Burden on Society

Nazi's looked at handicapped people as little more than "useless mouths to be fed." They reasoned that if an individual could not contribute to society, they were a burden to it. The Law for the Prevention of Hereditary Diseases gave Nazis full power to dispose of these "unnecessary individuals," who they felt were being cruelly d by having to live a sickly life. Karl Brandt calculated how much money and food could be saved by eliminating all the "useless mouths."

This photo (from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum archive) is of Emmi G. a 16 year-old who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. She was first sterilized then killed on December 7, 1942 (when she was purposely given too large a dosage of tranquilizers).

Here is a copy of his calculations (taken from the USHMM site)

ESTIMATED SAVINGS FROM T-4 PROGRAM

On the assumption that the level of nutrition of the inmates of asylums will remain the same as at present even after the war, the savings in foodstuffs in the case of 70,273 disinfected persons with an average life expectancy of ten years would be as follows:

Type of foodstuff....................Kg.

Potatoes..................................189,737,160

Meat and sausage products..................13,492,440

Bread......................................59,029,320

Flour......................................12,649,200

Butter......................................4,216,440

Butterfat.....................................421,680

Margarine...................................3,794,760

Bacon.........................................531,240

Quark.......................................1,054,080

Cheese......................................1,054,080

Special Foods...............................1,686,600

Pastry Products.............................1,475,766

Sago, etc.....................................421,608

Coffee substitute...........................3,373,080

Jam.........................................5,902,920

Sugar.......................................7,589,520

Eggs.......................................33,731,040 items

Vegetables.................................88,544,040

Pulses......................................4,216,440

Salt and spice substitutes..................1,054,080

Total................400,244,520 kg

..............................=141,775,573.80RM

On the basis of an average daily cost [per patient] of RM 3.50 there will be:

1. a daily saving of RM 245,955.50

2. a yearly saving of RM 88,543,980.00

3. with a life expectancy of ten years 885,439,800.00 in words: eight hundred and eighty-five million four hundred and thirty-five thousand and eight hundred Reich marks

i.e. this sum will be or has been saved up to 1 September 1941 through the disinfection of 70,273 persons carried out so far.

From I. Noakes and G. Pridham, sm: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, 1919-1945 (New York, 1988), Vol. 2, pp. 1042-43.

Think About It

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