Termination of Aktion T4 Triggered Shoah by Gas

Termination of Aktion T4 triggered “Holocaust by Gas” (and was a major step on the Road to Holocaust) because it provided Reinhard Heydrich (the designated manager of the “Holocaust Project”) with the most important tool: personnel.

Medics, chemists, engineers, etc., who had a two-year experience in serial mass murder of innocent human beings in mobile and stationary gas chambers. After they were made available to RSHA (and Concentration Camps Inspectorate), the “final solution to Jewish question” became a no-brainer: kill them all in a radically scaled-up system of killing centers (death factories). Using poison gas, of course.

Aktion T4 was terminated (officially just suspended) by Adolf Hitler on August 24, 1941 (hence the decision to commence “Holocaust by Gas” was made and approved in very late August or early September of 1941). Made by Himmler and Heydrich and approved by G;ring and Hitler, of course.

Why was it terminated? Some historian think that Hitler was forced to officially suspend Aktion T4 by protests of the German public and (especially) Christian Church (Catholic and Lutheran).

Others claim that it was terminated because it achieved its objective – killing 70,000 “undesirables”. I believe the former to be true: such programs tend to go on indefinitely, ever expanding, extending and claiming more and more victims.

After the official end of the euthanasia program in 1941, most of the personnel and high-ranking officials, as well as gassing technology and the techniques used to deceive victims, were ultimately transferred to “Holocaust by Gas” project.

The SS officers responsible for the earlier Aktion T4, including Wirth, Stangl and Irmfried Eberl, had important roles in the implementation of the “Holocaust by Gas” for the next two years.

The first killing center, equipped with mobile gas chambers (gas vans) was established in Chelmno (Kulmhof) in the Polish territory annexed into the Reich. This center was modelled on technology developed under Aktion T4… actually, the whole “Holocaust by Gas” project was a scaled-up reincarnation of the former.

Three months later, the center equipped with stationary gas chambers, became operational at Belzec in the General Government territory of occupied Poland. It was also modelled on technology developed under Aktion T4.