[Euthanasia in the Third Reich--only a problem of psychiatry? On the development of the euthanasia debate 1933-1941...

The devastating consequences of the Fascist dictatorship in Germany for the ethical thinking of the physicians are particularly clearly recognizable by the mass killings of severely damaged children and patients with chronic psychic diseases which were performed at that time. Recent investigations of the developments which began in 1938 show that by way of intensive efforts for a juridicial legalization of the "active euthanasia" an enlargement of this killing practice has been striven after. References to a motive of compassion and the free decision of the affected persons should cover the real intention for reducing welfare services. A bill presented in 1940 for a law "on euthanasia for incurable ill persons" found the unanimous consent of the renowned physicians consulted for this purpose. Though this law finally did not become legal beginning with 1941 the medical practice showed further forms of the repressive and antihumane association with ill persons who were regarded as incurable, which must be valuated as practical consequences of an unadmissible relativation of the life-preserving task of medicine.