Class Year
2023
Document Type
Student Research Paper
Date of Creation
Spring 2023
Department 1
History
Abstract
Though usually viewed as a prelude to the Holocaust, the T4 euthanasia program was a distinct genocide carried out by the Third Reich’s doctors. Allowing themselves to be corrupted by eugenics and Nazi policy, the perpetrators of the Nazi euthanasia killings transformed themselves from healers to murderers. Despite public resistance led by Bishop Clemens von Galen which resulted in the cancellation of the T4 program, Nazi doctors took it upon themselves to continue euthanizing patients until the end of the war, emphasizing the legitimacy that euthanasia had acquired. The history of the T4 program, its perpetrators, and resisters is critical to understanding the crimes committed against disabled people by Nazi Germany.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
Recommended Citation
Remington, Alexander M., ""Life Unworthy of Life" Aktion T4: The First Nazi Genocide" (2023). Student Publications. 1063.
https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/1063
Included in
Bioethics and Medical Ethics Commons, Disability Studies Commons, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine Commons, Holocaust and Genocide Studies Commons
Comments
Written for HIST 418: Nazism.