That's how the holocaust started .... mercy killing:
Euthanasia – the ‘mercy killing’ of disabled people in Germany
At the beginning of World War II the Nazi regime began killing individuals with physical disabilities, people who were mentally retarded, and the terminally ill. The killings were called ‘euthanasia’, i.e. ‘mercy killings’.
According to the Nazi policy of racial hygiene, people with physical and mental disabilities were “useless” in German society, and they were a threat against the Aryan purity. They were deemed unworthy to live.
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Background | | Hitler's authorisation of the Euthanasia Programme (Operation T4) was signed in October 1939, but dated 1 September 1939. |
After Hitler had received a letter from the father of a handicapped child, whom the father wished to be put to death as a mercy killing, the Fuehrer approved the Euthanasia Programme.The idea of the Programme was to “remove” the seriously disabled on a national basis.
The head of the Fuehrer Chancellery, Phillipp Bouhler, became the administrative leader of the Programme, which was code-named ‘Operation T4’ after its headquarters at Tiergarten Strasse 4 in Berlin. The real head of the Operation was Viktor Brack , while the dirty work was dealt with by police inspector Christian Wirth from the criminal police in Stuttgart – the refinement of killing techniques was his specialty.
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Euthanasia and the Holocaust Many historians see Operation T4 as an experimental “rehearsal” before the Final Solution– the extermination of Jews and gypsies. The people involved in Operation T4, approximately 400, became unemployed when the Operation was (temporarily) terminated at the end of 1941. However, most of them were transferred to the newly established concentration- and extermination camps, as ‘experts in the killing of people’. Among them was Christian Wirth, one of the most important men in the practical implementation of Operation Reinhard – the extermination of the Polish Jews.
http://www.holocaust-education.dk/baggrund/eutanasi.asp |
