The Nuremberg Laws: Creating the Road to the T-4 Program By Jennifer Hight

Introduction Nuremberg Laws: implemented September 15, 1935 These laws established a foundation for a eugenics program that the Nazi doctors performed on inmates in T-4 centers and concentration camps from 1939 to 1945. The Nuremberg Laws were the first law codes to give discrimination a strong legal standing and removed repercussions against doctors’ actions towards their patients which created the Nazi eugenics program.

The Nuremberg Laws Reich Citizenship Law Law for the Protection for Hereditary Health Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor

Reich CITIZENSHIP LAW Revoked the status of Jews as legal citizens Define what it meant to be German or Jewish Created the framework the Nazis would use to persecute Jews and other minorities Was later applied to other minorities, the disabled, mentally and terminally ill

Law for the protection of hereditary health Anyone the Nazis deemed as carrying inheritable diseases would be forced to undergo sterilization Diseases ranged from schizophrenia to alcoholism Anyone with a physical disability was sterilized Patients could not refuse sterilization

Law for the protection of German blood and German honor Outlawed marriage between Germans and Jews Defined “mixed race” children Established legal concept of blood purity

The path to the t-4 program Gleichschaltung Program Social coordination Nazi party used propaganda to control every aspect of society Compliance German citizens trained to be compliant Lack of protest allowed Nazis to escalate their programs Violent Demonstration SS- Hitler’s paramilitary. Harassed and attacked Jews and other minorities Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass)- Predetermined night of violence against Jews by Germans. Targeted businesses and synagogues The path to the t-4 program

Survivors Testimony about Path to t-4 Joshua Degani Jewish survivor Faced persecution under Coordination Not allowed into movie theaters Family barber refused to cut hair Schterma = propaganda books Kurt Messerschmidt Jewish survivor Testimony on silence after Kristallnacht “I’m sure, in this particular situation, that some of the people standing there disapproved of what the Nazis did. But the disapproval was only silence. And silence is what did the harm”

T-4 program 6 killing centers, but all hosptials included Targeted disabled and mentally ill Sterilized individuals the Nazis deemed inferior Killed victims with sleeping pills, injections, and poison gas Doctors chose patients who had “anatomy that interested the researcher” Killed and autopsied these patients Corpses were experimented on

Similarities between t-4 centers and concentration camps T-4 Facilities Concentration Camps Patients transported with gekrat buses Death buses Doctors and physicians used selection process Mass murder with poison gas Crematoriums and mass graves Experiments conducted on autopsied bodies Trains for transportation Selection used on prisoners Mass murder with poison gas Zyklon B gas Crematoriums and mass graves Experiments conducted on prisoners Mengele, Luftwaffe, and other

conclusion T-4 Program Citizenship Weaponized Escalated into the Holocaust Desensitized Nazi doctors to mass murder and human experiments Citizenship Weaponized Citizenship only real protection “Other” vs. Germans Issues of medical Consent Experiment Review Boards Signed consent for medical procedures