Glass monument in Berlin honors 250,000 disabled euthanized by Nazis.
By Stephen Pate – A 80 ft. blue glass wall has been opened in front of the Berlin Philharmonie on the site housing the Nazi euthanasia offices.
This completes a series of memorials to Nazi victims with other monuments to the Jewish, Gypsy and same-sex victims.
Memorial in front of Berlin Philharmonie for victims of Nazi euthanasia of disabled (BBC photo)
As a precursor to the mass extermination of the Jews and political undesirables, Hitler authorized a program to kill more than 250,000 people with mental and physical disabilities.
The term “euthanasia” (literally, “good death”) refers to the inducement of a painless death for a chronically or terminally ill person who would otherwise suffer.
Street plaque in front of Berlin Philharmonie to commemorate T4 victims of euthanasia (before glass memorial)
In the Nazi context, however, “euthanasia” represented a euphemistic term for a clandestine murder program targeted for the systematic killing of mentally and physically disabled patients living in institutional settings in Germany and German-annexed territories. Hitler’s euthanasia program murdered the disabled first.
The physically and mentally disabled were the victims of euthanasia as state policy in National Socialist Germany, and over 250,000 were killed during the war by euthanasia The Nazi Euthanasia (T4) Programme.
Euthanasia bus in Wiesbaden
Phase 2 of Hitler’s euthanasia attacked adults with disabilities with secret gassing and cremation. 250,000 people with disabilities were killed between 1939 and 1945. Hitler enlists doctors in disabled euthanasia
Moving euthanasia underground and expansion to include SS killings of hospital patients getting ready for the mass killing of Jews, political dissidents and other inferior races. Hitler spreads euthanasia of the disabled to Eastern Europe.
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