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The T4 Program also called the Euthanasia Program was a Nazi Germany first program for mass murder. Under the program, the incurable, physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught and elderly people were to be exterminated in verge of cleansing the “Aryan” race of genetically defective people. This was aimed to restore the racial integrity of a German nation. It aimed to eliminate what eugenicists and their supported considered as “Life unworthy of life”. Under this euphemism, people with severe physical, Neurological or physical disabilities were considered as a financial burden on German society and state.
Children Euthanasia program:
During 1939, a secret operation was launched in Germany to organize children with disabilities. The operation was led by Philip Bouhler, the director hitlers private chancellory and Karl Brandt, Hitler attending Physician. They planned the secret killing operation targeting the disabled children. On August 18,1939, the Reich ministry of interior circulated a decree requiring all physicians, nurses and midwives to report all those children who showed any sign of physical or mental disability during the initial year of their birth. Later in October, 1939 the public health authorities began to encourage parents with disabled children to admit their children to one of pediatric clinics. In reality, these clinics were the killing wards for the children who were murdered by the special medical staff through lethal overdose of the medicine or by starvation.
At first, the Pediatric clinics only included Infants and toddlers but as the scope measure widened, they started including youth measured up to 17 year of age. One estimate of the conservative estimated that over 5000 mentally and physically impaired children were perished as a result of child Euthanasia program during the early stages of world war 2.
Extension of the program:
The Euthanasia program was further extended to include the Adult disabled people living in Germany. In the autumn of 1939, Adolf Hitler himself signed a secret authorization order to protect the participating doctors and physicians from execution. The documented dates
1 September 1939 but it was signed on 27 October 1940 to hide the counterparts involved in the program.
Adolf Hitler’s authorization for the Euthanasia Program(Operation T4), signed in October 1939 but dated September 1, 1939. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD
The text on the letter reads:
“Reichsleiter [Philipp] Bouhler and Dr. med. [Karl] Brandt are charged with responsibility to broaden the authority of certain doctors to the extent that [persons] suffering from illnesses judged to be incurable may, after a humane, most careful assessment of their condition, be granted a mercy death. [signed] Adolf Hitler.”
T4 program:
The functionaries of the program called their secret enterprise “T4” after the name of coordinating office of the program in berlin: Tiergartenstrasse 4.
Under the leader of Phillip Bouhler and Karl Brandt six gassing installations were established for adults as a part of Euthanasian campaign. The six were:
- Brandenburg near Berlin
- Grafeneck in southwest Germany
- Bernburg in Saxony
- Sonnenstein in Saxony
- Hartheim in Austria
- Hadamar in Hessen
Following the practice developed for child Euthanasia program, the planners distributed specially designed questionairres to doctors, Physicians and nurses in different Hospital. This tactical survey was aimed to gather statistical data of chronically ill and aged. Emphasis was placed upon the patients ability to work. These categories include were:
- those suffering from schizophrenia, epilepsy, dementia, encephalitis, and other chronic psychiatric or neurological disorders
- those not of German or “related” blood
- the criminally insane or those committed on criminal grounds
- those who had been confined to the institution in question for more than five years
On the basis of result, in January 1940 the T4 functionaries began to remove patients who fall under the criteria of Euthanasia program. The selected patients were transported to one of the gassing installations for killing. Within hours of their arrival, the victims perished in the gas chambers. One way of killing them was using shower facilities which threw carbon Monoxide on the people. Later the bodies of the victims were buried in the crematoria attacked the gas chamber. Others workers took the ashes and urns of the deceased and took them to their relatives. The relative and guardians received urn and death certificate along with a document stating a fictive cause of death.
Two pages of the death registry at Hadamar listing false causes of death. Thousands of the physically and mentally disabled were killed there as part of the Euthanasia Program. Germany, April 5, 1945. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD
As the program was covert, the T4 member took special case in concealing the design. But the program couldn’t conceal its secretive agenda. The general public became suspicious as each single death was termed as a “Natural cause”. Bishop Clemens August Count von Galen strongly protested against the killing of people in T4 programme. His August 13, 1941 sermon raised widespread public knowledge and sparked protest against this horrendous act. An official notice to end the program was halted by Hitler in 1941.
One T4’s internal calculations claims that the 70,273 institutionalized mentally and physically disabled persons were exterminated at the six gassing facilities between January 1940 and August 1941.
But Hitler’s official notice did not bring a practical end
The official notice by Hitler in 1941 didn’t mean to covertly stop killing of physically and mentally disturbed people under Euthanasia operation. In August 1942, the German medical professional and workers resumed the operation with a more carefully concealed manner. A new lethal way to take innocent lives was initiated. This included drug overdose and lethal injections. Many of these medical facilities intentionally starved children and adult. Until the last days of World war 2, the Euthanasia program included a vast range of victims. Historians estimates that over 250,000 individuals lost their lives in this program.
This program represented the ‘practical evidence’ for Nazi Germany genocidal policies. The nazi Germany extened their conceaved Justification of the extermination of biological unfit through these specially designed gas chambers. The finals of final solution later borrowed the gas chamber to murder the Jews of Europe. Following the foot prints of hitler, the planners of Euthanasia program also imagined a racially pure and productive society. But these gas chambers and the evidence present speaks for the harms and horrendous crimes performed within. The gas chamber to this day remains an edifice of fall the humanity under the hands of evil force.
The Final Solution 