The Handicapped
On October 1939 Adolf Hitler did something extremely unusual. He signed a document which linked him directly with a course of action which would be bad on his part, the so called ‘adult euthanasia’ policy of killing selected disabled patients. The document, which allowed his physician, Dr Brandt, and one of his secretariat, Philipp Bouhler, to pursue a policy of ‘mercy killing’ was backdated – significantly – to 1 September 1939, the day the Nazis invaded Poland. Many people died from the "adult euthanasia' policy. Eventually, around 8,000 children were killed, mostly by poisonous injections. By May 1940 around 10,000 Polish mental patients had been killed in this way in the Germanized areas of West Prussia and the Warthegau.