Over 250,000 Killed By Nazi Euthanasia During WWII

The Nazi Euthanasia (T4) Programme – physically and mentally disabled were the victims of euthanasia as state policy Germany.

By Stephen Pate – In Germany, the start of the war marked the change in policy towards the mentally sick and handicapped.

Hitler himself signed the secret order to start putting them to death.

SS Officer Reinhard Spitzy, “why spend money on food for the hopeless sick?”

“Why should we spend money for food for a hopelessly ill person,” said “Reinhard Spitzy, an SS officer from 1939 to 1945, “if I can do with the same money so much good for poor peasants.”

The decision brought the reality of racial policy to countless ordinary families with a sick relative.

In December 1931, my mother had been sent to the clinic in Frankfurt-en-Mein,” said Marie Rau, “because of depression and anxiety.”

Marie Rau’s mother was eventually diagnosed as an incurable schizophrenic.

Without her family’s knowledge, she was brought to the Hadamar Psychiatric Clinic, which became a center for killing the mentally disabled. They were led to the cellar and killed with carbon monoxide gas, up to 60 at a time, over 10,000 in Hadamar alone.

Next door was a crude operating slab where brains and organs were removed.

The murder of Disabled Children Provided Anatomy Lessons for Nazis.

The Rau’s were told her mother had died from complications from warts on her lip. They only learned the truth years later.

“The fact that these people were murdered,” said Marie Lau, “is a disgrace for our whole society.”

Some Germans dared to protest publicly against euthanasia. The gassing was stopped but killing by injection and starving continued.

Even after the war, the real horror of euthanasia at Hadamar was not known. It was originally thought to be for political prisoners.

Hadamar Nazi Concentration Camp Liberation footage

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With text and video copyright United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “The Holocaust.” Holocaust Encyclopedia

See also: Images of Nazi Euthanasia & Eugenics.