Talk:Action T4

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[edit] I

I have written this article to replace the old one, which was not very good and also wrongly titled, since T4 was not a program of euthanasia properly defined. I don't see how the two articles can be "merged." Adam 16:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

This article is certainly superior in contents to the article T-4 Euthanasia Program. Thanks Adam. The title T-4 Euthanasia Program is fine and better than the name of this article. I oppose removing "T-4"/"T4" from the article name. Andries 22:25, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

This title is fine. Fredrik Johansson 11:05, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Euthanasia

Look at our Euthanasia article. It is not defined as killing out of compassion. It is confined as killing those "perceived as living an intolerable life". That applies to the the subject here. Therefore the article should be renamed to include the word "euthanasia". Better yet, it should be merged as proposed. Nobody's going to search for "killing of people with disabilities in Nazi Germany", and it is entirely a product of your invention. --Hyphen5 13:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

The Nazis did not kill these people because they "perceived [them] as living an intolerable life." They killed them to eliminate "inferior" people from the German Volk, and to save the state the expense of caring for them. Read the article before making such remarks. The whole article is a "citation for the contention that these were not "mercy" killings." This must be one of the most heavily referenced articles at Wikipedia. Adam 15:46, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Nazi ideology considered Jews' lives "intolerable" to society. Are you denying this? Euthanasia is not a positive word (it is a euphemism), so I don't understand why you are intent on disassociating it from this program. --Hyphen5 18:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

The recent edits by 155.143.255.195 were in fact by me - I didn't realise I had been logged out. The article is now much expanded and better referenced, and thus even more educational for those in need of instruction. Adam 16:08, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Still to do, a section on the postwar doctors' trial. Tomorrow. Adam 16:54, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the program was among others justified as mercy killings which is even the title of one of Gitta Sereny's book so that is a similarity with Euthanasia. (I read her book on Franz Stangl). I do not think that this justification was sincere for higher ranking officals involved in the program by the way (a major difference with Euthanasia), but it may be have been sincere for people like middle and lower ranking officals such as Stangl. Andries 22:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Of course the program was justified to the German public as being one of euthanasia, and the article notes that. It is also true that many of the people who carried out the program rationalised it to themselves as being euthansia. But the fact is that it was not a euthanasia program, it was a program conducted for both racist-eugenicist reasons and economic reasons. These people were not killed out of concern for their suffering - many of them were not suffering - but to remove them as genetically inferior from the "German Volk" and to save the state the cost of caring for them. Adam 03:22, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Therefore, just exactly as euthanasia goes on around the world today, for example in Netehrlands but also in USA. 22.5.2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.244.31.128 (talk) 16:55, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] just one please

where is there the results of one autopsy that one person actually died from being gassed?

The autopsies were falsified. If I remember it well Franz Stangl admitted this. Andries 17:34, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Goebbels

In the article, Goebbels is said to suffer from a congenital club foot, yet the wikipedia article Josef Goebbels seems to indicate it was the result of a bone infection at age 7. Any clarifications? --TeaDrinker 01:59, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Most of the sources I have seen say he had club foot, and club foot is a congenital condition. If his condition wasn't congenital it shouldn't be described as club foot. I don't have a Goebbels biography to check - the world needs a new scholarly Goebbels biography to replace Irving's book, which can no longer be cited. Adam 02:45, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

I was surprized to notice that respectable historians cited Irving too, but of course, not in anything that is related to the Holocaust. Irving is in spite of everything respected for his research on primary sources. Andries 07:21, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Not by me. Adam 07:44, 21 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Translation

Hello,

this translation seems missleading to me:

"60,000 Reichsmarks is what this person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too. Read 'New People', the monthly magazine of the Bureau for Race Politics of the NSDAP."

Nazis do not think, "those persons" are suffering at all. They do not even think, "those persons" are persons. "Community" is a term, which does not exist in German. They have two kinds of "Volk": one is a racist term ("Blut und Boden" - meaning: no black people are Germans even if there are German black people), the other corresponds to "people" in the tradition of the French Revolution (egalite, fraternite, citizen ...). "Volksgenosse" means: comrade in "German race" - this has no equivalent in English.

More correct translation is sth. like:

"60,000 Reichsmarks is what this hereditary invalid costs the Volksgemeinschaft during his lifetime. German comrade, that is your money, too. Read 'New Volk ', the monthly magazine of the Bureau for Race Politics of the NSDAP."

Please excuse my bad English #} ... - I'm a native of Germany.

I'm more curious whether "that is your money, too" is a faithful translation. Can you verify? 08:35, 30 April 2007 (UTC)


I think your translation is better.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 00:24, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Victims?

Was any victim of T-4 notable enough to have an article?--T. Anthony 17:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC) Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler --Hozro 15:48, 3 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Confusing sentence in the "Towards a policy of killing" section

This is from the "Towards a policy of killing" section:

    He intended, he wrote, “in the event of a war radically to solve the problem of the mental asylums.”[12]

I don't think this sentence makes sense, but as I'm not exactly sure what the intended meaning it, I didn't want to change it. Perhaps someone in the know can fix this sentence?

