The Brandenburg Euthanasia Centre , officially known as the Brandenburg an der Havel State Welfare Institute (Landes-Pflegeanstalt Brandenburg a. H.) was established in 1939 and acted during the Nazi era as a killing centre as part of the Nazi Euthanasia Programme, subsequently referred to after the war as Action T4

Action T4

Action T4 was the name used after World War II for Nazi Germany's eugenics-based "euthanasia" program during which physicians killed thousands of people who were "judged incurably sick, by critical medical examination"...

.

Overview

The euthanasia centre was located in Brandenburg an der Havel in the old gaol in Neuendorfer Straße 90c. Brandenburg Concentration Camp was housed in these buildings from August 1933 to February 1934.

Victim numbers

According to a table compiled in 1942 and discovered in 1945, the so-called Hartheim Statistics, a total of 9,772 people were murdered in a gas chamber

Gas chamber

A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used...

 at the Brandenburg Euthanasia Centre in 1940.

1940	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Total
	105	495	477	974	1,431	1,529	1,419	1,382	1,177	9,972

These statistics only cover the first killing phase, under Action T4, that was halted by an order from Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

 dated 24 August 1941.

Sources

• Ernst Klee
  Ernst Klee
  Ernst Klee is a German journalist and author. As a writer on Germany's history, he is best known for his exposure and documentation of the medical crimes of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, much of which is concerned with the Action T4 forced euthanasia program.-Life and work:Klee was first trained as...
  
  : Euthanasie" im NS-Staat. Die "Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens. Fi-TB 4326, Frankfurt/M. 1985, ISBN 3-596-24326-2 (Probevergasung, Hungerkost)
• Ernst Klee (ed.): Dokumente zur "Euthanasie". Fi-TB 4327, Frankfurt/M. 1985, ISBN 3-596-24327-0

Other literature see main article: The euthanasia killings in the Nazi era or Action T4

External links

• www.doew.at
• Table from the Hartheim Statistics (pdf)