Nazi euthanasia (Starvation used as a method)

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[William of Orange]

In Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler's T-4 "Euthanasia" Program was established in order to maintain the supposed purity (eugenics) of the so-called Aryan race by systematically killing children and adults born with physical deformities or suffering from mental illness. The name T-4 comes from the address of the office, Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin.

The operation was conducted still more covertly after August 1941, when 70,000 people had already died in the gas chambers of Grafeneck, Hartheim, Hadamar, Bernburg, Brandenburg and Sonnenstein. By that time every third inmate of a psychiatric institution in Germany had already died, either by being actively killed or by [b]starvation[/b], leading to about 93,000 "free beds" at the end of 1941, to use the Nazi terminology.

[William of Orange]

I'm not trying to win an argument with anyone so Godwin's law need not be invoked.

I think it's appropriate to use the 'slippery slope' argument. We already see it here in Europe, first right after 1945 euthanasia was unthinkable, yet in 60 years we have slipped to a situation where in some cases, it is perfectly accepted and sometimes even encouraged!

I hope that the might of the right (and the right is right!) prevails in the USA and stops any attempts to start doing the same in the USA. To people who are approving of what's happening to Terri Schiavo, you should ask them: "what would Hitler do?".

This is a Nazi poster explaining the T4 euthanasia program, it reads: "This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the people 60,000 Reichmarks during his lifetime. People, that is your money. Read 'New People'."

[PzLdr]

T4 used starvation, lethal injections, embolisms and, eventually, carbon monoxide to carry out the murders. By 1940-1941, it was an open secret in Germany. Cardinal Galen preached against it in Church, and families refused to allow members to be taken to the killing centers. Hitler put the program on "hold" because of the publicity and the adverse effect it was having on the morale of the troops at the front, who worried they'd be killed if they came back severely wounded. Hitler intended to resume the program after the war.

Suggested reading: "The Nazi Doctors" by Robert Lifton. This book traces the evolution of German "medical" theory and practice from the eugenicists of the '20s right through the "Final Solution" in the death camps (I didn't know that all the selections made when the trains arrived were done by the DOCTORS on the camp medical staff.).

[lainde]

Excellent book!..All this happened with the cooperation of the doctors, nurses, judges, courts, police, lawyers...

[paltz]

BTTT