Hitler's Euthanasia Programme

"Most people with these mental and physical handicaps are only alive because of modern medicines, technologies, etc... so should they even be alive in the first place when nature intended them to die?"

Excuse me! What kind of sick philosophy is that? How do you know what nature intended? You are peddling Social Darwinism at its most disgusting!!!

If your mother developed paranoid schizophrenia, or alzheimers, or if your brother was born with Downes Syndrome, would you be of the opinion that nature intended to deny them the right to life? It's the twisted, perverted way of thinking you sought to propogate with that last post that has led to so much needless suffering in the world.

Go get a human soul you unfeeling b*****d!

 

(bartsch @ Dec 31 2005, 10:25 AM) [post=43836]Most people with these mental and physical handicaps are only alive because of modern medicines, technologies, etc... so should they even be alive in the first place when nature intended them to die?
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I wonder if you have ever taken a medication like an antibiotic or a tetanus shot. If so there is a good chance you are alive only because these modern medicines or technologies, etc... and nature intended you to die and you shouldn't be alive in the first place either.

 

(jimbotosome @ Jan 1 2006, 05:36 PM) [post=43870](bartsch @ Dec 31 2005, 10:25 AM) [post=43836]Most people with these mental and physical handicaps are only alive because of modern medicines, technologies, etc... so should they even be alive in the first place when nature intended them to die?
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I wonder if you have ever taken a medication like an antibiotic or a tetanus shot. If so there is a good chance you are alive only because these modern medicines or technologies, etc... and nature intended you to die and you shouldn't be alive in the first place either.
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Well said, Jimbo! For once you and I are in total agreement!!!

 

taking another tack, I have to say that i do wonder how openly these orders were distributed and if they were acted on evenly across the whole of the Nazi area of control.

By that I mean that there are examples of German mentaly handicapped patients being sent to camps for extermination, as well as people who were Romany, politically 'dangerous', homosexual and the Jews. No matter what the ideological reasons, that was the policy and it was carried out in Germany and the occupied countries.

It is also documented that patients from a Dutch mental hospital were wandering around the countryside after being released by preparatory bombing before the airborne assault at Arnhem. Over 3 full years after the country was occupied by the Germans.

Can anyone explain if this was an exception rather than the 'rule'? Was the policy that was 'universal' or was it only carried out where it was politicaly or commercialy advantagous? Or was it the case that some units or commands were more or less zealous than others?

(Note - It does seem strange asking such questions in such a detached manner when it was certainly a case of human lives, not just numbers on pieces of paper, but I'm not sure I could have asked the question any other way.)

 

taking another tack, I have to say that i do wonder how openly these orders were distributed and if they were acted on evenly across the whole of the Nazi area of control.

As a general rule, the further you went east, the more likely the Nazi Racial and Eugenic program was carried out.

 

(adamcotton @ Jan 1 2006, 12:46 PM) [post=43872](jimbotosome @ Jan 1 2006, 05:36 PM) [post=43870](bartsch @ Dec 31 2005, 10:25 AM) [post=43836]Most people with these mental and physical handicaps are only alive because of modern medicines, technologies, etc... so should they even be alive in the first place when nature intended them to die?
[/b]
I wonder if you have ever taken a medication like an antibiotic or a tetanus shot. If so there is a good chance you are alive only because these modern medicines or technologies, etc... and nature intended you to die and you shouldn't be alive in the first place either.
[/b]
Well said, Jimbo! For once you and I are in total agreement!!!
[/b]It was bound to happen eventually Adam!

 

(plant-pilot @ Jan 1 2006, 07:41 PM) [post=43878]taking another tack, I have to say that i do wonder how openly these orders were distributed and if they were acted on evenly across the whole of the Nazi area of control.

