Life unworthy of life
The phrase "life unworthy of life" was a Nazi designation for the segments of the populace which, according to the Nazi regime, had no right to live. Those individuals were targeted to be murdered by the state via involuntary euthanasia, usually through the compulsion or deception of their caretakers. The term included people with disabilities and later those considered grossly inferior according to the racial policy of Nazi Germany. This concept formed an important component of the ideology of Nazism and eventually helped lead to the Holocaust. It is similar to but more restrictive than the concept of Untermensch, subhumans, as not all "subhumans" were considered unworthy of life.
The involuntary euthanasia program was given the name Aktion T4 and was officially adopted and put in action in 1939 through the personal decision of Adolf Hitler. Although the program ended officially in 1941 due to public protests, it was continued unofficially and more discreetly, and grew in extent and scope through the Aktion 14f13 program, which targeted concentration camp inmates. The systematic extermination of certain cultural and religious groups, as well as people with physical and mental disabilities, continued in this manner until the end of World War II. The methods used initially at German hospitals such as lethal injections and bottled gas poisoning were expanded to form the basis for the creation of extermination camps where cyanide gas chambers were purpose-built to facilitate the extermination of the Jews, Romani, communists, anarchists, and political dissidents.
Historians estimate that 200,000 to 300,000 people were murdered under this program in Germany and occupied Europe.
History
The expression first appeared in print via the title of a 1920 book, Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens by two professors, the jurist Karl Binding and psychiatrist Alfred Hoche from the University of Freiburg. According to Hoche, some living people who were brain damaged, intellectually disabled and psychiatrically ill were "mentally dead", "human ballast" and "empty shells of human beings". Hoche believed that killing such people was useful. Some people were simply considered disposable. Later the killing was extended to people considered 'racially impure' or 'racially inferior' according to Nazi thinking.The concept culminated in Nazi extermination camps, instituted to systematically murder those who were unworthy to live according to Nazi ideologists. It also justified various human experimentation and eugenics programs, as well as Nazi racial policies.