Many German Insane Being Put To Death . . . BISHOP DENOUNCES Unproductive Aged And Incurably Sick May Also Be 'Listed' BERLIN- (Correspondence of the Special News Service)-The spreading practice of "mercy killing," quietly advocated by certain nazi quarters, has come into the spotlight in Germany. An officially approved film, "Ich Klage An," ("I Accuse") has made the question of killing mental defectives, invalids and the incurably sick, because they are "unproductive" under the nazi concept, one of public debate. At the same time the outspoken Bishop of Muenster, Count Clemens August Von Galen, has made an expose of nazi "mercy deaths" and denounced the practice. Some ago the Lutheran bishop, Theophil Wurm of Wuerttemberg, also attacked "mercy death" teaching in a letter addressed to Adolf Hitler. Bishop Von Galen, who un• hesitaingly speaks his mind and of late has even defied the gestapo (secret police), warned that if the principle of "killing unproductive fellow creatures" is recognized, then even the lives of crippled war veterans and aged aren't safe. Many Put To Death. "I have been assured that in the ministry of the interior and in the office of the reich's leader of physicians (health director) Dr. Leonardo Conti, no secret is made of the fact that a great number of insane in Germany already have been deliberately killed and in the future as to be killed," he declared as recently as Aug. 3 in a sermon at St. Lamberti's church, Muenster, Westphalia.. There is no reliable information as to how many thousands of Germans already have been a mercy death, apparently through painless gas. Catholic bishops, in a letter read in all churches last June in which they warned that "Christianity was at stake in Germany,' also made a fleeting generalized reference to mercy, killing. This to nation is noverything and the incardinal nazi principles that the dividual nation may biding guide for "Only what, is use to the what we do or don't do," Dr. Conti recently soid. Bodies Cremated. "As the cause of death then, any kind of sickness is given. Bethe body is immediately cremated, relatives and also the police later can no longer establish whether the sickness really existed and what was the cause of death." The letter, quoting the bishop's letter, continued: "It is a frightful teaching which would justify the murder of the innocent, which fundamentally permits the violent killing of invalids no longer able to work, cripples incurably ill and those weakened with old age. "According to reliable information, lists are now being made up in sanatoriums and asylums in the province of Westphalia of such patients who as so-called unproductive countrymen, are to be taken away and in short time deprived of their lives. The first transport left the institution at Marienthal near Muenster in the course of this week , (July 31). "Have you, have I, the right to live only 80 long as we are productive, 50 long as we are regarded as productive by others? * x x If it is once conceded that men have the right to ill 'unproductive fellow creatures* and if at first it affects only poor helpless insane persons--then funda• mentally the murder of all unproductive persons is given free rein, the murder of incurable sick persons and cripples unable to work, invalids of industry and the war. weak of with us all when we become old and age and therewith unprodue- tive."
