In the shadows of Adolf Hitler’s Final Solution lies the Euthanasia Program; the mass murder of thousands of disabled German citizens. The Euthanasia Program provided a test run for the remainder of Germany’s racial cleansing and was particularly experimental from the methods of inhumane treatment and killing to the propaganda that would reinforce public support. The plea of two parents to euthanize their young child sparked the idea which Hitler would spread across his country. From initial selection of “unworthy” lives to the methods of killing, and every last detail in between, Hitler was determined to perfect the process of bolstering the Aryan race. Prior to the start of the Euthanasia Program, Hitler attempted to accomplish racial cleansing when he passed the “Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases.” In 1933, just six years prior to the birth of the Euthanasia Program, this law was enacted and required the sterilization of people with hereditary diseases. These diseased people included schizophrenics, handicaps, the blind and …show more content…
The child was born blind and had limited mental capacity. If that was not enough to push the father toward euthanasia, the boy was also physically handicapped. He had just one leg and only one of his arms was fully developed. Both the boy’s physicians and father felt it necessary that the child’s life should end. The father pleaded with Hitler directly, so the Fuhrer sent his personal physician to gather more details. In 1939 Dr. Karl Brandt traveled to Leipzig and what he found was exactly as the father had described to the Fuhrer. Dr. Brandt, on behalf of Hitler, ordered the physicians to euthanize the child. The case came to be known as “case K,” and within a year Hitler had gone from authorizing one murder to authorizing the murder of all physically and mentally disabled children of