page_title: Child euthanasia in Nazi Germany
section_title: Reich Committee for the Scientific Registering of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses
hierarchical_section_title: Child euthanasia in Nazi Germany / Reich Committee for the Scientific Registering of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses
context_page_description: Child Euthanasia was the name given to the organised murder of severely mentally and physically handicapped children and young people up to 16 years old during the Nazi era in over 30 so-called special children's wards. At least 5,000 children were victims of this programme, which was a precursor to the subsequent murder of children in the concentration camps.
context_section_description: This first child euthanasia death led to a significant acceleration in the implementation of latent plans for "eugenic extermination", which began with the Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring, enacted on 14 July 1933, and eventually led in several stages to the euthanasia of children and adults (see Action T4, background and historical context). There was an almost parallel development of the decisions that resulted in the euthanasia programme for these two groups.
  Hefelmann described this further development:
  The Knauer case led to Hitler authorizing Brandt and Bouhler to do likewise in cases of a similar nature to that of the Knauer child. Whether this authorization was granted in writing or verbally, I cannot say. In any case, Brandt did not show us a written authorization. This authorization must have been granted, when Brandt told Hitler about the Knauer case. Brandt personally told me that this authorization had been granted in this way. At the same time, Hitler had ordered that all requests of this nature that were addressed to the Reich Ministry of the Interior or the Office of the Reichspresident, were only to be handled by his Chancellery. In pursuance of this arrangement, the Reich's Interior Ministry and Presidential Office were asked to forward such requests to the Chancellery. In this way, the then Under Secretary of the Interior Ministry, Dr. Linden, dealt with these matters for the first time, as far as I know. The subject was treated from the outset as top secret (Geheime Reichssache). When I was ordered shortly thereafter by Professor Brandt to put together an advisory body; it had to be treated as a top secret gathering. The result was that only those doctors, etc., were selected, of whom it was known had a positive attitude. Another reason for selecting them with that in mind was the fact that Hitler had ordered that his office, and therefore also his chancellery, was not to appear outwardly as the authority that handled these matters.
  The matter was initially discussed with an inner circle comprising Hefelmann and Hegener, head of the KdF's Central Office II, Viktor Brack and the person responsible for mental hospitals in Division IV (Health and Social Welfare) of the Reich Interior Ministry, Herbert Linden. In addition to the aforementioned, the committee assembled to organize child euthanasia consisted of Karl Brandt, the ophthalmologist Hellmuth Unger, a pediatrician Ernst Wentzler, the child psychiatrist Hans Heinze, and very probably also Professor Werner Catel. The issues at stake, which were also pertinent to preparations for the now impending adult euthanasia programme, were clarified in a brief but effective planning phase so that some three weeks after the first euthanasia case, a front organization was established under the name "Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses", that began to take the first concrete steps towards registering potential victims. The primary agents behind the front group were Hefelmann and Hegener from Office IIb of the KdF, who, at Hitler's request were not to appear publicly, nor was the only representative of a governmental authority, Linden from the Reich Interior Ministry. The so-called "national committee" was thus simply a "postbox" (Berlin W 9, PO Box 101). Correspondence went via this postbox to the KdF located in the New Reich Chancellery in Berlin's Voßstraße 4.
caption: Karl Brandt on trial, 20 August 1947
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