Aktion T4 Euthanasia Under The Nazi German Regime

Darren M Pfeil Lehigh University 5 May 2011 Eckardt 281

Pfeil 2 Commencing in 1939 until the defeat and official surrender of Nazi Germany in 1945, a euthanasia program killed approximately 275,000 people (new-borns, infants, children, adolescents, adults, and the elderly all alike) with mental problems, physical disabilities, genetic disorders, and other traits deemed non-desirable. This program, named Aktion T4, tells a tale of a desire for a pure breed of Germans with a use of propaganda to control how the public perceived euthanasia. The Roman Catholic Church, however, eventually played an effective role in thwarting the legitimacy of this program as well as bringing forth its official cancellation issued by the führer himself. At the turn of the twentieth century, eugenic thought peaked in popularity worldwide, from Sweden, to Switzerland, to the United States of America. In fact, ―the political campaign of the eugenics movement in favor of sterilization was relatively successful‖ (Friedlander 8). Sterilization was a common practice thus in the aforementioned countries, with Indiana being the first state to pass a sterilization law in 1907 and with half of the states passing such laws by the middle of the 1930s (8). In the United States of America, the state passed sterilization laws principally targeted the mentally retarded and Figure 1: "We Do Not Stand Alone." An mentally ill, but also less actively (the degree depending upon the state) targeted the deaf,

image from the Nazi Regime showing countries (to the left) that have sterilization laws already enacted and showing considering countries (bottom). 1936 (Proctor 96).

the blind, people with epilepsy, and the physically deformed (Iredale). By the 1960s, the

Pfeil 3 time by which a majority of state sterilization laws were overturned, over 65,000 individuals spanning 33 states were sterilized under state compulsory sterilization programs in the United States (Kevles 199). Germany, while not short on eugenic thought at the turn of the century, was a rather late participant in sterilization policies. It was the onset of the Nazi regime in January 1933 that led to the ―Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring‖ of July 1933; this law required sterilization of people with a range of conditions thought to be hereditary, including psychological disorders namely schizophrenia, epilepsy, Huntington‘s chorea, ―imbecility,‖ chronic alcoholism, and social deviance (Evans, Richard 507). The volkish (people‘s) state must see to it that only the healthy beget children…Here the state must act as the guardian of the millennial future…It must put the most Modern medical means in the service of this knowledge. It must declare unfit for propagation all who are in any way visibly sick or who have inherited a disease and can therefore pass it on -Adolf Hitler on the ―Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring‖ (Evans, Suzanne 95-96) As a result of the ―Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring,‖ 360,000 people were sterilized between the years 1933 and 1939 in Nazi Germany. Ranking Nazi officials and Nazi aligned doctors, psychologists, and psychiatrists talked about extending this program to people of physical disabilities, but since Joseph Goebbels, one of the most powerful figures of the Nazi regime, was a sufferer of congenital club foot himself, the desire to extend this ideology had to be carefully expressed (Evans, Richard 508). The ―Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring‖ was not enough for Hitler. In the months before the onset of war, Hitler held a conference with the health

Pfeil 4 minister and Hans Lammers, the head of the Reich Chancellery, telling them that people with disabilities are ―life unworthy of life;‖ he believed that severely handicapped people could only lay upon a bed of sawdust or sand as the only action they could do was to ―perpetually dirt[y] themselves…[or] put their own excrement into their mouths‖ (Lifton 62). During the Nuremberg Trials, both Hans Lammers and Dr. Karl Brandt, Hitler‘s personal physician and leading doctor of Aktion T4, testified that Hitler had always planned for an extermination of all handicapped people with talks beginning as early as 1933. Hitler knew, however, that even though he believed in the killing of the handicapped, the majority of the public would not sit easy with this ideology; he believed that this type of killing ―could be more smoothly and easily carried out in war,‖ as spaces within facilities during war would be required for wounded soldiers and refugees from bombed cities (Kershaw 254-258). Additionally at Hitler‘s disposal was the Reich Ministry of Propaganda, a crucial tool in justifying sterilization and extermination programs. The National Socialist Racial and Figure 2: ―"60,000 Reichsmarks is what this person suffering from a hereditary disease costs the People's community during his lifetime. Comrade, that is your money too. Read '[A] New People', the monthly magazine of the Bureau for Race Politics of the NSDAP." 1938 (Deutsches Historisches Museum).

