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The phrase "life unworthy of life" (German:Lebensunwertes Leben) was aNazi designation for the segments of the populace which, according to the Nazi regime, had noright to live. Those individuals were targeted to be murdered by the state viainvoluntary euthanasia, usually through the compulsion or deception of their caretakers. The term included people with disabilities and later those considered grossly inferior according to theracial policy of Nazi Germany. This concept formed an important component of theideology ofNazism and eventually helped lead tothe Holocaust.[1] It is similar to but more restrictive than the concept ofUntermensch, subhumans, as not all "subhumans" were considered unworthy of life (Slavs, for instance, were deemed useful forslave labor).
The involuntary euthanasia program was given the nameAktion T4 and was officially adopted and put in action in 1939 through the personal decision ofAdolf Hitler. Although the program ended officially in 1941 due to public protests, it was continued unofficially and more discreetly, and grew in extent and scope through theAktion 14f13 program, which targetedconcentration camp inmates.[2] The systematic extermination of certain cultural and religious groups, as well as people with physical and mental disabilities, continued in this manner until the end ofWorld War II. The methods used initially at German hospitals such as lethal injections andbottled gas poisoning were expanded to form the basis for the creation ofextermination camps where cyanidegas chambers were purpose-built to facilitate the extermination of the Jews, Romani, communists, anarchists, and political dissidents.[3]: 31 [4][5]
Historians estimate that 200,000 to 300,000 people were murdered under this program in Germany and occupied Europe.[6][7][8][a]
The expression first appeared in print via the title of a 1920 book,Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens (Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life) by two professors, the juristKarl Binding (retired from theUniversity of Leipzig) and psychiatristAlfred Hoche from theUniversity of Freiburg.[9] According to Hoche, some living people who were brain damaged, intellectually disabled and psychiatrically ill were "mentally dead", "human ballast" and "empty shells of human beings". Hoche believed that killing such people was useful. Some people were simply considered disposable.[10] Later the killing was extended to people considered 'racially impure' or 'racially inferior' according to Nazi thinking.[11]
The concept culminated inNazi extermination camps, instituted to systematically murder those who were unworthy to live according to Nazi ideologists. It also justified varioushuman experimentation andeugenics programs, as well as Naziracial policies.
According to the author ofMedical Killing and the Psychology of GenocidepsychiatristRobert Jay Lifton, the policy went through a number of iterations and modifications:
Of the five identifiable steps by which the Nazis carried out the principle of "life unworthy of life,"coercive sterilization was the first. There followed the killing of "impaired" children in hospitals; and then the killing of "impaired" adults, mostly collected from mental hospitals, in centers especially equipped with carbon monoxide gas. This project was extended (in the same killing centers) to "impaired" inmates ofconcentration andextermination camps and, finally, to mass killings in the extermination camps themselves.[1][11]
