Recht auf Leben'. Beitraege und Dokumente zur Entrechtung und Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens' im Nationalsozialismus (Berlin, 1984).
13 Klee, Euthanasie' , pp. 78f.
14 Ibid. , pp. 82ff. On the following see also Goetz Aly (ed.), Aktion TΓÇô4 1939ΓÇô1945. Die Euthanasie' Zentrale in der Tiergartenstrasse 4 (Berlin, 1987).
15 Klee, Euthanasie' , pp. 100f.
16 J. Noakes, G. Pridham (eds.), Nazism 1919ΓÇô1945: A Documentary Reader (Exeter, 1988), Vol. 3, p. 1010.
17 Klee, Euthanasie' , pp. 115ff.
18 Questionnaire 1 dated 1941, reprinted from Tuchel (ed.), Kein Recht auf Leben', p. 57. See also Ernst Klee (ed.), Dokumente zur Euthanasie' (Frankfurt am Main, 1985).
19 Reprinted from Tuchel (ed.), Kein Recht auf Leben', pp. 64f.
20 Noakes, Pridham (eds.), Nazism 1919ΓÇô1945: A Documentary Reader, Vol. 3, p. 1021.
21 See Goetz Aly, Der saubere und schmutzige Fortschritt', Beitraege zur nationalsozialistischen Gesundheits- und Sozialpolitik , 2 (Berlin, 1985), pp. 9ΓÇô78; Klee, Euthanasie' , pp. 95ff.
22 See above all Goetz Aly (ed.), Aktion TΓÇô4 1939ΓÇô1945 , p. 11ΓÇô20.
