Germany Organizes the Killing of Disabled Children

In the spring and summer of 1939, German officials began to organize a secret program to kill disabled children. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum names Philipp Bouhler, director of Hitler’s private chancellery, and Karl Brandt, Hitler’s physician, as its leaders.

On 18 August 1939, the Reich Ministry of the Interior ordered physicians, nurses, and midwives to report newborn infants and children under three who showed signs of severe disability. The museum reports a conservative estimate of at least 10,000 German children murdered in that program during the war, and a historical estimate of about 250,000 people killed in the wider program.