Nazi euthanasia program

Within the broad scope of the Holocaust, the Nazi Euthanasia program, code-named T4 medical personnel evaluated hundreds of thousands of people to see if they met Nazi criteria that categorized them as "life unworthy of life". If so, the people were killed, either by direct lethal means or starvation.

In the Nuremberg Military Tribunal medical case indictment, this was described as "the systematic and secret execution of the aged, insane, incurably ill, of deformed children, and other persons, by gas, lethal injections, and diverse other means in nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums. Such persons were regarded as "useless eaters" and a burden to the German war machine. The relatives of these victims were informed that they died from natural causes, such as heart failure. German doctors involved in the "euthanasia" program were also sent to Eastern occupied countries to assist in the mass extermination of Jews."