124. Ernst Klee (ed.), Dokumente zur ‘Euthanasie’, Frankfurt am Main, 1985, 85; Ernst Klee, ‘Euthanasie’ im NS-Staat. Die ‘Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens’, Frankfurt am Main, 1983, 100; facsimile in Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State. Germany, 1933–1945, Cambridge, 1991, 143. Philipp Bouhler was Head of the Chancellery of the Fuhrer of the NSDAP, responsible for dealing with the voluminous correspondence addressed to Hitler as Party Leader. Dr Rudolf Brandt had since 1934 been Hitler’s personal doctor. (Benz, Graml, and Wei?, Enzyklopadie, 51–2, 54–5.)
125. Lothar Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie und Justiz im Dritten Reich’, VfZ, 20 (1972), 235–79, here 241; Lothar Gruchmann, Justiz im Dritten Reich 1933–1940. Anpassung und Unterwerfung in der Ara Gurtner, Munich, 1990, 502, and 497–534 for the reactions of the judicial authorities to the ‘euthanasia action’; Burleigh and Wippermann, 143; Jeremy Noakes, ‘Philipp Bouhler und die Kanzlei des Fuhrers der NSDAP: Beispiel einer Sonderverwaltung im Dritten Reich’, in Dieter Rebentisch and Karl Teppe (eds.), Verwaltung contra Menschenfuhrung im Staat Hitlers. Studien zum politisch- administrativen System, Gottingen, 1986, 208–36, here 229.
126. Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 241, 254.
127. Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 247–50; Klee, Dokumente, 86–7.
128. Klee, Dokumente, 86–7; Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 241–2.
129. Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 242.
130. Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 254.
131. Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 255; Gruchmann, Justiz, 511–13; Susanne Willems, Lothar Kreyssig. Vom eigenen verantwortlichen Handeln. Eine biographische Studie zum Protest gegen die Euthanasi-everhrechen in Nazi-Deutschland, Gottingen, n.d. (1996), 137–61.
132. The background of ‘racial hygiene’ and eugenics ideas, and their transportation into the Third Reich, is thoroughly dealt with by Hans-Walter Schmuhl, Rassenhygiene, Nationalsozialismus, Euthanasie. Von der Verhutung zur Vernichtung ‘lebensunwerten Lebens’, 1890–1945, Gottingen, 1987; Robert N. Proctor, Racial Hygiene. Medicine under the Nazis, Cambridge, Mass., 1988; and Paul Weindling, Health, Race, and German Politics between National Unification and Nazism, 1870– 1945, Cambridge, 1989.
133. Klee, ‘Euthanasie’, 19–28; Schmuhl, 115–25; Burleigh, Death, 15ff.; Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 235–6; Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi Doctors. Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, New York, 1986, ch. 2.
134. Michael Burleigh, Death and Deliverance. ‘Euthanasia’ in Germany, c.1900– 1945, Cambridge, 1994, ch.1, especially 24, 33, 38–9; and 53–4. See also Hans Ludwig Siemen, ‘Reform und Radikalisi-erung. Veranderungen der Psychiatrie in der Weltwirtschaftskrise’, in Norbert Frei (ed.), Medizin und Gesundheitspolitik in der NS-Zeit, Munich, 1991, 191–200; Michael Burleigh, ‘Psychiatry, German Society, and the Nazi “Euthanasia” Programme’, in Michael Burleigh, Ethics and Extermination. Reflections on Nazi Genocide, Cambridge, 1997, 113–29; Schmuhl, 121, 147, 192–3; and Hilde Steppe, ’ “Mit Tranen in den Augen haben wir dann diese Spritzen aufgezogen”. Die Beteiligung von Krankenschwestern und Krankenpflegern an den Verbrechen gegen die Menschlich-keit’, in Hilde Steppe (ed.), Krankenpflege im Nationalsozialismus, 7th edn, Frankfurt am Main, 1993, 137–74, especially 146ff. The sharp caesura of 1933, discernible in the shift towards pro-euthanasia views that followed, is well brought out in Michael Schwarz, ’ “Euthanasie”-Debatten in Deutschland (1895–1945)’, VfZ, 46 (1998), 617–65, especially 621–2, 643ff. The bureaucratic administration of the ‘euthanasia action’ is thoroughly examined by Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Genocide. From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, Chapel Hill/London, 1995.