By that I mean that there are examples of German mentaly handicapped patients being sent to camps for extermination, as well as people who were Romany, politically 'dangerous', homosexual and the Jews. No matter what the ideological reasons, that was the policy and it was carried out in Germany and the occupied countries. [/b]

Actually, the euthenasia programme, codenamed T4, was carried out almost exclusively in Germany against Germans and this was before the Holocaust proper commenced. It was effectively brought to an end in 1941, although small numbers continued to fall foul of it.

With the limited exception of Poland, it was not really applied to the occupied countries.

 

(plant-pilot @ Jan 1 2006, 02:41 PM) [post=43878]taking another tack, I have to say that i do wonder how openly these orders were distributed and if they were acted on evenly across the whole of the Nazi area of control.

By that I mean that there are examples of German mentaly handicapped patients being sent to camps for extermination, as well as people who were Romany, politically 'dangerous', homosexual and the Jews. No matter what the ideological reasons, that was the policy and it was carried out in Germany and the occupied countries.

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Wonder what would happen if Hitler had met a mentally retarded, handicapped, homosexual Jew how was a communist party member and had a really bad cold? That probably would have caused the hairs on his mustache to fall out.

By the way, I think the "sicko" ways of dying were actually better because they were usually quick. I can't imagine a more painful death than simply starving to death which most of them did. I personally would want to get it over with.

 

(bartsch @ Dec 31 2005, 10:25 AM) [post=43836]Most people with these mental and physical handicaps are only alive because of modern medicines, technologies, etc... so should they even be alive in the first place when nature intended them to die?
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By that logic, we should never give penicillin to anyone, because anyone who gets sick with a potential fatally illness is intended by nature to die.

I do hope someone tosses that quote in your face when you're begging medical science to save the life of someone close to you. images/smilies/default/wacko.gif

 

Hey Geoff. Terrible stuff but informative I was wondering if you had the figures for how many people actually did die or a rough estimate would be fine thanks,
Jack

 

From http://www.compunews.com/gus/massacres.htm

HARTHEIM SCHLOSS
In 1942, a total of 3,166 civilian prisoners were transported to this place, situated near Linz in Austria, just over the German border,and there put to death by gassing. They were classified as 'unfit to work'. Hartheim was the only prison from which there were no survivors. Used in the SS Euthanasia Programme, around 10,000 mentally retarded and crippled children were murdered here. Five such establishments were set up in Germany, including the infamous Hadamar Psychiatric Clinic. Since the Programme began in 1939, a total of 70,273 mentally retarded people were murdered in these centers. <span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:100%">Today, the Schloss has been converted into flats housing 22 families.</span>The only reminder of the terrible events that took place here is a large plaque on the wall of the entrance hall.

View attachment 1474

Map shows location of Hartheim Castle gas chamber

View attachment 1473

In the upper left-hand corner, there is a rectangular extension built onto the northwest tower. This is where the victims were delivered by buses into a wooden shed; they entered the castle through the door on the northwest side where there is a small red dot on the map. The victims were then taken through the arcade on the north side of the open courtyard to the Admissions room in the northeast tower. The gas chamber is located in the brown area between the two corner towers on the east side. The original door into the gas chamber opened from the east side of the courtyard, shown in the center of the drawing.

 

(Lt. Winters @ Jan 4 2006, 07:33 PM) [post=44011]Hey Geoff. Terrible stuff but informative I was wondering if you had the figures for how many people actually did die or a rough estimate would be fine thanks,
Jack
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Hi Jack,

Missed your question - Sorry.

Used in the SS Euthanasia Programme, around 10,000 mentally retarded and crippled children were murdered here. Five such establishments were set up in Germany, including the infamous Hadamar Psychiatric Clinic. Since the Programme began in 1939, a total of 70,273 mentally retarded people were murdered in these centers. <span style="font-size:14pt;line-height:100%">Today, the Schloss has been converted into flats housing 22 families. </span>The only reminder of the terrible events that took place here is a large plaque on the wall of the entrance hall.

 

In my post on this subject it mentioned Hadamar and a converted prison in Brandenburg.

I could not see any reference to this euthanasia extermination site.

