German historians are compiling the names of the people with developmental disabilities murdered (in addition to tens of thousands of people with physical disabilities) in the German Euthanasia Holocaust circa 1939-1945. From the story:
German historians have started compiling a central register of 9,000 mentally ill people murdered as part of the Nazis’ euthanasia policy, most of whom were previously unidentified. More than 100,000 people are believed to have been killed during a drive inspired by Hitler that was carried out in six extermination centres in Germany between 1940 and 1945.A correction is needed here. Hitler didn’t inspire it, he was inspired by the pre-existing eugenics movement to boost it. Indeed, in Mein Kamph Hitler discussed these ideas, which he did not generate, but that were already in the public discourse raging in Germany, the USA, and the UK. Suggested Reading: The Nazi Doctors by Lifton and Death and Deliverance by Burleigh, War Against the Weak (about the USA eugenics movement) by Black.
The idea of a Nazi euthanasia campaign, backed by propaganda films portraying the mentally handicapped and incurably ill as “useless mouths to feed”, was first outlined in Hitler’s 1924 book “Mein Kampf” and became known as Operation T4.
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