Where and when was euthanasia first legalized?
The original euthanasia program was to “purify” the German race. It was a creation of physicians, not Hitler. He simply allowed the use of the tools others had prepared. The first gas chamber was designed by professors of psychiatry from 12 major German universities. They selected the patients and watched them die. Then they slowly reduced the “price tag” until the mental hospitals were almost empty. They were joined by some pediatricians, who began by emptying the institutions for handicapped children in 1939. By 1945, almost 300,000 “pure blood Aryan” Germans had been killed. By then these doctors had so lowered the price tag that they were killing bed wetters, children with misshapen ears, and those with learning disabilities. Wertham, The German Euthanasia Program, Hayes Publishing Co., Cinn, 1977, p. 47 What do you mean “price tag”? When you take the giant step of placing a price tag on human life, judging that it has only relative value, then you have made a fatal move, for price
