Use of gas in the euthanasia program?

[BuddaBell123]

[Split from "Euthanasia Doctors"]

This was the only appropriate thread I could find on the search to help answer my question.

Does anyone know of any documents (mainly wartime and pre-war) that menchion the use of gas chambers or gas to murder people in the euthanasia program?

[kiseli]

JUDGE SEBRING: Witness, when adult persons were selected for euthanasia
and sent by the transport to euthanasia stations for that purpose, by what
methods were the mercy deaths given?
DEFENDANT BRACK: The patients went to a euthanasia institution after the
written formalities were concluded - I need not repeat these formalities
here, they were physical examination, comparison of the files, etc. The
patients were led to a gas chamber and were there killed by the doctors
with carbon monoxide gas (CO).

http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi?places/ge ... /brack.002

[Sergey Romanov]

Sure.

[Investigation Commission]

So the day of deliverance for the patient arrives. Before an investigative committee under the direction of the asylum doctor, the personal and medical details of the patient are examined and assessed.

[Photograph]

For archival purposes, photographs are taken of the patient.

[Gas Chamber (Cuts to turning on of the valve, gasometer, and observation by the doctor)]

In a hermetically sealed room the patient is exposed to the effects of Carbon Monoxide gas.
The incoming gas is completely odourless and initially robs the patient of their powers of judgement, and then their consciousness.
Completely unknown by the patient, without pain and without struggle, the deliverance of death takes effect.

1942 draft for a Nazi documentary on mercy killings on mentally sick persons by German director Herman Schweninger[1]

[1] NARA T-1021, Record Group 242/338, Roll 12, ‘Entwurf für den wissenschaftlichen Dokumentarfilm G.K.’, 29.10.1942, p. 127171. The script is marked ‘Geheime Reichssache!’

http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot. ... _2250.html

[KZ-Dachau]

Would a Nuremberg document work? The Testimony of Brack speaks of gassings in "Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals" Valume 1 page 876.

Q: Witness, when adult persons were selected for euthanasia and sent by transport to euthanasia stations for that purpose, by what methods were the mercy deaths given?

A: The patients went to a euthanasia institution after the written formalities were concluded - I need not repeat these formalities here, they were physical examinations, comparison of the files, etc. The patients were led to a gas chamber and were there killed by the doctors with carbon monoxide gas (CO).

Q: Where was that carbon monoxide obtained, by what process?

A: It was in a compressed gas container, like a steel oxygen container, such as is used for welding - a hollow steel container.

Q: And these people were placed in this chamber in groups, I suppose, and then the carbon monoxide was turned into the chambers?

A: Perhaps I had better explain this in some detail. Bouhler's basic requirement was that the killing should not only be painless, but also imperceptible. For this reason, the photographing of the patients, which was only done for scientific reasons, took place before they entered the chambers, and the patients were completely diverted thereby. Then they were led into the gas chamber which they were told was a shower room. They were in groups of perhaps 20 or 30. They were gassed by the doctor in charge.

[Sergey Romanov]

This has been cited right above my comment.

[michael mills]

1942 draft for a Nazi documentary on mercy killings on mentally sick persons by German director Herman Schweninger

This was a film intended for public consumption, for the purpose of justifying to the German public the "Euthanasia" program, after it had been completed.

There had previously been films produced portraying severely disabled persons as "life unworthy of life', and also propagating the idea that the elimination of the weak was a part of natural selection.

Before the war, in about 1937 so far as I recall, there had even been an opinion poll on the acceptability of euthanasia of the incurably sick and severely disabled persons, in which a majority of respondents agreed with euthanasia provided it were done quietly and they were not confronted with it.

[Sergey Romanov]

Hans has just posted a bunch of damning documents at our blog:

http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot. ... arbon.html

[michael mills]

Damning? Damning for whom?

I saw nothing in the documents that is not already well known.

By damning do you mean that they show the T-4 people running the Euthanasia Centre at Schloss Hartheim near Linz to have been too lazy to return the used CO containers belonging to IG-Farben until they were given a good kick up the backside by the KTI?

[siwiec]

Damning? Damning for whom?

Hmm, the Nazis perhaps?

I saw nothing in the documents that is not already well known.

What is "well known" to you is not necessarily that to most of the people. See the OP.

By damning do you mean that they show the T-4 people running the Euthanasia Centre at Schloss Hartheim near Linz to have been too lazy to return the used CO containers belonging to IG-Farben until they were given a good kick up the backside by the KTI?

Reduce that to "used CO" and you are probably closer to reality. And perhaps you did not read the Schewenninger doc?

I do not think there actually have been too many docs in circulation referring to those containers or even the use of CO in general. Docs were known for sure since at least 1980's, but not very often referred to/shown. From the perspective of the HC blog, that is anti-HD, they are obviously also quite important.

[Sergey Romanov]

Damning? Damning for whom?

Carlo Mattogno, the leading Holocaust denier:

"The proposal to supply Mauthausen with 'steel bottles with carbon oxide or other auxiliary agents' (what agents?) is nothing but yet another attempt to produce a document using this infamous term which otherwise does not appear in any document."
(Mattogno, Inside the Gas Chambers, p. 148)

http://holocaustcontroversies.blogspot. ... er-to.html

[michael mills]

Thanks for that clarification.