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Hitler Signs an Order Authorizing
Involuntary Euthanasia in Germany
(October 1939)
Germany had been the site of an increasing number
of measures taken in the name of "racial purity" since the
Nazis assumed power in 1933, including forced sterilization of those
with physical and/or mental handicaps, and the murder of infants with
similar handicaps (in both cases, the primary targets were not Jews,
but socalled "Aryans," or nonJewish Germans). Now
in 1939, under the cover of war, the program was to be expanded to include
murdering handicapped adults. Since Hitler would issue no law legalizing
such forced "euthanasia," and since physicians would hesitate
or refuse to take part in the killing unless they had written protection
from later prosecution, Hitler was persuaded to sign this document on
his personal stationery (Germanlanguage version also available)
instructing his assistants Philipp Bouhler and Dr. Karl Brandt to initiate
the program. The document was signed in October 1939, but backdated
to 1 September, the date of the beginning of World War II. For further
information, see Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide:
From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University
of North Carolina Press, 1995), p. 67.
ADOLF
HITLER
Berlin, 1 September 1939
Reichsleiter Bouhler and
Dr. med. Brandt
are instructed to broaden the powers of physicians
designated by name, who will decide whether those who have — as
far as can be humanly determined — incurable illnesses can, after
the most careful evaluation, be granted a mercy death.
/signed/ Adolf Hitler
Source: H-German
Web Site
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