1939–1945: “Euthanasia” Crimes

With a letter backdated to September 1, 1939, Hitler gave the signal for the first industrial mass murder in history. In the context of a campaign of murder that would later be called “Action T4”, a total of six “euthanasia” killing centres were set up, including Hartheim Castle near Linz. Patients in psychiatric institutions were selected for the gas chambers, the most important criteria being healing prospects and ability to work. In total, 70,000 people were killed in this way, including 18,000 in Hartheim alone. After Hitler stopped the murder by gas operation in 1941, a large portion of “T4” personnel was used for the destruction of Poland’s Jewish population (“Operation Reinhard”). The “T4” killing centres were also used until the end of the war for the murder of concentration camp inmates (Operation “14 f. 13”), in Hartheim alone up to 10,000 people were murdered. In numerous psychiatric institutions, there was a massive increase in mortality as a result of systematic neglect and food deprivation (“de-centralised euthanasia”); often, patients were directly murdered by means of an overdose of medicine or – in the case of the psychiatric hospitals in Mauer-Öhling and Gugging – by electric shock. At the same time, children with mental disabilities were assessed and murdered in the context of a so-called “child euthanasia” programme – in Austria, at the Viennese “Am Spiegelgrund” institution, built in 1940, and at the Graz psychiatric hospital “Am Feldhof”.

External Resources:

www.gedenkstaettesteinhof.at