From http://www.compunews.com/gus/massacres.htm

HARTHEIM SCHLOSS
In 1942, a total of 3,166 civilian prisoners were transported to this place, situated near Linz in Austria, just over the German border,and there put to death by gassing. They were classified as 'unfit to work'. Hartheim was the only prison from which there were no survivors. Used in the SS Euthanasia Programme, around 10,000 mentally retarded and crippled children were murdered here. Five such establishments were set up in Germany, including the infamous Hadamar Psychiatric Clinic. Since the Programme began in 1939, a total of 70,273 mentally retarded people were murdered in these centers. Today, the Schloss has been converted into flats housing 22 families.The only reminder of the terrible events that took place here is a large plaque on the wall of the entrance hall.



Map shows location of Hartheim Castle gas chamber



In the upper left-hand corner, there is a rectangular extension built onto the northwest tower. This is where the victims were delivered by buses into a wooden shed; they entered the castle through the door on the northwest side where there is a small red dot on the map. The victims were then taken through the arcade on the north side of the open courtyard to the Admissions room in the northeast tower. The gas chamber is located in the brown area between the two corner towers on the east side. The original door into the gas chamber opened from the east side of the courtyard, shown in the center of the drawing.

"Crying still"

 

Some additional information and corrections from my initial post.

5 camps are mentioned in one instance and 6 in another?

This info is from: http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_axis.html

In 1942, a total of 3,166 civilian prisoners from Dachau and Mauthausen were transported to this place, situated just over the German border near Linz in Austria and there put to death by gassing. They were classified as 'unfit to work'. Hartheim, under the administration of the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, was the only prison from which there were no survivors. Used in the SS Euthanasia Programme, 18,269 mentally retarded and crippled children were murdered here. Their bodies were then cremated and the ashes spread over the waters of the Danube and Traun rivers. Five such establishments were set up in Germany, including the infamous Hadamar Psychiatric Clinic in Hessen-Nassau where between 40 and 70 patients arrived daily and where 476 Polish and Russian nationals were put to death within days of their arrival. Since the program began in 1939, a total of 72,424 mentally retarded people were murdered in these centers. A total of 772 children from Vienna were put to death and their brains preserved in glass jars. Around 80 persons were employed at Hartheim encouraged by extra pay and a good alcohol allowance. The director of the program was psychiatrist, Dr. Rudolf Lonauer, of Linz, who committed suicide by poison in May, 1945.
After the war, the Schloss (Castle) was converted into flats housing 22 families. In 1999, the families were moved and the Schloss refurbished and opened as a Memorial Site and Holocaust Learning Center for students and the public.
In the spring of 1939, the "Reich Committee for Scientific Research of Hereditary and Severe Constitutional Diseases" was set up. Headed by SS-Obergruppenführer Philipp Bouhler, it operated out of his headquarters at Tiergartenstrasse 4, in Berlin, hence its code name T-4. From all over Germany, deformed children, incurably sick and mentally retarded patients were transported from their hospitals and institutions to the euthanasia killing centres of which there were six, (Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Hadamar, Hartheim, Sonnenstein and Bernberg). At these centres the patients were put to death individually, usually by injection. Later, to speed up the process, cyanide gas, known as Zyklon B, was used. At Hartheim, carbon-monoxide gas was the method used. In November, 1942, 1,200 German political prisoners were taken from Mauthausen and transported to Bernberg and put to death by gassing. Documents discovered after the war listed 70,273 deaths at these six centers. The first centre to be so equipped was Brandenburg in late 1939. The procedure was for groups of twenty or thirty to be ushered into a room camouflaged as a shower room into which gas piping had been laid. The equipment to operate the gas was located outside and operated by the doctor on duty. When the euthanasia program wound down in late 1941, the gassing equipment in these centres was dismantled and transferred to the concentration camps of Belize, Majdenek and Treblinka in Poland in preparation for the forthcoming 'Final Solution' of the Jewish question. It is estimated that between 200 and 250 thousand persons were murdered under the T-4 program.

