The T4 Memorial for Patients Killed by their Doctors: A Personal View

This is the story of the murder, by psychiatrists, of patients with genetically based psychiatric disorders in Nazi Germany. It is told from the viewpoint of a person with bipolar disorder, reflecting on the suffering of people like herself. The various stages in the so-called “Euthanasia” programme are mentioned: sterilisation, forbidding marriage, gassing, poisoning, starvation.

This dark page of German Psychiatry is lightened up by:

• Its contrast with the author’s experience of compassionate and professional psychiatric therapy today.
• The inspiring sermons of the Bishop of Munster in 1941 leading to protests among patients and their families, the largest protest movement in Nazi Germany.
• The informative and uplifting group of monuments in Berlin commemorating the victims.
• The speech by the chairman of the German association of psychiatrists in 2010 asking for the victims to forgive them.
• The incorrect use of the term ‘Euthanasia’ for the memorial and its correct use in a humane Dutch law, passed in 2002.