Life Unworthy of Life: A Tragic Reality – 1940s

Part 3 in the 10-Part Series “Is Any Life Unworthy of Living?“

Unofficial killing began in earnest before Aktion T4 was implemented. In the beginning, Germans with disabilities (including infants and children) were admitted to hospitals across the country for “treatment,” where they were killed in a variety of ways: lethal injections, starvation, and by deliberately shutting off heat to wards so that patients died of exposure.

But Aktion T4 ramped up the killing to an industrial level. Once approved, the program co-opted six mental institutions across the country and set them up as killing centers.

The Nazis already knew who the disabled were and where they lived. Deceptively, they invented a narrative around “medical examinations” which was meant to keep those with disabilities and their families calm as they were loaded into blacked-out-window buses for what was their final trip. They busses began arriving at the killing centers, unloading the infirm: People with epilepsy, those who were blind and deaf, people with intellectual and physical disabilities, those with serious chronic conditions and many others.

Upon arrival, they were “examined” by legitimate medical doctors. The examination, however, had little to do with any valid medical conditions. The “examinations” were in fact a ruse to classify who should die. Each person had their own medical file and the doctors examined each naked patient, noting by means of a plus, minus, or dash which person with a disability was tagged for death. Plus meant death, minus meant survival – at least for a short period of time – and a dash meant the death decision was deferred. At the end of the bogus examinations the doctor wrote a plus, minus or dash on the back of each victim’s shoulder.

Those who bore the plus sign were then shepherded into a large communal “shower.” The ruse continued: The victims were assured that a quick shower was all that would happen. The shower door was firmly locked. However, instead of water coming from the shower head, deadly gas was pumped in instead. The disabled, naked, jam-packed into the space, in a blind final panic, were gassed to death.

Two points are worth noting: First, the only person who could release the gas was a medical doctor. Second, the use of the deadly gas at the asylums was the prototype for the mass gassing that occurred later in the Nazi concentration camps during World War II.

The horror didn’t stop there. The bodies were removed and plundered for anything of value, including ripping out gold teeth crowns. The gold was then forwarded to Berlin to help the war effort.

The horrible truth was soon to be uncovered.

Mark P. Mostert, Ph.D., is senior researcher for Able Americans, a project of the National Center for Public Policy Research. This is part 3 of the 10-part series “Is Any Life Unworthy of Living?”  Those wanting to be notified of future installments in the series should subscribe to the Able Americans email list.