Political Office produced propagandistic leaflets, posters, and films (short and feature length) for cinema distribution since 1933. Taking advantage of the difficult economic times due to the recession of the Great Depression, propagandistic

Pfeil 5 material surfaced in Nazi Germany. As can be seen in Figure 2, the Nazi regime played heavily on how costly taking care of an ―unfit‖ individual was to the state—to the people. But more so was this propaganda aimed at doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses, and other health care professionals. The goal was that they all will be cooperative with the extermination program that is to come. As a result, a majority of these medical professionals soon adopted the Nazi ideologies of a cleaner breed of Germans, mercy killing, and cost-effectiveness, and those who did not sign on to these notions, as well as Jewish and communist doctors, were soon purged from their positions (Evans, Richard 442-448). Moreover concerning the medical field, ―before 1933, every German doctor took the Hippocratic Oath, with its famous ‗do not harm‘ clause. That Oath required that a doctor‘s first duty is to his patient‖ (Euthanasia in Nazi Germany – The T4 Programme). The Hippocratic Oath was replaced in 1933 with the Gesundheit, ―an oath to the health of the Nazi state. Thus, a German doctor‘s first duty was now to promote the interests of the Reich‖ (Euthanasia in Nazi Germany – The T4 Programme). Now, speaking of cinema, one popular propagandistic feature length film entitled, ―Ich klage an Figure 3: A still screen captured from Wolfgang (English: I Accuse),‖ directed by

Liebeneiner‘s pro-euthanasia feature length film, "Ich klage an" (1941). The husband is on the left and his wife, paralyzed with multiple sclerosis, is on the right.

Wolfgang Liebeneiner circulated greatly in Nazi Germany in 1941 (The New York Times). In this film, a woman suffering from multiple sclerosis pleads with doctors to kill her, but she has no success in

Pfeil 6 her attempts; her husband, a loving and gentle figure, administers to her a fatal overdose. Consequently, the husband is put on trial where arguments are brought forth claiming that prolonging life is sometimes contrary to nature and that death is a right as well as a duty. The films concludes in a grandoise ending in which the husband accuses those judging him in court of cruelty for trying to prevent such merciful deaths (Lesier 70-71). Other powerful and popular propagandistic films simplified just ―portrayed mentally ill and disabled ‗subhumans‘‖ with the use of ―graphic pictures‖ in order to reinforce the message of euthanasia being ―a humane social policy [and] the foundation for building the Master Race‖ (Euthanasia in Nazi Germany – The T4 Programme). Finally, propaganda propagated into schools, directed at students, and effected them gravely; ―German school children studied maths problems and calculated how many services, how much bread, jam, and other necessities of life could be saved by killing people - the chronically sick and crippled – who were a ‗drain on society‘‖ (Euthanasia in Nazi Germany – The T4 Programme). Although at the turn of the century there was only discussion and no legislation regarding eugenics, the decade in which the Nazis took governmental control saw a great, radical shift in this philosophy. Officially starting 1 September 1939 (back-dated from October 1939 to coincide with the onset of war), Aktion T4 was created to euthanize infants (exhibiting one or more of the above mentioned conditions for sterilization under the ―Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring‖) under the age of three years as a form of ―domestic purification‖ (Friendlander 67). T4 was an abbreviation of the address of a villa (―Tiergarten Straße 4‖) in Tiergarten, Berlin, which was the headquarters of the Gemeinnützige Stiftung für Heil- und Anstaltsflege, translating literally and

