Operation Nazi Euthanasia: The Covert Slaughter Of Persons With Disabilities Considered A State Burden

Persons with disabilities at Schönbrunn Psychiatric Hospital, 1934 (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

JAKARTA - The Nazi Euthanasia Operation or T4 Action is a hidden massacre carried out by the Adolf Hitler Government against persons with disabilities being treated in German hospitals. This program, according to eugenics, aims to get rid of "unworthy lives" because it is a genetic and financial burden on the German people and state.

Euthanasia or lethal injection is the practice of depriving life in a way that is thought to cause no pain or minimal pain. This is according to its name which is taken from the Greek language, namely eu means without suffering and thanatos means death.

Even so, the rule of law regarding this practice is still controversial. In some countries, euthanasia is considered legal, while in other countries it is illegal.

In the era of Nazi Germany, the practice of Euthanasia was thought to be a hidden way of the Hitler Government to "cleanse" their race of people with mental and physical disabilities because they were considered to be a burden to the state. This classified euthanasia operation is also known as "T4". Code name derived from the street address of the program coordination office in Berlin: Tiergartenstrasse 4.

The Beginning of Nazi Euthanasia

In 1939, a number of Nazi elites such as the Director of Hitler's Private Chancellery Office Philipp Bouhler and Karl Brandt, Hitler's chief doctor, began preparing for the secret killing operation. Initially they targeted children with disabilities.

Nazi doctor, Karl Brandt (Source: Instytut Pamieci Narodowej)

Right on this day, August 18 eight decades ago or in 1939, the plan began. Citing the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's website, the Reich Interior Ministry issued a decree requiring all doctors, nurses and midwives to report if any baby under three shows signs of severe mental or physical disability.

Two months later, public health authorities began encouraging parents of children with disabilities to enroll their children in specially designated clinics in Germany and Austria. Investigate, the various clinics became the execution sites for the Hitler government.

In the clinic, specially recruited medical staff, slaughter their small patients using high doses of drugs or starve them. Initially, the special operation only targeted toddlers and children, but its coverage extends to adolescents up to 17 years of age. Simple estimates suggest that at least 5,000 children died as a result of this euthanasia program.

In order to protect doctors, medical staff and administration from legal ensnares in 1939, German leader Adolf Hitler signed a secret authorization letter. This ratification uses a countdown date of September 1, 1939 to suggest that the effort was linked to a wartime act.

Gas chamber

One method of "euthanasia" for persons with disabilities is by using gas chambers. Under the leadership of Bouhler and Brandt, T4 workers set up six gas chamber installations for adults. Respectively located in Brandenburg, Grafeneck, Bernburg, Sonnenstein, Hartheim and Hadamar.

In the early 1940s, after the data collection of patients with disabilities began, the terrible thing began. They are transported by bus or train to one of the gas chamber installation centers. After several hours of arrival, they were then destroyed in the gas chamber.

It was disguised as a bath room. Even though it contains deadly pure carbon monoxide gas.

Then T4 officers burned the bodies at the crematorium which is next to the gas chamber. Meanwhile, other workers took the victim's ashes and put them in jars to be sent to the victim's family. The family received the urn along with a death certificate and fictitious documents regarding the cause of death. The fictitious document mentions that the victim died naturally.

List of deaths in Hadamar's Chamber of Gas (Source: National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, MD)

Because the program was confidential, T-4 planners and officers took careful steps to cover up its lethal design. Although doctors and administrators faked official records in every case, the "euthanasia" program quickly caught on with the public.

Knowing this, the public began to stage massive protests. And finally Hitler ordered the end of the Euthanasia Program at the end of August 1941. However, there are allegations that Hitler continued the operation more carefully into the final days of World War II.

Based on T4's own internal calculations, the "euthanasia" effort claimed 70,273 lives. They consisted of persons with mental and physical disabilities who were registered in six gas chambers between January 1940 and August 1941.