Nazi Euthanasia (T4) Programme
Operation T4
Operation T4: The mass murder of the mentally ill and physically disabled throughout Germany and some of its occupied territories. Widely considered a precursor to the Final Solution.
- a Nazi-era biology textbook warned that “a hereditarily ill person costs 50,000 reichsmarks on average up to the age of sixty”
- precursor to the Final Solution
- many killing methods used were tested here
- carried out openly from 1949-1941, secretly 1941-1945
- criteria not exclusively based on genetics, but also on economic productivity
- victims were deemed as “burdensome lives” and “useless eaters”
- cost-efficient methods of killing the disabled people were sought
- as early as 1939 December patients were gassed todeath
- Heinrich Himmler witnessed one and liked what he saw
- gassing would later become the primary extermination method of choice during the Final Solution
1970s – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Nazi Germany
- the movie was filmed in West Germany
- the fantasy world involves Oompa Loompas – Willy Wonka’s faithful workers
- they couldn’t find German actors to portray Oompa Loompas
- during WWII, most of the people with growth disorders were deemed “unfit for living” and murdered under T4
- Nazi Party officials turned eugenics into a racist pseudoscience used on the disabled, mentally ill and dwarves too
- CASE STUDY: the family of dwarves
- after they discovered this, producers had to fly in small actors from all over the world
- out of 10, only 1 Oompa Loompa was from Germany
- they were supposed to have thousands, but ended up with 10 because of the lack of actors with the right height
- during WWII, most of the people with growth disorders were deemed “unfit for living” and murdered under T4