Editing Aktion T4 (section)

===Church protests===

{{main|Nazi euthanasia and the Catholic Church}}

The Lutheran theologian [[Friedrich von Bodelschwingh]] (director of the [[Bethel Institution]] for Epilepsy at [[Bielefeld]]) and Pastor Paul-Gerhard Braune (director of the Hoffnungstal Institution near Berlin) protested. Bodelschwingh negotiated directly with Brandt and indirectly with [[Hermann Göring]], whose cousin was a prominent psychiatrist. Braune had meetings with Gürtner, who was always dubious about the legality of the programme. Gürtner later wrote a strongly worded letter to Hitler protesting against it; Hitler did not read it but was told about it by Lammers.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|pp=90–92}} Bishop [[Theophil Wurm]], presiding over the [[Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg]], wrote to Interior Minister Frick in March 1940 and that month a confidential report from the {{lang|de|[[Sicherheitsdienst]]}} (SD) in Austria, warned that the killing programme must be implemented with stealth "...to avoid a probable backlash of public opinion during the war".{{sfn|Padfield|1990|p=304}} On 4 December 1940, Reinhold Sautter, the Supreme Church Councillor of the Württemberg State Church, complained to the Nazi Ministerial Councillor Eugen Stähle against the murders in Grafeneck Castle. Stähle said "The fifth commandment Thou shalt not kill, is no commandment of God but a Jewish invention".{{sfn|Schmuhl|1987|p=321}}

Bishop Heinrich Wienken of Berlin, a leading member of the [[Caritas Germany|Caritas Association]], was selected by the [[Fulda]] episcopal synod to represent the views of the Catholic Church in meetings with T4 operatives. In 2008, [[Michael Burleigh]] wrote
[[File:CAvGalenBAMS200612.jpg|thumb|upright|Clemens von Galen]]
{{blockquote|Wienken seems to have gone partially native in the sense that he gradually abandoned an absolute stance based on the Fifth Commandment in favour of winning limited concessions regarding the restriction of killing to 'complete idiots', access to the sacraments and the exclusion of ill Roman Catholic priests from these policies.{{sfn|Burleigh|2008|p=261}}}}

Despite a decree issued by the Vatican on 2 December 1940 stating that the T4 policy was "against natural and positive Divine law" and that "The direct killing of an innocent person because of mental or physical defects is not allowed", the Catholic Church hierarchy in Germany decided to take no further action. Incensed by the Nazi appropriation of Church property in [[Münster]] to accommodate people made homeless by an air raid, in July and August 1941, the [[bishop of Münster]], [[Clemens August Graf von Galen]], gave four sermons criticising the Nazis for arresting [[Jesuit]]s, confiscating church property and for the euthanasia program.{{sfn|Ericksen|2012|p=111}}{{sfn|Evans|2009|p=110}} Galen sent the text to Hitler by telegram, calling on

{{blockquote|... the Führer to defend the people against the Gestapo. It is a terrible, unjust and catastrophic thing when man opposes his will to the will of God&nbsp;... We are talking about men and women, our compatriots, our brothers and sisters. Poor unproductive people if you wish, but does this mean that they have lost their right to live?{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=93}}}}

Galen's sermons were not reported in the German press but were circulated illegally in leaflets. The text was dropped by the [[Royal Air Force]] over German troops.{{sfn|Burleigh|2008|p=262}}{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=94}} In 2009, [[Richard J. Evans]] wrote that "This was the strongest, most explicit and most widespread protest movement against any policy since the beginning of the Third Reich".{{sfn|Evans|2009|p=98}} Local Nazis asked for Galen to be arrested but Goebbels told Hitler that such action would provoke a revolt in Westphalia and Hitler decided to wait until after the war to take revenge.{{sfn|Kershaw|2000|pp=427, 429}}{{sfn|Burleigh|2008|p=262}}

[[File:A plaque set in the pavement at No 4 Tiergartenstrasse.JPG|thumb|upright|A plaque set in the pavement at No 4 Tiergartenstraße commemorates the victims of the Nazi euthanasia programme.]]
In 1986, Lifton wrote, "Nazi leaders faced the prospect of either having to imprison prominent, highly admired clergymen and other protesters – a course with consequences in terms of adverse public reaction they greatly feared – or else end the programme".{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=95}} Evans considered it "at least possible, even indeed probable" that the T4 programme would have continued beyond Hitler's initial quota of 70,000 deaths but for the public reaction to Galen's sermon.{{sfn|Evans|2009|p=112}} Burleigh called assumptions that the sermon affected Hitler's decision to suspend the T4 programme "wishful thinking" and noted that the various Church hierarchies did not complain after the transfer of T4 personnel to {{lang|de|Aktion Reinhard}}.{{sfn|Burleigh|2008|p=26}} [[Henry Friedlander]] wrote that it was not the criticism from the Church but rather the loss of secrecy and "general popular disquiet about the way euthanasia was implemented" that caused the killings to be suspended.{{sfn|Friedlander|1997|p=111}}

Galen had detailed knowledge of the euthanasia programme by July 1940 but did not speak out until almost a year after Protestants had begun to protest. In 2002, Beth A. Griech-Polelle wrote:

{{blockquote|Worried lest they be classified as outsiders or internal enemies, they waited for Protestants, that is the "true Germans", to risk a confrontation with the government first. If the Protestants were able to be critical of a Nazi policy, then Catholics could function as "good" Germans and yet be critical too.{{sfn|Griech-Polelle|2002|p=76}}}}

On 29 June 1943, Pope Pius XII issued the encyclical {{lang|la|[[Mystici corporis Christi]]|nocat=yes}}, in which he condemned the fact that "physically deformed people, mentally disturbed people and hereditarily ill people have at times been robbed of their lives" in Germany. Following this, in September 1943, a bold but ineffectual condemnation was read by bishops from pulpits across Germany, denouncing the killing of "the innocent and defenceless mentally handicapped and mentally ill, the incurably infirm and fatally wounded, innocent hostages and disarmed prisoners of war and criminal offenders, people of a foreign race or descent".{{sfn|Evans|2009|pp=529–530}}