Child euthanasia () was the name given to the organized killing of mentally and physically disabled children and teenagers up to 16 years old during the Nazi era in over 30 (children's departments). At least 5,000 children were victims of the program, which was a precursor to the subsequent murder of children in the concentration camps. This was among the most notable Nazi crimes against children.
Background
Social Darwinism came to play a major role in the ideology of Nazism, where it was combined with a similarly pseudo-scientific theory of racial hierarchy in order to identify the Germans as a part of what the Nazis regarded as an Aryan or Nordic master race. This ideology held unreservedly to the notion of the survival of the fittest, at both the level of the individual as well as the level of entire peoples and states. This notion claimed to have natural law on its side. All opposing religious and humanitarian views would ultimately prove to be unnatural. A person could only prove its worth in the long run in this ongoing "struggle for survival", if they promoted the best and, if necessary, eliminated those that weakened them. Moreover, only a person as racially pure as possible could maintain the "struggle for existence". To maintain or improve the Nordic-Germanic race, therefore, the laws of eugenics or the (biologistically oriented) "racial hygiene" would have to be strictly observed, that is, the promotion of the "genetically healthy" and the elimination of the "sick". All those with hereditary illnesses or who were severely mentally and physically disabled were classified as "lives unworthy of life" (lebensunwertes Leben). They would, in terms of natural selection, be "eliminated". This form of eugenics was eventually the basis of the National Socialist genetic health policy which was elevated to the rank of state doctrine.
In 1929 Hitler said at the Nazi Party Conference in Nuremberg, "that an average annual removal of 700,000-800,000 of the weakest of a million babies meant an increase in the power of the nation and not a weakening".Völkischer Beobachter, Bavarian edition dated 7 August 1929. In: Enzyklopädie des Nationalsozialismus, edited by Wolfgang Benz, Hermann Graml and Hermann Weiß, Digitale Bibliothek, Vol. 25, p. 578, Directmedia, Berlin 1999 In doing so, he was able to draw upon scientific argument that transferred the Darwinian theory of natural selection to human beings and, through the concept of racial hygiene, formulated the "Utopia" of "human selection" as propounded by Alfred Ploetz, the founder of German racial hygiene. As early as 1895, he demanded that human offspring should not:
In 1935 Hitler also announced at the Nuremberg Nazi Party to the Reich Medical Leader Gerhard Wagner that he should aim to "eliminate the incurably insane", at the latest, in the event of a future war."Angelika Ebbinghaus, Klaus Dörner (ed.): Vernichten und Heilen. ("Extermination and Healing") p. 301Mitscherlich/Mielke: Medizin ohne Menschlichkeit. ("Medicine Without Humanity"); 183 ff.
The elimination of "undesirable elements" was implemented under the term "euthanasia" at the beginning of the Second World War. Petitions from parents of disabled children to the Hitler's Chancellery (KDF) that asked for their children to be given "mercy killing" were used as a justifiable excuse and to demonstrate external demand.
Phases of the Nazi euthanasia programme The Nazi euthanasia killings may be broadly divided into the following phases:
Child euthanasia from 1939 to 1945 Adult euthanasia from 1940 to 1945 Action T4, the centralised gas killings from January 1940 to August 1941 Decentralised, but partly centrally-controlled medication-administered euthanasia or death by malnutrition from September 1941 to 1945 Disabled or detainee euthanasia, known as Action 14f13 from April 1941 to December 1944 First Phase from April 1941 to April 1944 Second Phase from April 1944 to December 1944 Action Brandt from June 1943 to 1945 (but recent research no longer counts this directly as part of the euthanasia complex.)Sandner: Verwaltung des Krankenmordes (Management of Murder of the Sick"), p. 587 f.
According to the latest estimates about 260,000 people fell victim to the "War Against the Sick".Angelika Ebbinghaus, Klaus Dörner (ed.): Vernichten und Heilen. ("Extermination and Healing"), p. 297
The case of "Child K" The immediate occasion for the beginning of the organized euthanasia of children is considered in the literature to be the so-called case of "Child K". The common name, "Knauer Case", should not be used according to the findings of medical historian Udo Benzenhöfer.Udo Benzenhöfer: Richtigstellung. In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt, Jg. 104, H. 47, 23 November 2007, p. A-3232
In this particular case, the parents submitted a request that their severely disabled child be granted a "mercy killing", the application being received at an unverifiable time before the middle of 1939 at the Office of the Führer (KDF), also known as Hitler's Chancellery. This office was an agency of the Nazi Party and a private chancellery placed under the direct authority of Hitler which employed about 195 staff in 1939. Main Office IIb under Hans Hefelmann and his deputy, Richard von Hegener, was responsible for "clemency". The head of Main Office II and thus Hefelmann's superior was the Oberdienstleiter, Viktor Brack, one of the leading organizers of Nazi euthanasia.
