Nazi Extermination Program for the Disabled - Aktion T4 | Professor Graeme Yorston
This history documentary describes one of the darkest chapters in human history – the extermination of 300,000 people with physical and mental disabilities by the Nazi regime in Germany.
It began soon after Hitler came to power with a forced sterilization program, but it evolved into mass murder.
They called it Gnadentod or merciful death - but no mercy was shown to the victims – initially just babies and young children, but later older children and adults.
Learn about one of the hospitals where children were killed on a daily basis and how one of the doctors remained in his post after the war and even kept his private collection of his victims’ brains.
This was a tough video to do – and it won’t be easy to watch – but it is important that we never forget what happened.
Academic References:
Amy, J. J., & Rowlands, S. (2018). Legalised non-consensual sterilisation–eugenics put into practice before 1945, and the aftermath. Part 1: USA, Japan, Canada and Mexico. The European Journal of Contraception & Reproductive Health Care, 23(2), 121-129.
Amy, J. J., & Rowlands, S. (2018). Legalised non-consensual sterilisation–eugenics put into practice before 1945, and the aftermath. Part 2: Europe. The European Journal of Contraception & Reproductive Health Care, 23(3), 194-200.
Burleigh, M. (1994). Between enthusiasm, compliance and protest: the churches, eugenics and the nazi ‘euthanasia’programme. Contemporary European History, 3(3), 253-264.
English, C (2021) The Gallery of Miracles and Madness: Insanity, Art and Hitler's first Mass-Murder Programme. Random House.
Goldhagen, D. J. (1997). Hitler's willing executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust. Vintage.
Gross, H., & Uiberrak, B. (1955). Klinisch-anatomische Befunde bei Hemimegalencephalie. Virchows Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und für klinische Medizin, 327(5), 577-589.
Gross, H. (1957). Zur Kenntnis der Beziehungen zwischen Gehirn und Schädelkapsel bei den turricephalen, craniostenotischen Dysostosen. Virchows Archiv für pathologische Anatomie und Physiologie und für klinische Medizin, 330(4), 365-383.
Pearce, C. (2019). Remembering the ‘unwanted’victims: initiatives to memorialize the National Socialist euthanasia program in Germany. Holocaust Studies, 25(1-2), 118-140.
Rosenfeld, G. D. (1999). The Controversy That Isn't: The Debate Over Daniel J. Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners in Comparative Perspective. Contemporary European History, 8(2), 249-273.
Silvestri, E. (2019). Lebensunwertes Leben: Roots and Memory of Aktion T4. Conatus-Journal of Philosophy, 4(2), 65-82.
Thomas, F. P., Beres, A., & Shevell, M. I. (2006). “A cold wind coming”: Heinrich Gross and child euthanasia in Vienna. Journal of Child Neurology, 21(4), 342-348.
Copyright Disclaimer
The primary purpose of this video is educational. I have tried to use material in the public domain or with Creative Commons Non-attribution licences wherever possible. Where attribution is required, I have listed this below. I believe that any copyright material used falls under the remit of Fair Use, but if any content owners would like to dispute this, I will not hesitate to immediately remove that content. It is not my intention to infringe on content ownership in any way. If you happen to find your art or images in the video, please let me know and I will be glad to credit you.
Images
Wikimedia Commons
Wellcome Collection
Public Domain or used on Fair Use basis for education purpose
Video produced by Professor Graeme Yorston and Tom Yorston.
