After the military defeat of the Third Reich, the Fuhrer of the German nation, Adolf Hitler, was declared the embodiment of universal evil. But responsibility for the crimes of the fascists also lies with European scientists, politicians and writers, who gave birth to those ideas and theories that were implemented by Hitler and his accomplices.
One of the most heinous crimes committed by German Nazism is the Aktion T4 program, adopted in 1939.
The name of the action comes from the address of the building in which its plan was developed, located at 4 Tiergartenstrasse in Berlin. According to the decree signed by Adolf Hitler, within the framework of the T4 program, people who had been ill for more than five years, children with hereditary pathologies of physiology and psyche, as well as incurable mental patients, were subject to physical destruction.
Aloysia Veit, Hitler's cousin, was sent to the gas chamber as insane. After all, the destruction of mentally unhealthy individuals should, according to the Nazis, lead to an improvement in the mental health of the nation. Aloysia Veit is Hitler's paternal relative. Aloysia was 2 years younger than Adolf. She ended up in an insane asylum after attempting suicide.
As part of the Aktion T4 program, Hitler's cousin is sent to Hartheim - officially a refuge, but in fact a center for the euthanasia of people with mental disorders.
In its decision, the leadership of the Reich relied on the opinion of doctors, who believed that the implementation of T4 is a blessing for society and a mercy for the unfortunate themselves, whose suffering will end. This legalized murder was called a "merciful death." In the scientific community, such actions were called euthanasia.
What in 1945 would be called a crime against humanity, in 1939 was still part of eugenics, a science based on the teachings of Darwin, which developed methods of selecting humans and looking for ways to improve hereditary properties.
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Before the Fuehrer put his nervous stroke on the document authorizing the murder of the citizens of the Reich, mankind has come a long way to move from theory to practice.
Such ideas arose long before the birth of Adolf Schicklgruber, who later became Hitler. The birthplace of eugenics is Great Britain. After Charles Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species, which laid the foundation for the theory of evolution in the process of natural selection, the theory of social Darwinism arose, substantiating natural selection and the struggle for existence in the human community.
Darwin's cousin, anthropologist Francis Galton, substantiated the need for selection of human individuals in order to avoid the degeneration of the homo sapiens species. In 1907, he invented a name for this trend of Darwinism, calling it eugenics, which in ancient Greek meant "noble." According to Galton, eugenics was to become a "new religion", confirming the right of the Anglo-Saxon race to world domination.
In the 19th century, the main Christian denominations came out against Darwinism. As a result, in the legislation of most countries of the world, the theory of evolution and related disciplines were banned. But gradually, under the pressure of "progressive forces", whose representatives tirelessly blamed the churches for the mistakes of the Inquisition, remembering Giordano Bruno and Galileo right and wrong, they achieved a neutralization of the opinion of believers, making it possible for the practical embodiment of eugenics. By using selection, scientists, and after them, politicians hoped to heal social ulcers, ridding society of hereditary dementia, idiocy, sexual perversion and alcoholism. The consequence of this was to reduce the crime rate, to cleanse society of anti-social elements. Anyway, that's what they wanted,and the means of improving the human breed seemed quite appropriate.
At the beginning of the 20th century, laws inspired by eugenic research began to appear in different states aimed at "improving human qualities." True, they did not dare to kill those who were recognized as "inferior", but they were concerned that they did not multiply. For example, in the United States, laws on forced castration and sterilization for sex offenses in Indiana were passed in 1907. North Carolina lawmakers went further by introducing forced sterilization for individuals whose IQs were below 70. They also encouraged the sterilization of the poor, who were paid a $ 200 bonus for voluntarily agreeing to undergo this operation.
By 1917, 20 states had passed sterilization laws. They concerned not only criminals. In various states, legalized programs of sterilization and forced castration included the deaf, blind, epileptics, people with pronounced physical disabilities, alcoholics and insane. In the states of Virginia and New Hampshire, the law prescribed the complete sterilization of those who entered into "second-class marriages," as family unions between members of different races were then called.
Similar laws were passed in the 1920s and 1930s in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Finland and Estonia. But to the greatest extent, eugenics found its embodiment precisely in Germany, where the National Socialist movement was just emerging. The ideas of extermination of "insignificant people" were gaining popularity in a country crushed by defeat in a world war. In the German medical community, voices were voiced in favor of "a complete change of medical ethics towards social hygiene." Pundits came close to discussing the benefits of exterminating the mentally disabled. As an argument, statistics were cited, according to which a huge number of full-fledged, healthy men died on the fronts of the world war, while the physically and mentally handicapped did not go to the war.
The matter was aggravated by the economic crisis that broke out in the late 1920s, when there were simply not enough funds to support the crippled and insane in specialized institutions. So then voices began to be heard, claiming that it was criminal to spend money on those who, without producing anything, burden society, taking crumbs from those who are useful, able to work and produce full-fledged offspring.
After the Nazis came to power in 1933, the development of eugenics adherents came in very handy to the politicians of the Reich, who insisted on the superiority of the Aryan race over all others. Based on the works of Galton and his followers, on the practice of legislative application of selection of people, the top of the National Socialist party began to develop the Aktion T4 plan.
SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Karl Brandt was appointed responsible for the implementation of the program for the destruction of defective persons in the Reich. He studied medicine at the universities of Jena, Freiburg and Berlin. Dr. Brandt joined the National Socialist movement in 1932. A year later, he met Hitler when he was treating his adjutant Wilhelm Brueckner, who was in a car accident, and received an offer to become the personal doctor of the Fuhrer. Adolf Hitler trusted him unconditionally, and I must say that Partaigenosse Brandt fully justified this trust.
The first to be killed on the orders of Karl Brandt was Knauer, a young invalid, who was injected with luminal. Then the case was put on stream. Brandt's staff recruited the mentally ill, children with noticeable developmental disabilities, and the disabled. Those sentenced to "merciful death" were taken to the castles of Grafinek and Hartheim, hospitals in the cities of Brandenburg, Sonnenstein, Bernburg and Gadamare, where they were injected with luminal or killed in other "humane" ways. In this way, 70 thousand people were destroyed, including five thousand children. However, it was not possible to keep secret the operation to physically eliminate those recognized as inferior, and Christian churches in Germany rebelled against the practice of "merciful murders".
The public outrage was so great that in August 1941 Hitler was forced to officially stop the implementation of Aktion T4.
However, at the same time, the so-called Brandt actions began to be carried out. Growing up to the rank of SS Brigadefuehrer and becoming the General Health Commissioner, Karl Brandt gave the order to destroy “hopeless” patients who were injected with lethal doses of various drugs. Thus, places were freed up in hospitals for the wounded. In total, about 200 thousand Germans were killed during the "Brandt actions". The "merciful killers" were stopped only by the defeat of the Third Reich and the occupation of Germany by the Allied forces.
SS Gruppenfuehrer Brandt was captured together with the government of Grand Admiral Dönitz in Flensburg and in 1946 he appeared before the Nuremberg Tribunal.
In August 1947, the court sentenced Karl Brandt to death. Finally, he turned to those who stood at his gallows on June 2, 1948 in the Landsberg prison, saying literally the following: “I am not ashamed to go to this block. This is just political revenge. I served my fatherland, like many before me …”His speech was interrupted by the executioner, who knocked a stool out from under the feet of the war criminal.