Editing Aktion T4 (section)

==Implementation==
[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H13374, Philipp Bouhler.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[NSDAP]] [[Reichsleiter]] [[Philipp Bouhler]], head of the T4 programme]]
[[Karl Brandt]], doctor to Hitler and [[Hans Lammers]], the head of the Reich Chancellery, testified after the war that Hitler had told them as early as 1933—when the sterilisation law was passed—that he favoured the killing of the incurably ill but recognised that public opinion would not accept this.{{sfn|Kershaw|2000|p=256}} In 1935, Hitler told the Leader of Reich Doctors, [[Gerhard Wagner (Nazi physician)|Gerhard Wagner]], that the question could not be taken up in peacetime; "Such a problem could be more smoothly and easily carried out in war". He wrote that he intended to "radically solve" the problem of the mental asylums in such an event.{{sfn|Kershaw|2000|p=256}} {{lang|de|Aktion&nbsp;T4}} began with a "trial" case in late 1938. Hitler instructed Brandt to evaluate a petition sent by two parents for the "mercy killing" of their son who was blind and had physical and developmental disabilities.{{sfn|Friedman|2011|p=146}}{{efn|Robert Lifton wrote that this request was "encouraged"; the severely disabled child and the agreement of the parents to his killing were apparently genuine.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=50}}}} The child, born near [[Leipzig]] and eventually identified as [[Gerhard Kretschmar]], was killed in July 1939.{{sfn|Schmidt|2007|p=118}}{{sfn|Cina|Perper|2012|p=59}} Hitler instructed Brandt to proceed in the same manner in all similar cases.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|pp=50–51}}

On 18 August 1939, three weeks after the killing of the boy, the ''Reich Committee for the Scientific Registering of Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses'' was established to register sick children or newborns identified as defective. The secret killing of infants began in 1939 and increased after the war started; by 1941, more than 5,000 children had been killed.{{sfn|Proctor|1988|p=10}}{{sfn|Browning|2005|p=190}} Hitler was in favour of killing those whom he judged to be {{lang|de|lebensunwertes Leben}} ('[[Life unworthy of life]]'). A few months before the "euthanasia" decree, in a 1939 conference with [[Leonardo Conti]], [[Reich Health Leader]] and State Secretary for Health in the Interior Ministry, and Hans Lammers, Chief of the Reich Chancellery, Hitler gave as examples the mentally ill who he said could only be "bedded on sawdust or sand" because they "perpetually dirtied themselves" and "put their own excrement into their mouths". This issue, according to the Nazi regime, assumed a new urgency in wartime.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=62}}

After the [[invasion of Poland]], Hermann Pfannmüller (Head of the State Hospital near [[Munich]]) said

{{blockquote|text=
It is unbearable to me that the flower of our youth must lose their lives at the front, so that that feeble-minded and asocial element can have a secure existence in the asylum.{{sfn|Baader|2009|pp=18–27|loc="{{lang|de|Für mich ist die Vorstellung untragbar, dass beste, blühende Jugend an der Front ihr Leben lassen muss, damit verblichene Asoziale und unverantwortliche Antisoziale ein gesichertes Dasein haben.}}"}}
|multiline=yes
}}

Pfannmüller advocated killing by a gradual decrease of food, which he believed was more merciful than poison injections.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|pp=62–63}}{{sfn|Schmitt|1965|pp=34–35}}

[[File:Karl Brandt SS-Arzt.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Karl Brandt]], [[Hitler]]'s personal doctor and organiser of {{lang|de|Aktion&nbsp;T4}}]]
The German eugenics movement had an extreme wing even before the Nazis came to power. As early as 1920, [[Alfred Hoche]] and [[Karl Binding]] advocated killing people whose lives were "unworthy of life" ({{lang|de|lebensunwertes Leben}}). Darwinism was interpreted by them as justification of the demand for "beneficial" genes and eradication of the "harmful" ones. [[Robert Lifton]] wrote, "The argument went that the best young men died in war, causing a loss to the {{lang|de|Volk}} of the best genes. The genes of those who did not fight (the worst genes) then proliferated freely, accelerating biological and cultural degeneration".{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=47}} The advocacy of eugenics in Germany gained ground after 1930, when the [[Great Depression|Depression]] was used to excuse cuts in funding to state mental hospitals, creating squalor and overcrowding.{{sfn|Kershaw|2000|p=254}}

Many German eugenicists were nationalists and [[antisemites]], who embraced the Nazi regime with enthusiasm. Many were appointed to positions in the Health Ministry and German research institutes. Their ideas were gradually adopted by the majority of the German medical profession, from which Jewish and communist doctors were soon purged.{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=444}} During the 1930s, the Nazi Party had carried out a campaign of propaganda in favour of euthanasia. The National Socialist Racial and Political Office (NSRPA) produced leaflets, posters and short films to be shown in cinemas, pointing out to Germans the cost of maintaining asylums for the incurably ill and insane. These films included ''The Inheritance'' ({{lang|de|[[Das Erbe]]}}, 1935), ''[[Victims of the Past]]'' ({{lang|de|Opfer der Vergangenheit}}, 1937), which was given a major première in Berlin and was shown in all German cinemas, and ''[[I Accuse (1941 film)|I Accuse]]'' ({{lang|de|Ich klage an}}, 1941) which was based on a novel by Hellmuth Unger, a consultant for "child euthanasia".{{sfn|Lifton|1986|pp=48–49}}