Pfeil 7 euphemistically into the ―Charitable Foundation for Cure and Institutional Care,‖ directed by Phillip Bouhler, the head of Hitler‘s private chancellery, and by Dr. Karl Brandt (68, 73). The Committee for the Scientific Treatment of Severe, Genetically Determined Illness was founded earlier that year in May, where several trial acts of euthanasia towards infants were committed with parental permission. 18 August 1939, just before Aktion T4 began, this committee also began the registration of ill children (Proctor 9-11). Within months throughout the country, this program was augmented to be applicable to people of all ages: children, adolescents, adults, and elderly. Additionally, there became no need for consent by parents or legal guardians. Persons to be euthanized were brought to different facilities where they were to be put to death, under the guise of better care opportunity at the location to which they were being transported (Lifton 56-59). Initially for children, lethal injections were used, but that proved to be a less cost-effective and an inefficient means for euthanizing adults (60). As a result, gassing technologies were developed, and, as documented in the Nuernberg War Crimes Trials Case I, ―the killing in gas chambers and by injections in the sanatoriums served as a proving ground for these forerunners of much larger installations in the mass extermination camps‖ (Records of the United States Nuernberg War Crimes Trials 3). Forged certificates of death were delivered to the families of those euthanized, citing causes of death such as pneumonia or typhus (Lifton 60). By 1940, rumors about the program disseminated throughout Germany. Family members began to take their relatives out of nursing facilities and care for them at home. Such an extensive program as Aktion T4 was virtually impossible to keep secret given that the program included thousands of medical personnel (73-77). Additionally, some

Pfeil 8 families began to expect the truth behind the relocations when they received a death certificate citing appendicitis when their euthanized family member had had his/her appendix previously surgically removed. Protest letters thenceforth arrived at the Reich Chancellery and the Ministry of Justice, some of which came directly from Nazi Party members themselves (90). At different nursing facilities, villagers rallied against the extraction and relocation of the disabled. Moreover, the Roman Catholic Church began to play a role in protesting Aktion T4. A bit of historical context, ―the German census of May 1939 indicates that 54 percent of Germans considered themselves Protestant and 40 percent considered themselves Catholic, with only 3.5 percent claiming to be neo-pagan ‗believers in God,‘ and 1.5 percent unbelievers‖ (Ericksen 10). Under the Nazi regime, both the Protestant Church and the Roman Catholic Church remained official state churches, meaning that they were both funded by the church tax that was collected by state (10). As is in today‘s society, many people may have said they align themselves with Protestantism and Roman Catholicism but in fact may not be very religious, very observant, or practicing. Regardless, the fact that they identified themselves as following said religions emphasizes some part of these individuals that identifies and has ties with Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. In comparison, only 37.3 percent of all votes cast in the Reichstag election of July 1932 opted for the Nazi party (Geary). We must also consider again that out of these votes cast, not all who casted them may have been hardcore Nazi followers. Even if we extrapolate this number to 37 percent of the German population had some identification with the Nazis, this is a smaller number than the 40 percent of the population that identified themselves as Roman Catholics. We can thus see the potential

Pfeil 9 role the Roman Catholic Church (and Protestant Church for that matter) could play in questioning and opposing the Nazi government in Germany. At the end and turn of the 1930s, sermons by Roman Catholic priests and bishops rallied the people against the government. The Roman Catholic Church sent telegrams and letters to government officials (Lifton 94). The following is an excerpt from the Letter of Bishop Hilfrich to Reich Justice Minister, exemplifying and accenting the fact that people knew about the euthanasia program and the opposing stance the Roman Catholic Church took: About 8 kilometers from Limburg, in the little town of Hadamar, on a hill overlooking the town, there is an institution which had formerly served various purposes and of late had been used as a nursing home; this institution was renovated and furnished as a place in which, by consensus of opinion…euthanasia was has been systematically practiced for months –approximately since February 1941. The fact has become known beyond the administrative district of Wiesbaden, because death certificates from a Registry Hadamar-Moenchberg are sent to the home communities. Moenchberg is the name of this institution because it was a Franciscan monastery prior to its secularization in 1803. Several times a week buses arrive in Hadamar with a considerable number of such victims. School children of the vicinity know this vehicle and say: ―There comes the murder-box again.‖ After the arrival of the vehicle, the citizens of Hadamar watch the smoke rise out of the chimney and are tortured with the ever-present thought of the miserable victims, especially when repulsive [sic] odors annoy them, depending on the direction of the wind. The effect of the principles at work here are: Children call each other names and say, ―You‘re crazy; you‘ll be sent to the baking oven in Hadamar.‖ Those who do not want to marry, or find no opportunity, say, ―Marry, never! Bring children into the world so they can be put into the bottling machine!‖ You hear old folks say, ―Don‘t send me to a state hospital! After the feeble-minded have been finished off, the next useless eaters whose turn will come are the old people.‖ All God-fearing men consider this destruction of helpless beings as crass injustice. And if anybody says that Germany cannot win the war, if there is yet a just God, these expressions are not the result of a lack of love of fatherland but of a deep concern for our people… Officials of the Secret State Police, it is said, are trying to suppress discussion of the Hadamar occurrences by means of severe threats. In the interest of the public peace, this may be well intended. But the knowledge and the conviction and the indignation of the population cannot be changed by it; the conviction will