[edit] Darwinism or Social Darwinism?

In this last paragraph of the "Background" section:

  • "It may be noted that racial hygienist ideas were far from unique to the Nazi movement, although Hitler expressed them in an extreme form. The ideas of social Darwinism were widespread in all western countries in the early 20th century, and the eugenics movement had many followers among educated people, being particularly strong in the United States. The idea of sterilising those carrying hereditary defects or exhibiting what was thought to be hereditary anti-social behaviour was widely accepted, and was put into law in the United States, Sweden, Switzerland and other countries. Between 1935 and 1975, for example, 63,000 people were sterilised on eugenicist grounds in Sweden.[9]"

It mentions "social darwinism"...my understanding is that social darwinism refers to "survival of the fitist" in regards to socio-economic factors, but eugenics was based on biological factors, i.e. artificial selection. How does social darwinism fit in the context it is used in here and should it be changed to simply darwinism with a mention of artificial selection? AbstractClass 13:44, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I had removed "social" from "social Darwinism" (after waiting 24 hours for a response to this) and squiddy reverted it saying "social Darwinism more relevant in this context than Darwinism"
I'd like to know the argument behind this. Eugenics is about genetic makeup of a population and uses artificial selection which is all included in Darwin's work. How is social Darwinism more relevant? I disagree and if I'm wrong I think there must be something I'm not understanding about social darwinism? AbstractClass 01:34, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
Sorry, I didn't read the talk page before changing Darwinism back to Social darwinism. The reason I did is that social Darwinism was a widely influential extension of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, specifically applying it to human society. It contained several cultural assumptions which are not present in Darwin's theory:
  • That 'races' (understood circa 1900 as Englishmen, Frenchmen, Italians, as well as Africans and Chinese) were in evolutionary competition (which reflected imperialist ambitions very closely, which were thus given a 'scientific' justification.)
  • That there was a strong hereditary element to 'undesirable' social attributes of people, especially criminality, insanity and sexual deviance, and 'good stock' was 'tainted' by mixing with 'poor stock'. The fear of evolution going into reverse was widespread at the time (see Degeneration). This was prompted by the fear in the educated/middle-class types who made up the eugenics movement of the masses of urban poor, a class created in great numbers in the nineteenth century.
Eugenics was therefore not a biological science (although it was often seen as such in its heyday), but was a social/political movement with a (pseudo)science basis. I think that 'social darwinism' reflects this more accurately. Cheers, Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 02:04, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Estimation of number of victims

The article says "from 75 000 to 250 000" victims, and quotes next sentence Ian Kershaw's biography on Hitler. However, in Hitler: A Profile in Power, Chapter VI, first section (London, 1991, rev. 2001), Kershaw gives the number of 70,000. Tazmaniacs 18:31, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

the first number has been changed from 75 to 200. I know there are good references that say 75 and 250. I have seen them, just haven't written them down.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 00:31, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

i found this http://www.holocaust-education.dk/baggrund/eutanasi.asp

In the period of 1939-1941 around 70,000 were murdered.

In August 1942 the Euthanasia Programme was resumed, and the group of potential victims was expanded to include victims of air raids, “anti-socials” and slave labourers. Even handicapped children were murdered, by lethal injections, or they were starved to death. The bodies of the victims were burned in large ovens (crematoria). Operation T4 continued in deep secrecy through the end of the war.

According to the testimonies presented at the Nuremberg War Tribunal, a total of approximately 270,000 people fell victim to the Euthanasia programme between 1939 and 1945. --Mark v1.0 (talk) 00:47, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

"In all, between 200,000 and 250,000 mentally and physically handicapped persons were murdered from 1939 to 1945 under the T-4 and other "euthanasia" programs." http://www.ushmm.org/education/resource/handic/handicapped.php?theme=educators --Mark v1.0 (talk) 05:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] What year is the poster?

It would be nice if the poster's caption included the year in which it was published. The Image page doesn't contain it either. Afabbro 17:12, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 08:53, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Werner Villinger

Can someone fact check this article for me? It says in this article that the Bethel Institute had and exemption from the 'program', where he is listed as working.Ticklemygrits (talk) 04:28, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] geneticist?:genetic cleaning?

Are there any professional geneticist's that have studied the effects of Action T4, on the human population? People with supposed mental illness/BAD DNA were supposed to be cleaned from the human race (est 250,000). Did the number % percentages of mentally ill to "normal" drop? I ask this as people claim mental illness is genetically inheritable. According to Robert Whitaker http://www.naturalnews.com/011353.html the incidence of serious mentally ill has significantly increased over the last hundred years.--Mark v1.0 (talk) 19:45, 10 March 2008 (UTC)