The so-called euthanasia during NS psychiatry

The patients of the former asylum Weissenau (the clinic at the site is now part of the Centre for Psychiatry Südwürttemberg / Clinic of Psychiatry I at the University of Ulm) were also not spared. The action “mercy killing”, the destruction of “unworthy life” destroyed 691 patients´ life. Despite of the fact that the action was carried out under the strictest secrecy, it could not be avoided, that all persons working in psychiatry and many citizens knew soon what was going on. The patients also guessed their fate. The grey buses of the “Gemeinnützige Krankentransportgesellschaft” [“Non-profit company for patient transport”] (GEKRAT) with the blinded windows were soon known. In these buses the patients were deported to the extermination centre Grafeneck near Müsingen in the Swabian Alb. The patients were murdered on the same day, their bodies were burnt. According to current state of research, 10.654 mentally ill persons died in Grafeneck. Many of them came from today’s Baden-Württemberg.