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Aktion T4 Murders (Euthanasia Program)

Aktion T4 (named for the program’s central address at Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin) was the systematic, state-sponsored mass murder of institutionalized patients deemed "unworthy of life" (Lebensunwertes Leben) by the Nazi regime. Beginning in 1939, this program primarily targeted people with physical and mental disabilities—including psychiatric patients, those with chronic illnesses, and residents of nursing homes and asylums. Driven by ideologies of racial hygiene and eugenics, the Nazis viewed these individuals as a genetic and financial burden on the German state.

The T4 program was carried out by medical professionals and involved sending questionnaires to institutions to select victims, who were then transported to six killing centers in Germany and Austria (including Hadamar, Hartheim, and Grafeneck). These centers pioneered the use of carbon monoxide gas chambers for mass killing, a method later refined and expanded in the death camps of the Holocaust. Although public protest, notably from Bishop Clemens von Galen, led to the official cancellation of the central gassing program in August 1941, the killings continued in secret across clinics and hospitals ("wild euthanasia") through starvation, lethal injection, and neglect until the end of the war. Historians estimate that the T4 program and its continuation resulted in the murder of at least 200,000 to 300,000 people.

Credits

Compiled by Mark Rabideau, Opa & Professional Genealogist.