135. Kurt Nowak, ‘Widerstand, Zustimmung, Hinnahme. Das Verhalten der Bevolkerung zur “Euthanasie” ’, in Frei, Medizin und Gesundheitspolitik, 235–51; Schwarz, 639–43, 647–9.
136. MK, 279–80; transl. MK Watt, 232.
137. RSA, III.2, 347.
138. RSA, III.2, 348.
139. Klee, ‘Euthanasie’, 46–7.
140. Burleigh, Death, 97.
141. Cit. Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 235.
142. Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 236. See also Cardinal Faulhaber’s public warnings in 1934 of the dangers in possible moves towards euthanasia (Klee, ‘Euthanasie’, 53).
143. Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 236–7.
144. Cit. Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 238; IfZ, 2719/61, Fols.28–9: ‘Aktenvermerk zu dem Erm- ittlungsverfahren gegen Professor Dr Werner Heyde und Rechtsanwalt Dr Gerhard Bohne (Stand vom 1.1.1961)’. Hitler had already indicated to Wagner the previous year his readiness to override the law in preventing the prosecution of any doctor accused of carrying about terminating a pregnancy where one of the partners suffered from hereditary illness (Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 239–40).
145. Klee, ‘Euthanasie’, 53.
146. Burleigh, Death, 187.
147. Burleigh, Death, 184, 188.
148. Klee, ‘Euthanasie’, 66ff.
149. Klee, ‘Euthanasie’, 63; Burleigh, Death, ch.2.
150. Klee, ‘Euthanasie’, 62.
151. Cit. Klee, ‘Euthanasie’, 63.
152. Noakes, ‘Bouhler’, 210–11.
153. Noakes, ‘Bouhler’, 221.
154. Albert Krebs, Tendenzen und Gestalten der NSDAP. Erinnerungen an die Fruhzeit der Partei, Stuttgart, 1959, 142, 197; Orlow, 59.
155. For biographical sketches, see Hans-Walter Schmuhl, ‘Philipp Bouhler — Ein Vorreiter des Massenmordes’, in Smelser, Syring, and Zitelmann (eds.), Die braune Elite II, 39–50; Robert Wistrich, Wer war wer in Dritten Reich, Munich, 1983, 29; Wer?, Biographisches Lexikon, 51–2.
156. Noakes, ‘Bouhler’, 211–12, 234.
157. Noakes, ‘Bouhler’, 223–4.
158. Noakes, ‘Bouhler’, 223.
159. Noakes, ‘Bouhler’, 226.
160. Noakes, ‘Bouhler’, 225–7.
161. Burleigh, Death, 94–5.
162. Gitta Sereny, Into that Darkness. An Examination of Conscience, Pan Books edn, London, 1977, 65; Burleigh, Death, 93.
163. Noakes, ‘Bouhler’, 227; Burleigh, Death, 98; Udo Benzenhofer, Der gute Tod? Euthanasie und Sterbehilfe in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Munich, 1999, 114–18. Udo Benzenhofer, ‘Der Fall “Kind Knauer” ’, Deutsches Arzteblatt, 95, Heft 19, 8 May 1998, 54–5, was able to identify the child concerned, which was born on 20 February and died on 25 July 1939. See also Ulf Schmidt, ‘Reassessing the Beginning of the “Euthanasia” Programme’, German History, 17 (1999), 543–50.
164. Noakes, ‘Bouhler’, 227; Gruchmann, ‘Euthanasie’, 240. Hitler’s doctor, Theo Morell, prepared a memorandum during the summer of 1939 on the need for a ‘euthanasia’ law, and spoke to Hitler, probably on the basis of this memorandum about it, though at what precise date is unclear (Burleigh, Death, 98).
165. Sereny, Into that Darkness, 64ff., here 68; Klee, Dokumente, 40–46, 146–51; Udo Benzenhofer and Karin Finsterbuch, Moraltheologie pro ‘NS-Euthanasie’. Studien zu einem ‘Gutachten (1940) von Prof. Joseph Mayer mit Edition des Textes, Hannover, 1998.
166. Noakes, ‘Bouhler’, 227–8.