 

(laufer @ Nov 8 2005, 09:24 PM) [post=41288]Outside of Germany and Austria, thousands of mental patients in the occupied territories of Poland and Russia, were also killed by the Einsatzgruppen squads (SS and special police units) that followed in the wake of the invading German army. Between September 29 and November 1, 1939, these units shot about 3,700 mental patients in asylums in the region of Bromberg, Poland. In December 1939 and January 1940, SS units gassed 1,558 patients from Polish asylums in specially adapted gas vans, in order to make room for military and SS barracks. Although regular army units did not officially participate in such "cleansing" actions as general policy, some instances of their involvement have been documented.
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Hi Laufer,

I came across this on what I believe is an excellent site across the spectrum of the atrocities that were committed. The site is quite extensive.

The site is: http://www.deathcamps.org/euthanasia/t4poland.html

Approx 13,000 plus the unknown number from Otwock.

Owinska Mental Home (near Poznan): 15 September-20 December 1939. Victims: 1,100
Swiec Mental Home: September-October 1939. Victims: 1,350
Kocborowo Mental Home: 29 November-20 December 1939. Victims: 2,342
Gniezno Mental Home: December 1939, January 1940, June 1941. Victims: 1,201
Chelm Mental Home: 12 January 1940. Victims: 440
Koscian Mental Home: January-February 1940. Victims: 3,334
Gostynin Mental Home (near Warszawa): 3 February-3 July 1940, 9 July. Victims: 107
Kochanowka Mental Home (near Lodz): 13-15 March 1940, 27-28 March 1940, June-August 1940. Victims: 629
Warta Mental Home (near Sieradz): 2-4 April 1940. Victims: 499
Choroszcz Mental Home (near Bialystok): 1941. Victims: 464
Kobierzyn Mental Home (near Krakow): 23 July 1942. Victims: 500
Otwock Mental Home (near Warszawa): August 1942. Victims: unknown
Lubliniec Mental Home: August 1942-November 1944. Victims: 221 children
Wilno Mental Home: ?. Victims: 900

 

(spidge @ Jan 17 2006, 04:16 AM) [post=44436]Hi Laufer,

I came across this on what I believe is an excellent site across the spectrum of the atrocities that were committed. The site is quite extensive.

The site is: http://www.deathcamps.org/euthanasia/t4poland.html

Approx 13,000 plus the unknown number from Otwock.

Owinska Mental Home (near Poznan): 15 September-20 December 1939. Victims: 1,100
Swiec Mental Home: September-October 1939. Victims: 1,350
Kocborowo Mental Home: 29 November-20 December 1939. Victims: 2,342
Gniezno Mental Home: December 1939, January 1940, June 1941. Victims: 1,201
Chelm Mental Home: 12 January 1940. Victims: 440
Koscian Mental Home: January-February 1940. Victims: 3,334
Gostynin Mental Home (near Warszawa): 3 February-3 July 1940, 9 July. Victims: 107
Kochanowka Mental Home (near Lodz): 13-15 March 1940, 27-28 March 1940, June-August 1940. Victims: 629
Warta Mental Home (near Sieradz): 2-4 April 1940. Victims: 499
Choroszcz Mental Home (near Bialystok): 1941. Victims: 464
Kobierzyn Mental Home (near Krakow): 23 July 1942. Victims: 500
Otwock Mental Home (near Warszawa): August 1942. Victims: unknown
Lubliniec Mental Home: August 1942-November 1944. Victims: 221 children
Wilno Mental Home: ?. Victims: 900
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Thanks Spidge. I am familiar with this truly excellent site but I missed information about euthanasia programme.

 

many handicapped people lived in the monastary of Ursberg ( near Ulm,where einstein was born) and when a nazi squad the nuns who heard about the killing of handicapped people hided the handicapped in the monastary or in a nearby village.they even took sticks and beat on the nazi squads who tried to take the handicapped away , an old nun told me once.

