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The political decision on “euthanasia”, the murder of mentally and physically ill persons, was taken in October 1939. Considering that Germany had attacked and invaded Poland in September, killings could and did take place, as of October, outside the territory of the Reich as well. Accordingly, an approximate total of 70,000 persons had been murdered by August 1941. It was doctors, administrative officials and clerks, male and female nurses who planned these activities, who selected the “suitable” persons and who, in the end, murdered them with their own hands.
Following first protests worded in the summer of 1940 – Theophil Wurm, regional bishop had intervened for the Evangelical Church, its Catholic counterpart in the Münster diocese, Clemens August Cardinal Graf von Galen, had delivered a sermon critical of the system – Hitler gave orders to officially discontinue “euthanasia”. One reason why protest had flared up in the Reich itself had been that German families were directly affected by the murder action losing their relatives living in homes and institutions through “euthanasia”.
This formal end put to the murder program was circumvented, though, and in killing action kept secret (so-called “untamed euthanasia”) another 30,000 persons lost their lives. Untamed euthanasia reached its peak in the program that was called “Action 14f13” and unleashed in April 1941. Within the scope of this murder campaign, concentration camp prisoners and forced labourers either unfit to work or in poor health were “selected” and gassed.
14f13 was an internal file reference: 14f stood for death in a concentration camp and 13 meant transport to an institution for “euthanasia” purpose. Several thousands of inmates of concentration camps were murdered by the use of gas in the three mental homes of Bernburg, Sonnenstein/Pirna and Hartheim between 1941 and 1943 and again in 1944 and 1945.
What was the reason for starting this action just in 1941? At the time, the concentration camp system had already ‘by-produced’ a large quantity of exhausted, worn out and emaciated prisoners. Having been detained in concentration camps for years, they had no reserves any more. In the autumn of 1941, the “SS-Wirtschaftsverwaltungshauptamt” (SS main administration office for economy) in Oranienburg undertook to centrally manage “Action 14f13”. From then on, doctors playing into the hands of “euthanasia” frequently omitted to examine the patients selected to die and just signed the killing orders.
In consequence, concentration camp prisoners who were categorized “unfit to work” came to be murdered; as of August 1941 their fate was shared by so-called “Racist” prisoners, mostly Jews. Although the extermination camps built on Eastern European soil did not yet exist, the Nazis’ intention to extinguish Jewry had already become clear. Between spring 1943 and 1945 it was again above all concentration camp inmates “unfit to work” who were murdered mainly in Hartheim. By comparison, Jews were murdered in extermination camps like Sobibor, Chelmno, Auschwitz-Birkenau only during that period.
To this day, accurate figures on how many individuals fell victim to “Action 14f13” have not been presented to the public. One reason for this is that the transport lists from the concentration camps and above all the documents from the killing institutions preserved are so incomplete.
The ITS keeps in its archives more than 25 documents’ folders on the subjects of “euthanasia” and medical experiments supplemented by documents on Castle Hartheim where, among others, prisoners from Mauthausen were murdered under the “Action 14f13” scheme. Personal files are available at the ITS on many an individual killed under the “Action 14f13” program.
The ITS contributed to the exhibition “Ihr Tod reißt nicht die geringste Lücke…” (Their death won’t make the slightest difference) centring on the subject of Nazi “euthanasia” in Waldeck-Frankenberg. The exhibition was shown first, i.e. in April 2009, at Wolfgang-Bonhage- Museum in Korbach and is being prepared for the Kassel “Documenta” taking place in 2012.
Selected Literature:
Götz Aly (ed.), Aktion T4 1939-1945. Die „Euthanasie“-Zentrale in der Tiergartenstraße 4; Berlin: Edition Hentrich, Berlin 1989.2
Udo Benzenhöfer a.o., „Kindereuthanasie“ und „Jugendlicheneuthanasie“ im Reichsgau Sudetenland und im Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren; Studies on the History of Medicine in National Socialism, volume 5, GWAB publishers, Wetzlar 2006.
Boris Böhm a.o., Nationalsozialistische Euthanasie-Verbrechen in Sachsen. Sächsische Landeszentrale für politische Bildung und Kuratorium Gedenkstätte Sonnenstein e.V., Dresden and Pirna 1996.
Karl Cervik, Kindermord in der Ostmark: Kindereuthanasie im Nationalsozialismus 1938–1945, LIT publishers, Münster 2001.
Henry Friedlander, Der Weg zum NS-Genozid – Von der Euthanasie zur Endlösung, Berlin publishers, Berlin 2002.
Alfred Hagemann (ed.), „Euthanasie“ im NS-Staat: Grafeneck im Jahr 1940. Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Baden-Württemberg, Stuttgart 2000
Ernst Klee, „Euthanasie“ im NS-Staat. Die „Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens“, Fischer publishers, Frankfurt am Main 1983.
Idem (ed.), Dokumente zur „Euthanasie“, Fischer publishers, Frankfurt am Main 1985.
Hanno Loewy, Bettina Winter (ed.), NS-„Euthanasie“ vor Gericht. Fritz Bauer und die Grenzen juristischer Bewältigung, Campus publishers, Frankfurt am Main 1996.
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