Until recently the identity of the child had not been disclosed, although it was known to German medical historians. One German historian, Udo Benzenhöfer, argued that the child's name could not be disclosed because of Germany's privacy laws relating to medical records. In 2007, however, the historian Ulf Schmidt, in his biography of Karl Brandt, published the child's name (Gerhard Kretschmar), the names of his parents, the place of his birth and the dates of his birth and death. Schmidt wrote: "Although this approach [of Benzenhöfer and others] is understandable and sensitive to the feelings of the parents and relatives of the child, it somehow overlooks the child itself and its individual suffering... By calling the child 'Child K', we would not only medicalise the child's history, but also place the justifiable claim of the parents for anonymity above the personality and suffering of the first 'euthanasia' victim."Ulf Schmidt (2007) Karl Brandt: The Nazi Doctor. London: Hambledon Continuum. , p.118 Schmidt did not disclose whether the child's parents were still living.
According to the testimony of the participants, the request on 23 May 1939 led to a meeting of the parents of the child with the director of the University Children's Hospital, Leipzig, Werner Catel, about the chances of survival of the child.Heilen und Vernichten im Nationalsozialismus. ("Healing and Extermination under Nazism"), p. 172 According to Catel's own statement, he held that the release of the child by an early death was the best solution for everyone involved. But because actively assisting death was still punishable in Nazi Germany, Catel advised the parents to submit an appropriate request to Hitler via his private chancellery. About this request, in a statement before the investigating judge on 14 November 1960, Hefelmann said the following:
To the recollections of his boss, Hefelmann's deputy, Richard von Hegener, added:
During the Nuremberg Doctors' Trial, Brandt said the following about the case of "Child K":
Reich Committee for the Scientific Registering of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses This first child euthanasia death led to a significant acceleration in the implementation of latent plans for "eugenic extermination", which began with the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, enacted on 14 July 1933, and eventually led in several stages to the euthanasia of children and adults (see Action T4, background and historical context). There was an almost parallel development of the decisions that resulted in the euthanasia programme for these two groups.
Hefelmann described this further development:
The matter was initially discussed with an inner circle comprising Hefelmann and Hegener, head of the KdF's Central Office II, Viktor Brack and the person responsible for mental hospitals in Division IV (Health and Social Welfare) of the Reich Interior Ministry, Herbert Linden. In addition to the aforementioned, the committee assembled to organize child euthanasia consisted of Karl Brandt, the ophthalmologist Hellmuth Unger, a pediatrician Ernst Wentzler, the child psychiatrist Hans Heinze, and very probably also Professor Werner Catel. The issues at stake, which were also pertinent to preparations for the now impending adult euthanasia programme, were clarified in a brief but effective planning phase so that some three weeks after the first euthanasia case, a front organization was established under the name "Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses", that began to take the first concrete steps towards registering potential victims. The primary agents behind the front group were Hefelmann and Hegener from Office IIb of the KdF, who, at Hitler's request were not to appear publicly, nor was the only representative of a governmental authority, Linden from the Reich Interior Ministry. The so-called "national committee" was thus simply a "postbox" (Berlin W 9, PO Box 101).cf. Briefkopf Lempp-Schreiben Correspondence went via this postbox to the KdF located in the New Reich Chancellery in Berlin's Voßstraße 4.
Administrative aspects The key document was a circular from the Reich Minister of the Interior of 18 August 1939, Ref: IVb 3088/39 - 1079 Mi, which was marked "Strictly Confidential" and specified the groups to be included and how they were to be assembled. After that, doctors and midwives together with maternity hospitals, obstetric departments and children's hospitals, except where a senior doctor was not present or did not get the instruction, were required to report in writing to the appropriate health authorities:
A template of a reporting form was enclosed with the circular, which had to be sent by public health authorities as required to their higher administrative authority. This form was withdrawn by a decree of 7 June 1940 and replaced by an improved one.Illustrated by Klee: Euthanasie im NS-Staat. ("Euthanasia in the Nazi state"), pp. 296 ff. Uniquely, a reward of 2 RM for each report was given to the midwives affected "for professional services rendered".Section 4 of the Circular of 18 August 1939
Initially only children under the age of 3 were to be reported. The prescribed registration form gave the impression that registration was only being sought with the aim of providing special medical care. The district doctors sent the completed registration form to the National Committee where Office IIb of the KdF with its two medical laymen, Hefelmann and Hegener, screened out cases that they considered should not be sent to a , i.e. which meant that they were not eligible for euthanasia. Of approximately 100,000 registration forms received up to 1945, about 80,000 were screened out. For the professional assessment of the remaining 20,000, three experts were appointed from the National Committee who had been heavily involved in the preparatory committee, namely Werner Catel, Hans Heinze and Ernst Wentzler. Hefelmann commented later,