On May 21, 1940, the Nazi regime carried out one of the early mass killings under its secretive and brutal T4 Euthanasia Program in East Prussia. Designed to eliminate individuals deemed "unfit" or “life unworthy of life,” the program targeted those with severe physical and mental disabilities, including psychiatric and neurological conditions. What unfolded that day was part of a larger and horrifying campaign of systemic murder, rooted in the regime’s warped ideology of racial purity and eugenics.

The T4 Program—named after the address of its Berlin headquarters, Tiergartenstraße 4—was officially initiated in 1939, but its foundations were laid years earlier in the Nazi obsession with so-called racial hygiene. Under Adolf Hitler’s direct authorization, medical professionals and administrators began identifying and exterminating people in institutions who were considered burdens to the state.

The victims included children and adults with intellectual disabilities, mental illnesses, physical deformities, and chronic conditions. Initially killed through starvation and lethal injection, the program later expanded to the use of gas chambers—marking a grim precedent for the mass exterminations that would follow in the Holocaust.

The killings on May 21, 1940, in East Prussia were among the first coordinated massacres of the T4 campaign. Hospitals and care institutions became death traps as patients were taken away under the guise of receiving specialized treatment, only to be murdered in secrecy. Entire wards were emptied, families misled, and the medical profession deeply implicated in the atrocities.

This event was one of many that unfolded across Germany and occupied territories as the program accelerated. Between 1940 and 1941, over 70,000 people were systematically killed before public backlash forced the regime to temporarily halt the program—though it continued covertly for years afterward.

The T4 Euthanasia Program stands as a chilling example of how science and medicine can be weaponized under authoritarian rule. It eroded medical ethics, undermined human dignity, and served as a prototype for the mass murder of Jews, Roma, and other targeted groups in the Holocaust.

May 21, 1940, is remembered as a day of profound loss and injustice, highlighting the urgent need to protect the rights of vulnerable populations. The victims of the T4 program, once dehumanized and forgotten, are now commemorated in memorials and historical records throughout Germany and beyond.

Their stories remind us of the consequences of silence in the face of injustice and the critical importance of upholding human rights, dignity, and medical integrity in all societies.