Pfeil 10 be increased with the bitter realization that discussion in threats but that the actions themselves are not prosecuted under penal law. I beg you must humbly, Herr Reich Minister…to prevent further transgressions of the Fifth Commandment of God. -Bishop Antonius Hilfrich Letter of Bishop Hilfrich to Reich Justice Minister 13 August 1941 In regards to pro-euthanasia material propagandistic material such as the previously mentioned feature length film, ―Ich klage an,‖ both the Protestant Church and Roman Catholic Church held negative viewpoints against this propaganda. Specifically for this film, the SS reported that the churches were uniformly negative on ―Ich klage an,‖ with Roman Catholics expressing their sentiments more strongly while Protestants, though not as vocal, were equally as negative (Leiser 146-147). As a culmination of all the domestic protest against Aktion T4 (largely in part due to the Roman Catholic Church), Hitler ordered the cancellation of the program on 24 August 1941; he stated that there were to be no further provocations of the churches for the duration of the war (Lifton 96). The Soviet Union was invaded the June before this proclamation was declared; thus Aktion T4 personnel were transferred there to work on the larger, more difficult project, the ―Final Solution‖ of exterminating the Jews. However, Hitler‘s cancellation was not the end of Aktion T4; the ―incurable‖ were still killed but in a less systematic manner (97-103). By the official cancellation of Aktion T4 in 1941, an estimated 75,000 – 100,000 people were euthanized. By the end of World War II, the number is estimated to be 270,000 disabled people euthanized (Kershaw 5). Although the euthanasia certainly did not cease with the cancellation of the program, its systematic procedures were no more. This demonstrates how the will of the people and notably the actions of the

Pfeil 11 Roman Catholic Church had the power to change part of the Nazi regime (even if not completely). One can only image a different result to the Holocaust had similar protests and actions been taken.

Pfeil 12 Works Cited Ericksen, Robert P. Betrayal: German Churches and the Holocaust. Augsburg Fortress Publishing. 1999. Euthanasia in Nazi Germany – The T4 Programme. New Zealand Resource for Life. . 2011 [Accessed]. Evans, Ricahrd J. The Third Reich in Power. Allen Lane Publishing. 2005. Evans, Suzanne E. Forgotten Crimes: The Holocaust and People with Disabilities. Disability Rights Advocates. Ivan R. Dee Publishing. 2004. Friedlander, Henry. The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill & London. 1995. Geary, Dick. Who voted for the Nazis? (Electoral History of the National Socialist German Workers Party). History Today. 1998. Hilfrich, Antonius. Letter of Bishop Hilfrich to Reich Minister of Justice. [Translated by the Office of the United States: Chief of Counself For Prosecution of Axis Criominality]. Nazi conspiracy and Aggression (Red Series), Volume III. Washington DC 1946. Letter written 13 August 1941. Ich Klage An (1941). The New York Times [Online]. . 2011 [Accessed]. Iredale, Rachel. Eugenics And Its Relevance To Contemporary Health Care. Nursing Ethnics. Arnold Publishing. 2000. Kershaw, Ian. Hitler 1936-1945. London Publishing Press. 2000. Kevles, Daniel. In the Name of Eugenics: Genetics and the Uses of Human Heredity. Alred A. Knopf, Inc. 1985. Leiser, Erwin. Nazi Cinema. MacMillan Publishing Company. 1975. Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. Basic Books, Harper Colling Publishing. 1986. [Electronic Text]. Proctor, Robert N. Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis. Harvard Press Publishing. 1988.

Pfeil 13 ―Records of the United States: Nuernberg War Crimes Trials: United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. (Case I). November 21, 1946- August 20, 1947.‖ National Archives Microfilm Publications, Pamphlet Describing M887. The National Archives and Records Service, General Services Administration, Washington. 1974.