Hitler began Aktion T4 82 years ago
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This order for mass murder, known as Aktion T4 was conducted in German occupied Europe from September 1939 through 1945. It consisted of forced euthanasia by agents of the SS in psychiatric hospitals. The total victims of this program were upward of 300,000.
T4 is a reference to a street address of the Chancellery department set up in early 1940 to recruit and pay personnel associated with this program.
Certain physicians were authorized to select those deemed incurably sick and administer a "mercy death" as a solution.
About half of those murdered were obtained from church-run asylums and these victims often had the approval of the Protestant or Catholic authorities of the institutions.
Justification rationales for this monsterous medicine was said to be eugenics, racial hygiene, and thrift.
Though Aktion T4 officially ended in August 1941, physicians in Germany and Austria continued these practices until defeat of Germany in 1945.
This informal continuation of the policy resulted in another 93.5 thousand additional deaths by the end of 1941.