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Deaf Germans and Euthanasia in Nazi Germany

In Nazi Germany, it was believed that those who suffered of deafness,blindness or who had disabilities were considered "unfit" to reproduce and were "unworthy of life". During this time many measures were taken and many methods were used practice eugenics in order to attempt and clear a race of genes that were undesirable. Most individuals who were considered inferior due to disabilities were forced to be sterilized under the "Law for Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring" starting in 1934, enforced by "Genetic Health Court". Sterilization was considered to be part of racial hygiene and quickly became a widespread technique to enforce Euthanasia-ism. Almost all Sterilization procedures were forced in men, women as well as children. The most common method of sterilization in men was a vasectomy which was done by severing the sperm duct and that method was done with local anesthesia and was an outpatient procedure. By the 1930's there were more than 100 known procedures for female sterilization the most common being laparotomy, creating surgical incisions in the abdomen.

Child Euthanasia

In 1933 the Nazi regime started out with sterilization laws because of those deemed "unworthy of life" or "mentally defective" should not reproduce in order to have a superior society. When the sterilization laws and their victims lived and yet their high standards for racial hygiene were not yielding the results they wanted. A harsher way of cleansing began in 1935 starting with the youngest members of society. This began the "medical" aspect of killing infants as a mercy death. (5) The goal of the Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Diseases was to register all children suspected of birth defects. They required doctors, nurses, and midwives to report children as early as possible up to the age of 4. When School age children began to be targeted teachers and school faculty were also inclined to tell the registration of suspected students. Who were taken from their families with or without permission. They had questionnaires that had been requested by the Reich Health Ministry in 1940, these questionnaires aimed to record not only the child's history but their family tree as well. These questionnaires were designed to find flaws and record the family's illnesses masked to try and find a fix for their child. While a child was sent to heal at these institutions such as the Therapeutic Convalescent Institution or Children's Specialty Institutions this was a death sentence. The general public and children along with their families believed that they were helping them rather than isolating them and ultimately killing them. Typically the children arrived at these facilities for a few weeks within that time the doctors were able to claim medicinal help or therapeutic help and this would lead to a possible surgery to cure a child but was made known to their family that it could have serious results. Typically they used a barbiturate named Luminal sometimes dissolved in their drinks over a period 2-3 days if not it was injected which led the child into a state of sleep until they passed. (6) If the method wasn't quick enough they turned to another injection of morphine-scopolamine. They used pneumonia as a cover for the child's passing. The reasons to kill these children only expanded such as child delinquency and not the medical the racial hygiene it claimed to be they also changed age groups slowly but surely until it merged to adults. In 1941 Hitler ordered the killings to stop but it didn't really stop until 1945 supposedly the number of child deaths was 5,000 based on documents but not everything was documented and many documents were lost.

T4 Killings

Viktor Brack
Born	Viktor Hermann Brack November 9, 1904 Harren, Rhine Province, German Empire
Died	June 2, 1948 Landsberg Prison
Nationality	German
Occupation	Chief of Office II

Derived from the address of the central administration, Tiergartenstrasse 4, Berlin-Charlottenburg, the T4 program was designed primarily to euthanize disabled adults, deaf persons included. Headed by Viktor Brack who was the head of Hilter’s chancellery at the time, the extermination organization was divided into three separate factions: (1) the Reich Cooperative for State Hospitals and Nursing Homes (RAG), who identified people with disabilities; (2) the Public Foundation for Institutional Care, where financial and personal questions were taken care of; and lastly (3) the Charitable Patient Transport Company (Gekrat), which was in charge of collecting and transferring disabled patients to the observation and killing centers. At least 70,000 persons were murdered in gas chambers that were disguised as shower rooms. An article by The New York Times claims that “300,000 disabled people were killed in T4 and its aftermath.” The exact number of victims will never be known as the bodies were “promptly disposed of into the crematoriums where the evidence was destroyed.” The T-4 program was eventually suspended by Adolf Hitler on August 24, 1941 due to massive protest by churches, civil unrest and the “reconcentration of all resources, including those for transport, for the campaign against the Soviet Union.”

Nazi Concealment

Between 1933 to 1945 mercy killings were performed on Deaf and disabled Individuals. These killings were preformed in order to get rid of the “undesirable” groups. To hide their wrong doings they would send out letters of condolence to the families of victims after they were killed. The letters were all very similar letting the families know their loved ones had died. The ways they tried to conceal these mercy killings were by saying these people died from, “Severe influenza, circulatory weakness, heart problems, miliary tuberculosis, and appendicitis”(166 Biesold). They cremated these people so there was no possibility of getting an autopsy on them so that meant there was no risk of the truth being reviled. After the cremation, ”ashes from cremated victims were taken from a common pile and placed in urns without regard for accurate labeling. One urn was sent to each victim's family, along with a death certificate listing a fictive cause and date of death. The sudden death of thousands of institutionalized people, whose death certificates listed strangely similar causes and places of death, raised suspicions.”