Forgotten Victims: The Euthanasia of the Disabled Under the Third Reich
Disciplines
European History | History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Political History | Social History
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Shortly after the invasion of Poland in 1939, the head of the state hospital near Munich, Hermann Pfannmüller, said, “It is unbearable to me that the flower of our youth must lose their lives at the front, while that feeble-minded and asocial element can have a secure existence in the asylum.” This quote came only two months after Hitler ordered Karl Brandt to euthanize a disabled infant, marking the origins of what would become known as the Aktion T4 Program. The Aktion T4 Program sought to euthanize all disabled populations within Germany as a way of creating the perfect eugenically-fit society. There were survivors of the Holocaust; there were no survivors of the Aktion T4 Program. The only evidence that remains comes from the perpetrators themselves and those that lived near the facilities where the victims were killed. Was the T4 Program solely for eugenic purposes or was it meant to eventually broaden its targeted demographic to cleanse Germany of all groups deemed unproductive members of society, eventually leading to the elderly? In enacting the Aktion T4 Program, the Nazis were not just trying to remove those deemed eugenically undesirable, they were also trying to remove anyone from society that could not contribute to German society productively, a decision that they were aware would cause immense backlash from the public. Previous scholarship regarding the lives of the disabled has largely focused on the doctors and scientists that perpetrated these criminal acts, treating the actual victims of these atrocities as an afterthought. In bridging the connection between scientific and social history it helps to restore the voices back to an often-marginalized group by understanding the stigmatism that they faced and how they and their families reacted.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
RCHSS - History & Philosophy
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Jonathan Gentry
Forgotten Victims: The Euthanasia of the Disabled Under the Third Reich
Shortly after the invasion of Poland in 1939, the head of the state hospital near Munich, Hermann Pfannmüller, said, “It is unbearable to me that the flower of our youth must lose their lives at the front, while that feeble-minded and asocial element can have a secure existence in the asylum.” This quote came only two months after Hitler ordered Karl Brandt to euthanize a disabled infant, marking the origins of what would become known as the Aktion T4 Program. The Aktion T4 Program sought to euthanize all disabled populations within Germany as a way of creating the perfect eugenically-fit society. There were survivors of the Holocaust; there were no survivors of the Aktion T4 Program. The only evidence that remains comes from the perpetrators themselves and those that lived near the facilities where the victims were killed. Was the T4 Program solely for eugenic purposes or was it meant to eventually broaden its targeted demographic to cleanse Germany of all groups deemed unproductive members of society, eventually leading to the elderly? In enacting the Aktion T4 Program, the Nazis were not just trying to remove those deemed eugenically undesirable, they were also trying to remove anyone from society that could not contribute to German society productively, a decision that they were aware would cause immense backlash from the public. Previous scholarship regarding the lives of the disabled has largely focused on the doctors and scientists that perpetrated these criminal acts, treating the actual victims of these atrocities as an afterthought. In bridging the connection between scientific and social history it helps to restore the voices back to an often-marginalized group by understanding the stigmatism that they faced and how they and their families reacted.