Backdated Order Authorizes “Euthanasia” Program

This short letter on Hitler’s private stationery provided the extra-legal basis for doctors to give a so-called “mercy death” to patients who were deemed incurably ill. Although it framed these deaths as “euthanasia,” this order actually authorized the mass murder of people with disabilities and protected the men and women who performed the killings from potential prosecution. Nazi propaganda argued that these people were so-called “useless eaters.” As German policymakers prepared for war, they began to view people with disabilities as both a genetic and a financial burden. 

The order was issued sometime in autumn 1939. However, it was backdated to September 1 in order to connect it to the start of World War II. This program came to be known by the codename T4 after the address of its central office at Tiergartenstrasse 4 in Berlin. Under the program, patients were murdered by gassing, lethal overdoses, and starvation.