Home > Medical Research Archives > Issue 149 > The T4 Memorial for Patients Killed by their Doctors: A Personal View
![](https://esmed.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/MRA-cover-150x150.png)
Published in the Medical Research Archives
Mar 2023 Issue
The T4 Memorial for Patients Killed by their Doctors: A Personal View
Published on Mar 29, 2023
DOI
Abstract
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.
Author info
Marlies Ter Borg
Author Area
Have an article to submit?
Submission Guidelines
Submit a manuscript
Become a member