Brandenburg

"The T4 physicians used medication to kill handicapped children but to kill the far larger number of handicapped adults, they had to devise a different method. For those patients, the T4 technicians established killing centers, thus creating the unprecedented institutions that would symbolize Nazi Germany and the early twentieth century….

At Nuremberg, Karl Brandt described to his interrogator how the killers decided on this method for murder. At first, the physicians wanted to use injections of narcotics, but this method would be too cumbersome; death would take time and was thus not considered “humane”…

The technology for gassing people had to be invented. Here theory was not enough; a demonstration was needed to confirm the feasibility of the operation, test methods, and teach techniques. The managers of T4 chose Brandenburg on the Havel as the site for testing, probably because it was a short train ride from Berlin."

Henry Friedlander (1995), 86-87

Readings:

Henry Friedlander, The Origins of Nazi Germany: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution. Chapter 5 The Killing Centers (1995)

Robert Jay Lifton, The Natzi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide. Chapter 2 Euthanasia: Direct Medical Killing (2000 [1986])