Editing Aktion T4 (section)

==Killing of children==

{{Main|Child euthanasia in Nazi Germany}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 152-04-28, Heilanstalt Schönbrunn, Kinder.jpg|thumb|Schönbrunn Psychiatric Hospital, 1934 (photo by [[SS]] photographer [[Friedrich Franz Bauer]])]]
In mid-1939, Hitler authorised the creation of the Reich Committee for the Scientific Registering of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses ({{lang|de|Reichsausschuss zur wissenschaftlichen Erfassung erb- und anlagebedingter schwerer Leiden}}) led by his physician, Karl Brandt, administered by Herbert Linden of the Interior Ministry, leader of [[German Red Cross]] {{lang|de|Reichsarzt SS und Polizei}} [[Ernst-Robert Grawitz]] and [[SS]]-{{lang|de|[[Oberführer]]}} [[Viktor Brack]]. Brandt and Bouhler were authorised to approve applications to kill children in relevant circumstances, though Bouhler left the details to subordinates such as Brack and SA-{{lang|de|Oberführer}} [[Werner Blankenburg]].{{sfn|Browning|2005|p=185}}{{sfn|Kershaw|2000|p=259}}{{sfn|Miller|2006|p=158}}

Extermination centres were established at six existing psychiatric hospitals: [[Bernburg Euthanasia Centre|Bernburg]], [[Brandenburg Euthanasia Centre|Brandenburg]], [[Grafeneck Euthanasia Centre|Grafeneck]], [[Hadamar Euthanasia Centre|Hadamar]], [[Hartheim Euthanasia Centre|Hartheim]], and [[Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centre|Sonnenstein]].{{sfn|Breggin|1993|pp=133–148}}{{sfn|Torrey|Yolken|2010|pp=26–32}} One thousand children under the age of 17 were killed at the institutions [[Am Spiegelgrund]] and [[Gugging]] in Austria.{{sfn|Local|2014}}{{sfn|Kaelber|2015}} They played a crucial role in developments leading to [[the Holocaust]].{{sfn|Breggin|1993|pp=133–148}} As a related aspect of the "medical" and scientific basis of this programme, the Nazi doctors took thousands of brains from 'euthanasia' victims for research.{{sfn|Weindling|2006|p=6}}

[[File:Viktor Brack Nürnberg 2.jpg|thumb|upright|left|[[Viktor Brack]], organiser of the T4 Programme]]
From August 1939, the Interior Ministry registered children with disabilities, requiring doctors and midwives to report all cases of newborns with severe disabilities; the 'guardian' consent element soon disappeared. Those to be killed were identified as "all children under three years of age in whom any of the following 'serious hereditary diseases' were 'suspected': [[Intellectual disability|idiocy]] and [[Down syndrome]] (especially when associated with blindness and deafness); [[microcephaly]]; [[hydrocephaly]]; malformations of all kinds, especially of limbs, head, and spinal column; and paralysis, including [[Cerebral palsy|spastic]] conditions".{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=52}} The reports were assessed by a panel of medical experts, of whom three were required to give their approval before a child could be killed.{{efn|Professors [[Werner Catel]] (a Leipzig psychiatrist) and [[Hans Heinze]], head of a state institution for children with intellectual disabilities at Görden near Brandenburg; Ernst Wentzler a Berlin paediatric psychiatrist and the author Dr. Helmut Unger.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=52}}}}

The Ministry used deceit when dealing with parents or guardians, particularly in Catholic areas, where parents were generally uncooperative. Parents were told that their children were being sent to "Special Sections", where they would receive improved treatment.{{sfn|Sereny|1983|p=55}} The children sent to these centres were kept for "assessment" for a few weeks and then killed by injection of toxic chemicals, typically [[phenol]]; their deaths were recorded as "[[pneumonia]]". Autopsies were usually performed and brain samples were taken to be used for "medical research". Post mortem examinations apparently helped to ease the consciences of many of those involved, giving them the feeling that there was a genuine medical purpose to the killings.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=60}} The most notorious of these institutions in Austria was Am Spiegelgrund, where from 1940 to 1945, 789 children were killed by lethal injection, gas poisoning and physical abuse.<ref>{{cite web |title=The war against the "inferior". On the History of Nazi Medicine in Vienna – Chronology |website=A project by the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance |url=http://www.gedenkstaettesteinhof.at/en/chronology |access-date=26 January 2018 |archive-date=27 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180127004404/http://www.gedenkstaettesteinhof.at/en/chronology |url-status=live }}</ref> Children's brains were preserved in jars of formaldehyde and stored in the basement of the clinic and in the private collection of [[Heinrich Gross]], one of the institution's directors, until 2001.{{sfn|Kaelber|2015}}

When the Second World War began in September 1939, less rigorous standards of assessment and a quicker approval process were adopted. Older children and adolescents were included and the conditions covered came to include

{{blockquote|... various borderline or limited impairments in children of different ages, culminating in the killing of those designated as juvenile delinquents. Jewish children could be placed in the net primarily because they were Jewish; and at one of the institutions, a special department was set up for 'minor Jewish-Aryan half-breeds'.|Lifton{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=56}}}}

More pressure was placed on parents to agree to their children being sent away. Many parents suspected what was happening and refused consent, especially when it became apparent that institutions for children with disabilities were being systematically cleared of their charges. The parents were warned that they could lose custody of all their children and if that did not suffice, the parents could be threatened with call-up for 'labour duty'.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=55}} By 1941, more than 5,000 children had been killed.{{sfn|Browning|2005|p=190}}{{efn|Lifton concurs with this figure, but notes that the killing of children continued after the T4 programme was formally ended in 1941.{{sfn|Lifton|1986|p=55}}}} The last child to be killed under {{lang|de|Aktion&nbsp;T4}} was Richard Jenne on 29 May 1945, in the children's ward of the [[Kaufbeuren]]-[[Irsee]] state hospital in [[Bavaria]], Germany, more than three weeks after US Army troops had occupied the town.{{sfn|Friedlander|1995|p=163}}{{sfn|Evans|2004|p=93}}