Hadamar killing centre

, organiser of the T4 Programme Since the late 19th century, doctors and scientists had been developing theories of racial purity based on eugenics, a concept popular at the time that developed from several disciplines including social history, biology, anthropology and genetics. As Weindling (1989) explained, there had been several movements in Germany since the end of World War I concerned with the 'degeneration' of German racial purity that culminated with the founding in 1927 of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology, Human Heredity, and Eugenics. Although there had been demands since the early 1920s for legislation on sterilization and euthanasia, these were rejected because it was believed that positive eugenics was more representative of the Weimar political structures and the nation's social needs. This approach ended in 1933 after the ascent of the Nazis in Germany, who implemented a eugenics programme based on their pseudoscientific racial theories. ==First phase of Aktion T4==

Beginning in late 1939, Hitler personally issued an order on his private stationery authorizing Philipp Bouhler and Karl Brandt to initiate a "euthanasia" programme to give the "incurably sick" a "mercy death". Developed by Viktor Brack, it began with mass sterilizations of children deemed "unfit" to reproduce. After that, the hospital staff exterminated children determined to be unfit and the programme was later expanded to adults. By January 1940, the Nazis had set up their first killing facilities. Up to 100 victims arrived in post-buses every day. They were told to disrobe for a "medical examination". Sent before a physician, each was recorded as having one of 60 fatal diseases, as "incurables" were to be given a "mercy death". The doctor identified each person with different-coloured sticking plasters for one of three categories: murder; murder & remove brain for research; murder & extract gold teeth. Families of the victims were sent "comfort letters" with falsified causes of death. Families could also request a funerary urn, but the ashes were not from their family member. ==Protests==

Despite the hospital's precautions to cover up the T-4 programme, the local population were fully aware of events at the hospital. Since the crematorium ovens were more often than not fed with two corpses at a time, the cremation process was less than perfect. This often resulted in the aforementioned thick, acrid smog hanging over the town. According to a letter sent by Bishop Antonius Hilfrich of the Diocese of Limburg to the Reich Justice Minister in August 1941, local children taunted each other with the words "You're not very clever; you will go to Hadamar and into the ovens". As people learned of these activities, especially the role of the "grey buses" in collecting victims, there was growing opposition. Fearing public unrest, Hitler officially announced in August 1941 that the "euthanasia" activities had been curtailed. ==Second phase of Aktion T4==

After nearly a year of suspension, the murder of 'undesirables' resumed in August 1942, in what has been termed the "decentralized euthanasia" phase of Aktion T4, where "euthanasia" killings were committed without centralized coordination from Berlin. Resident physicians and staff, headed by nurse Irmgard Huber, directly murdered the majority of these victims, among whom were German patients with disabilities, mentally-disoriented elderly persons from bombed-out areas, "half Jewish" children from welfare institutions, psychologically- and physically-disabled forced labourers and their children, German soldiers, and Waffen SS soldiers deemed psychologically incurable. the medical personnel and staff at Hadamar murdered almost all of these people by lethal drug overdoses or deliberate neglect and malnutrition. During the second "decentralized" phase of Aktion T4, an estimated 4,500 victims were murdered at Hadamar. ==Hadamar Trial==

at the Hadamar Institute, May 1945. The Hadamar Trial, 8–15 October 1945, was the first mass atrocity trial in the American occupation zone of Germany following World War II. U.S. military authorities decided to undertake their first prosecution to adjudicate crimes associated with the systematic racial and social persecution and extermination committed under Nazi Germany policies. Initially, American authorities intended to try Hadamar physicians, nurses, and administrative staff in their custody for the murders of nearly 15,000 German patients at the institution. At the time, however, they lacked jurisdiction to do so under international law. U.S. military officials could not try German nationals for murdering their fellow citizens. International law restricted them to prosecute crimes committed against their own service personnel and civilian nationals, and those of their allies, in the territories that they held. The six-man U.S. military tribunal sentenced the Hadamar chief administrator Alfons Klein, and two male nurses, Heinrich Ruoff and Karl Willig, to death by hanging. Chief physician Adolf Wahlmann received a life sentence with hard labor due to his old age (he was nearly 70) and poor health. Two Hadamar administrative staff received sentences of 35 and 30 years with hard labor, respectively. Irmgard Huber, a nurse and only female defendant, received the lightest sentence, that of 25 years imprisonment with hard labor. On 14 March 1946, Klein, Ruoff, and Willig were executed. In December 1945 the Allies promulgated Allied Control Council Law No. 10, which allowed the elastic charge of "crimes against humanity" to cover the massive scale of extermination the Germans had carried out against Jews, Poles, Gypsies and other populations. This charge was introduced in the indictment by the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg. In early 1946, "euthanasia" crimes such as those at Hadamar were transferred to the German courts, newly reconstructed under the occupation. In early 1947, a German tribunal in Frankfurt tried 25 Hadamar personnel, including Wahlmann and Huber, for the murder of some 15,000 German patients at the facility. Although some had their sentences increased, they were all released early in the 1950s. ==Post-war use of the site==

Today, the site houses a psychiatric hospital, the Vitos Klinik für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie Hadamar, alongside the Hadamar Memorial Museum, which contains a memorial to the victims and an exhibition regarding the mass murders that took place on the site. Both the clinic and museum are operated by the State of Hessen. ==See also==