 

The euthanasia programme was the final solution of the social question.Victims were mentally and bodily handicapped people,outsiders, alcoholics,criminals. There were about 120 000 victims.The programme started officially on 1st of September 1939, but actually in October. Beforehand they sterilized about 400 000 people. They killed the people in the following places: Grafeneck near Ulm,, Hadamar near Koblenz, ,Brandenburg near Berlin, Bernburg near Magdeburg.,Sonnenstein near Dresden, Hartheim near Linz.
A boy in my town was ill.Epilepsy. He was taken to a catholic sanatorium. Then the parents noticed that their boy had disappeared and secretly taken to Kaufbeuren. They came to see him, but he had already changed due to the bad medicine, which was given to him. The parents decided to kidnap their son, rent a car and brought the boy back to the sanatorium. Four weeks later he was dead. The Nazis had sterilized him there of course without telling the parents and because of this operation the boy died. The parents nearly died from grief. Later they went to Switzerland.
You see, merciless Germans against helpless Germans. Don't forget either.

 

this be of interest

Nazi Euthanasia

 

First time I have heard of this whilst I was looking for WW2 Speeches.


You can read a excerpt of the sermon by Catholic Cardinal Clemens von Galen, delivered on Sunday, August 3, 1941, in Münster Cathedral, in which he risked his life by openly condemning the Nazi euthanasia program by clicking the link below.

http://www.ww2talk.com/forum/general/19166-speeches-world-war-two.html Post 33

Code named "Aktion T4," the Nazi program to eliminate "life unworthy of life" began on Hitler's order in October of 1939. The program at first focused on newborns and very young children. Midwives and doctors were required to register children up to age three that showed symptoms of mental retardation, physical deformity, or other symptoms included on a questionnaire from the Reich Health Ministry.

A decision on whether to allow the child to live was then made by three medical experts solely on the basis of the questionnaire, without any examination and without reading any medical records.

Each expert placed a + mark in red pencil or - mark in blue pencil under the term "treatment" on a special form. A red plus mark meant a decision to kill the child. A blue minus sign meant a decision against killing. Three +++ symbols resulted in a euthanasia warrant being issued and the transfer of the child to a 'Children's Specialty Department' for death by injection or gradual starvation.

The decision had to be unanimous. In cases where the decision was not unanimous the child was kept under observation and another attempt would be made to get a unanimous decision.

The Nazi euthanasia program soon expanded to include older disabled children and adults. Hitler granted "the authority of certain physicians to be designated by name in such manner, that persons who, according to human judgment, are incurable, can, upon a most careful diagnosis of their condition of sickness, be accorded a mercy death."

Questionnaires were then distributed to mental institutions, hospitals and other institutions caring for the chronically ill. A total of six killing centers were established including the well known psychiatric clinic at Hadamar. The euthanasia program was eventually headed by an SS man named Christian Wirth, a notorious brute with the nickname 'the savage Christian.'

At Brandenburg, a former prison was converted into a killing centre where the first experimental gassings took place. The gas chambers were disguised as shower rooms, but were actually hermetically sealed chambers connected by pipes to cylinders of carbon monoxide. Each killing centre also included a crematorium where the bodies were taken for disposal. Families were then falsely told the cause of death was medical such as heart failure or pneumonia.

Apparently the Cardinal's sermon sent a shockwave through the Nazi leadership all the way up to Hitler. As a result, on August 23, 1941, Hitler suspended Aktion T4 which had accounted for nearly a hundred thousand deaths by this time.

The Nazis pondered what to do about the Cardinal. They eventually retaliated by arresting and then beheading three parish priests who had distributed his sermon, but left the Cardinal unharmed to avoid making him into a martyr.

However, the Nazi euthanasia program quietly continued, but without the widespread gassings. Drugs and starvation were used instead and doctors were encouraged to decide in favour of death whenever euthanasia was being considered.

Regards
Andy