| “Euthanasia”: Direct Medical
Killing |
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only hopeless mental patients: “Those cases ... we in
psychiatry know as burned-out ruins (awgebrannte Ruinen) '”42 But many of those present knew of Hitler’s views on
eliminating genetically inferior people in general. Although the phrase
“life unworthy of life” was liberally invoked, another doctor could
feel “not quite clear on where the line was to be drawn.”43 There was stress on constructing a careful
medical sequence of evaluation before any patient would be put to death. And
the entire project was to be “unconditionally kept secret.” In those
important early meetings, just one doctor — Max de Crinis — refused
(and only for tactical reasons [see pages 120-221) to participate fully. The
general response was that “nobody mentioned any misgivings.”44
What was secret was the actual killing
project, not the idea. Some months earlier (April 1939), an article had
appeared in a semi-official Nazi magazine, estimating that it would probably be
desirable to exterminate one million people.45
Organizing for Killing
Unlike the children’s “euthanasia” program, the T4
program, with its focus on adult chronic patients, involved virtually the
entire German psychiatric community and related portions of the general medical
community. The camouflage organization created for the medical killing was the
Reich Work Group of Sanatoriums and Nursing Homes (Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft
Heil- und Pflegeanstalten, or RAG) operating from the Berlin Chancellery at
its Tiergarten 4 address — hence, the overall code name “T4” for
the adult project. Questionnaires were worked out by the leadership group of
psychiatrists and administrators and distributed, with the help of the Health
Ministry, not only to psychiatric institutions but to all hospitals and homes
for chronic patients. The limited space provided for biographical and
symptomatic categories, as well as the cowering letter, gave the impression
that a statistical survey was being undertaken for administrative and possibly
scientific purposes. All the more so because the questionnaire for patients was
accompanied by an institutional questionnaire, which focused on such matters as
annual budget, number of beds, and number of doctors and nurses. But the
sinister truth was suggested by the great stress put on a “precise
description” of the working ability of the patients, as well as by the
juxtaposition of the following four categories:
1 . Patients suffering
from specified diseases who are not employable or are employable only in simple
mechanical work. The diseases were schizophrenia, epilepsy, senile diseases,
therapy-resistant paralysis and other syphilitic sequelae, feeblemindedness
from any cause, encephalitis, Huntington’s chorea, and other neurological
conditions of a terminal nature.
2. Patients who have been continually
institutionalized for at least five years. |
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