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The Sonnenstein Euthanasia Clinic ((ドイツ語:NS-Tötungsanstalt Sonnenstein); literally "National Socialist Death Institution Sonnenstein") was a Nazi killing centre located in the former fortress of Sonnenstein Castle near Pirna in eastern Germany, where a hospital had been established in 1811. In 1940 and 1941, the facility was used by the Nazis to exterminate around 15,000 people in a process that was labelled as euthanasia. The majority of victims were suffering from psychological disorders and intellectual disability, but their number also included inmates from the concentration camps. The institute was set up after the beginning of the Second World War as part of a Reich-wide, centrally coordinated and largely secret programme called ''Action T4'' for the "Elimination of life unworthy of life" (''Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens'') or the killing of what the Nazis called "dead weight existences" (''Ballastexistenzen''). Today, the Pirna Sonnenstein Memorial Site (''Gedenkstätte Pirna Sonnenstein'') stands to commemorate the victims of these crimes. The Nazi euthanasia facility at Sonnenstein Castle also supported the personnel as well as the organisational and technical preparation of the Holocaust. It was one of six that were in operation in Saxony, and was — not least due to the number of victims — one of the worst sites of Nazi war crimes in the state. The methods of gassing prisoners at Sonnestein were later adopted at Auschwitz to exterminate the Jewish prisoners. == Early history == The former castle site and fortress was converted in 1811 into an institute for mentally-ill patients who were assessed as curable. It had a good reputation due to its psychiatric reform concept. The general practitioner and first director of this hospital was Ernst Gottlob Pienitz. Between 1855 and 1914 the institute was expanded with numerous extensions. From 1922 to 1939 the national nursing college (''Pflegerschule'') was moved to Sonnenstein. In 1928, Hermann Paul Nitsche was appointed as the director of the Sonnenstein Mental Institution (''Heilanstalt Sonnenstein'') which had now grown to over 700 patients. Under his tenure a systematic exclusion of chronically mentally ill patients began. As an advocate of "racial hygiene" and "euthanasia" he carried out compulsory sterilisations, questionable compulsory medical procedures and food rationing on patients with "hereditary" diseases. In autumn 1939, the institute was closed to the public in a decree by Saxon Interior Minister and set up as a military hospital and resettlement camp. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Sonnenstein Euthanasia Centre」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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