Aktion T4 Research Paper

The dictionary definition of euthanasia is the “the painless killing of a patient suffering from an incurable and painful disease or in an irreversible coma”. While euthanasia is synonymous to the term “mercy killing”, it is illegal in most of the states in the USA. In the late 1930s and early 1940s in Germany, though, this act was legal. Its accessibility drew in Adolf Hitler, leading to the formation of Aktion T4, a forced euthanasia program with the intentions of killing the incurably ill, physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught, and elderly people. This program was later known in history as the precursor of mass deportations and concentration camps.
The Aktion T4 program, despite Hitler’s announcements, began in the summer of 1939. Hitler officially announced the existence of this program as beginning the day the second World War started, September 1, 1939. In the beginning of this program, the victims were infants and young children. Midwives and doctors were required to register children up to age three who showed symptoms of mental retardation, physical deformity, or other symptoms included on a questionnaire from the Reich Health Ministry. From there on, the children registered were to be looked at by three doctors appointed by Hitler including …show more content…
I’ve had severe depression, anxiety, and some dissociation for years and have been in two hospitals to help treat it. On top of that, two of my three cousins have schizophrenia. Go back to the 1930s and my cousins would have ended up in the T4 program and those like it. It’s very surreal to realize what you could have gone through if you have lived in another place at another time. Seeing the cruelty that the Nazi government showed towards its people makes me sick to my stomach, and the fact that I didn’t know about the T4 program before researching for this paper blew my mind. This is why it’s so important to study