EUGENESIA, the AKTION T4
EUGENESIA, the AKTION T4
In the early 20th century, many Europeans and Americans believed that human progress depended on eugenics and that therefore reproduction should only be allowed among healthy people. The Nazis turned this conviction into state policy. In 1933 they passed a law giving doctors the power to sterilize patients without their consent. By 1939, more than 300,000 people had been subjected to such forced treatment.
During World War II, Hitler decided that society should not have to deal with "useless mouths" (as the disabled, for example, were called) when all available resources had to be focused on the war effort. The Nazis then embarked on their first mass murder programme, code-named "Aktion T-4". It involved the establishment of six "euthanasia" centres where patients died at the hands of health workers. In 1941, when the public protested at the knowledge of these acts, the initial objective of killing 70,000 people had already been exceeded, so Hitler asked that the project be abandoned. However, the dismantling of the Aktion T-4 organization did not end the practice of killing patients. The number of victims of this extermination programme is estimated to have reached 200,000 human beings
THE AKTION T 4
EUGENESIA, the AKTION T4. TEST
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