The End of an Official Killing Program and Discovery of the Nazi Horror

Part 4 in the 10-Part Series “Is Any Life Unworthy of Living?“

The secret official and organized killing under Aktion T4 at the 6 killing centers continued. However, by late 1941 things were starting to fall apart. The general public were starting to realize what was happening. People living near the killing centers increasingly noticed that the grey busses with blacked-out windows who delivered people to the centers always left empty.

Furthermore, the populace could not help but notice that the on-site crematorium belched acrid black smoke almost 24 hours a day, with the soot leaving a film on everything outside. In the evenings, German soldiers working at the centers would often get drunk to wash away the horrors of their work day, sometimes inadvertently telling the locals what was really happening.

Further afield, parents and families faced sheer bureaucratic evil when inquiring about their loved ones. Initially, they were told that their family member was taken to one of the six killing centers for “treatment.” When families inquired about their loved ones’ status, they were assured that all was going well and that their loved one would soon return. When families asked to visit, the Nazis were quick to intervene and lie – saying, for example, that their loved one was suffering from a contagious disease.

In time, families would receive a letter stating that their loved one had died (fatal diagnoses were made up on the fly). Soon thereafter, ashes would be mailed to the families with a brief note of condolence. Often, when families examined the ashes, they began to understand the official deception – for example, a son’s ashes were returned containing a girl’s hairclip.

For all these reasons, the killing program was becoming problematic for the Nazis. However, it took a single act to stop the killing program in its tracks. A Roman Catholic Bishop, Clemens von Galen, had had enough. In July and August 1941 he delivered several sermons denouncing what the Nazis were doing. The sermons were shared across Germany and caused significant public outrage. The lie had finally been exposed – finally, everyone knew.  The Nazis briefly considered assassinating von Galen, but decided not to as it would inflame Catholic opposition to the regime.

Soon thereafter, Aktion 4 was shut down. The killing wasn’t. In what was later described as “wild euthanasia,” medical staff at hospitals and other institutions returned to killing people with disabilities in hospital wards and related facilities.

How many people with disabilities had been killed? Nobody is sure, but best estimates are that Aktion T4 accounted for approximately 70,000 deaths, and other eugenic killings across Germany approached 200,000 people.

The Nazis had gone a long way to ridding Germany of “Useless Eaters,” and they had learned a morbidly valuable lesson: They’d learned how to kill people efficiently via sophisticated bureaucratic and logistical means. It was no accident that the Nazi death camps which killed millions of Jews and other “undesirables” used gassing as the preferred killing method – it was perfected on their own citizens with disabilities. It was also no coincidence that many of the Aktion T4 murderers – doctors, orderlies and others – soon found their way to Auschwitz, Treblinka, and many other death camps across Europe.

Eugenics had gotten a bad name. However, it didn’t go away – it just reinvented itself after World War II.

Mark P. Mostert, Ph.D., is senior researcher for Able Americans, a project of the National Center for Public Policy Research. This is part 4 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.