Soon, the policy extended to adults and became known as ‘Aktion T4’. By 1941, over 5,000 chidlren identified by the committee had been murdered. The killings of those considered lebensunwertes lebens (Life unworthy of life) began in 1939. Its aim was to identify all infants and babies who should be ‘euthanised’. The Reich Committee for the Scientific Registering of Hereditary and Congenital Diseases was established in August 1939 by Hitler’s personal physician Karl Brandt. Nazi propaganda which states “Comrade, this is also your money” to highlight how expensive it was to keep those with disabilities alive. Hitler then asked for the programme to be extended to all similar cases. The ‘trial’ took place in 1938 after the parents asked for a ‘mercy killing’ of their son. The victim was an infant named Gerhard Kretschmer, who had been born blind with physical and development disabilities. The first killing of a disabled child took place in July 1939. Between 19, an estimated 360,000 people were sterilised. They examined institutions such as hospitals, schools and nursing homes. The task of locating those to be sterilised was carried out by special courts called the ‘Hereditary Health Courts’. The law enforced compulsory sterilisation for those with conditions believed to be hereditary including schizophrenia, epilepsy, Downs Syndrome and even alcoholism.

The persecution of those with mental and physical disabilities by the Nazi Party began in July 1933 with the ‘Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring’. Those with mental and physical disabilities were targeted by the Nazis Party as soon as they came to power in 1933.

Franz stangl shoah