Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

"Life Unworthy Of Life" Aktion T4: The First Nazi Genocide, Alexander M. Remington

Student Publications

Though usually viewed as a prelude to the Holocaust, the T4 euthanasia program was a distinct genocide carried out by the Third Reich’s doctors. Allowing themselves to be corrupted by eugenics and Nazi policy, the perpetrators of the Nazi euthanasia killings transformed themselves from healers to murderers. Despite public resistance led by Bishop Clemens von Galen which resulted in the cancellation of the T4 program, Nazi doctors took it upon themselves to continue euthanizing patients until the end of the war, emphasizing the legitimacy that euthanasia had acquired. The history of the T4 program, its perpetrators, and resisters is critical …