The disabled in Nazi Germany - History Forum ~ All Empires

Besides the Jews and Slavs, countless disabled people were killed in the Holocaust. This was the culmination of a process that began years before when the disabled were forbidden to marry, followed by compulsory sterilisation and the killing of children. The Nazis introduced a "euthanasia program" called Aktion T4 to purify the German race by murdering the disabled. Over 200000 blind, crippled and mentally ill people were given lethal injections (similar to the type used by modern-day killers) or gassed, despite protests by the catholic church

Me Grimlock not nice Dino! Me bash brains!

The terrible dehumanizing practice was the first Nazi systematic program of extermination:
"...The so-called "Euthanasia" program was National Socialist Germany's first program of mass murder, predating the genocide of European Jewry, which we call the Holocaust, by approximately two years. The effort represented one of many radical eugenic measures which aimed to restore the racial "integrity" of the German nation. It endeavored to eliminate what eugenicists and their supporters considered "life unworthy of life": those individuals who--they believed--because of severe psychiatric, neurological, or physical disabilities represented at once a genetic and a financial burden upon German society and the state...." http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005200

One' hairs stand up on one's head reading stuff like that:
"...At first, medical professionals and clinic administrators incorporated only infants and toddlers in the operation, but as the scope of the measure widened, they included juveniles up to 17 years of age. Conservative estimates suggest that at least 5,000 physically and mentally disabled German children perished as a result of the child "euthanasia" program during the war years...." Ibid.

Quote from the original document with which this horror was introduced:
"...In October 1939 Adolf Hitler wrote the following memo: "Reich Leader [Philip] Bouhler and Dr. med. [Karl] Brandt are charged with the responsibility of enlarging the authority of certain physicians, designated by name, so that patients who, on the basis of human judgment, are considered incurable, can be granted a mercy death after a discerning diagnosis."..."http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/staticpages/169.html

It was never stopped until the end of the war, only sunk into deeper secrecy, after becoming terribly unpopular:
"...The euthanasia campaign, called Operation T-4, was code-named after the address of the confiscated Jewish villa at Tiergartenstrasse 4, which was the address of the program's central administrative offices. Hitler chose Bouhler, the head of his private Chancellery, and Dr. Brandt, one of his doctors, to oversee T-4. However, responsibility for its day-to-day implementation fell to Viktor Brack and his deputy, Werner Blankenberg. Statistics show that under the leadership of these men, 70,000 to 80,000 people--including 4000 to 5000 Jews--became victims of the euthanasia killings.

The Nazis tried to conceal what was happening, but when public protests exploded--many of them from Germany's Catholic and Lutheran leaders--Hitler officially halted Operation T-4 on August 24, 1941. Nevertheless, the killing continued in greater secrecy until the spring of 1945. From 1939 through 1945, Operation T-4 and other euthanasia actions murdered between 200,000 and 250,000 disabled people...." Ibid

Any physical problem was used as an excuse to eliminate children, precious human lives

This woman wasn't even sick, just hospitalised and killed because of her non-conformist beliefs and writings

A victim of the Nazi Euthanasia Program: hospitalized in a psychiatric ward for her nonconformist beliefs and writings, she was murdered on January 26, 1944. Germany, date uncertain.

Dehumanizing propaganda to develop sympathy for the euthanasia program:
"...

Photograph with the caption: &quot;...because God cannot want the sick and ailing to reproduce.&quot; This image originates from a film, produced by the Reich Propaganda Ministry, that aimed through propaganda to develop public sympathy for the Euthanasia Program.

Photograph with the caption: "...because God cannot want the sick and ailing to reproduce."..."
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/gallery_ph.php?ModuleId=10005149

There was no mercy for kids and teens:
"...

Emmi G., a 16-year-old housemaid diagnosed as schizophrenic. She was sterilized and sent to the Meseritz-Obrawalde euthanasia center where she was killed with an overdose of tranquilizers on December 7, 1942. Place and date uncertain..." Ibid.

Kids with learning disabilities were subjects to euthanasia too
"...“On July 14, 1933, the German government instituted the Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases. This law called for the sterilization of all persons who suffered from diseases considered hereditary, including mental illness, learning disabilities, physical deformity, epilepsy, blindness, deafness, and severe alcoholism”.." http://psychandholocaust.umwblogs.org/during-the-holocaust/jewish-mentally-ill/

Now, none of the above mentioned are really hereditary, and family of people who suffers from one or another such challenges can well have children that don't suffer from them; but:
"...During the Holocaust, German psychiatrists and physicians were quick to believe that any mental or physical ailment was hereditary(Mueller & Beddies, 2006, Strous, 2008).This presented a threat to Hitler and his regime. If these “unfit” members of society were to procreate, the world would never be rid of them (Gittelman, 2006). ..." Ibid.

It was politically driven, pseudoscience just like the racial theories that was used as an excuse for the Hollocaust. There is no science or educational care behind them, just hate and ignorance. It's the other way around - the humanity and progressiveness of a given human society is measured by the degree they care and provide for their members who had the bad luck to be born with a severe challenge to bear. The Nazis had none of the above - such a degree of dehumanization as the one they created was something new to the human history, AFAIK, although not the last case of such, most lamentably. The survival of our humanity really depends on our ability to stamp out such thinking that can possibly allow it's repetition.

Edited by Don Quixote - 18-Mar-2012 at 20:37

Yes, there is more on the web:

An emaciated survivor stands naked between rows of beds at the Hadamar Institute

The corpse of a woman lies in an open coffin at the Hadamar Institute where she was put to death as part of the Operation T4

Victims corpses exhumed for examination at Hademar, one of the sites of the Nazis euthanasia program

Victims' corpses exhumed for examination at Hademar, one of the sites of the Nazis' euthanasia program

Propaganda slide featuring two images of physically disabled children

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/euthan/euthangal/index.html
Those designated as 'Useless eaters"

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/euthan/images/During%20the%201930s,%20people%20with%20disabilities%20in%20Germany%20are%20referred%20to%20as%20%20useless%20eaters.jpg

The last child killed by the head nurse at the Kaufbeuren-Irsee euthanasia facility

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/euthan/images/The%20last%20child%20killed%20by%20the%20head%20nurse%20at%20the%20Kaufbeuren-Irsee%20euthanasia%20facility.jpg