Posted on 04/03/2006 3:49:56 PM PDT by Conservative Coulter Fan
The majority of the population thus accepted the persecution of the Jews with indifference, and the terrible implication that other groups might likewise be marked for similar treatment apparently passed them by unnoticed. Against the Nazis’ secret practice of euthanasia, which was gradually becoming known, and the public propaganda in favour of sexual promiscuity, regrettably few Churchmen raised voices; and, indeed, few seemed to understand that such practices presented a fundamental challenge to Christian thought and doctrine.
According to a witness at the Nuremberg Trials, Hitler as early as 1935 had announced his intention:
“If war comes, to take up the euthanasia question and to implement it. Such a problem could be dealt with more smoothly and easily in war time, since any open resistance which was to be expressed from the churches would not count for as much amongst the general effects of the war as otherwise.”
In fact, no sooner had the war begun than Hitler decreed that:
“Reichsleiter Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are to be given the responsibility of enlarging the authority of certain doctors, to be designated by name, who should perform the operation of euthanasia on persons whose condition, according to human judgment, is held to be incurable after most careful diagnosis of their state of health.
Hitler refused, however, to legalize euthanasia, or to make the Ministry of the Interior responsible for the operations, which in the course of the newt five years were to take away the lives of approximately one hundred thousand people.
The first step in the preparation for this mass extermination of unwanted persons was to recruit a Reich Working Party for Hosptials and Rehabilitation Centres (Reichsarbeitsgemeinschaft Heil-und Pflegeanstalten) of about 50 functionaries, including lawyers, doctors and university professors, to be responsible for the smooth working of the operation. They were instructed that the action was not to be limited to individual cases, but should cover any category of ‘unworthy’ persons, beginning with the inmates of lunatic asylums and afterwards to be extended to senile and tubercular patients.
As the second stage, the inmates of the asylums were registered with the Reich Working Party. Questionnaires were submitted to the directors of all such institutions, and were then ‘evaluated’ in Berlin until a target figure was achieved of some 70,000 whose lives were considered a drag on the community.
Orders were then issued for the patients thus selected to be transferred to Nazi-run institutions, under the pretext of rationalizing their care under war-time circumstances. The transfer of the patients was undertaken by the ‘General welfare Transport Society’ (Gemeinnutzigen Transportgesellschaft G.m.b.H.), operated by the SS. The actual practice of euthanasia was organized by the ‘General Welfare Foundation for Institutional Care’ (Gemeinnutzige Stiftung fur Anstaltspflege), which held funds sufficient to build gas-chambers and crematoria in six institutions in Hadamar near Limburg, Grafeneck in Wurttemberg, Brandenburg on the Havel, Bernburg in Anhalt, Hartheim near linz and Sonnenstein in Saxony. The whole operation was declared to be ‘top secret’, and all persons involved were threatened with severe penalties if any knowledge of it became known.
From the beginning of 1940, regular transports of buses brought the hapless patients to these six institutions, where they were speedily put to death, mostly by gas but sometimes by the injection of drugs. A few days later the relatives of the victims were informed of that death had occurred from natural causes. Because of the danger of infection, the corpses were cremated, but urns containing ashes were handed over to the relatives if requested. Frequently the so-called cause of death was palpably false, and the numbers of reported deaths soon became so large as to cause alarm among the relatives and the inhabitants of the towns and villages where the institutions were situated, but even among the patients themselves. Terrible scenes of anguish followed. Rumours began to spread throughout the country that as soon as the mental hospitals had been ‘cleaned up’, the old-age homes would be next on the list. And it was reported to Berlin that even soldiers at the front were afraid that, if they became incurably wounded, they too would be treated as ‘unworthy of life’.
What is your reference? I'd like to save it with a citation.
Very interesting. Please also give information on the source when you next post.
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