Gerhard Kretschmar

Gerhard Herbert Kretschmar (20 February 1939 – 25 July 1939) was a German child born with severe disabilities. After receiving a petition from the child's parents, the German Führer Adolf Hitler authorized one of his personal physicians, Karl Brandt, to have the child euthanized. This marked the beginning of the program in Nazi Germany known as a "euthanasia program" – Aktion T4 – which ultimately resulted in the murder of about 200,000 people with mental and/or physical disabilities. Until recently the identity of this child had not been disclosed, although it was known to German medical historians. One German historian, Udo Benzenhöfer, argued that the child's name could not be disclosed because of Germany's privacy laws relating to medical records. In 2007, however, the historian Ulf Schmidt, in his biography of Karl Brandt, published the child's name, the names of his parents, the place of his birth and the dates of his birth and death. Schmidt wrote: "Although this approach [of Benzenhöfer and others] is understandable and sensitive to the feelings of the parents and relatives of the child, it somehow overlooks the child itself and its individual suffering... By calling the child 'Child K', we would not only medicalize the child's history but also place the justifiable claim of the parents for anonymity above the personality and suffering of the first 'euthanasia' victim." Schmidt did not disclose whether the child's parents were still living. Gerhard Kretschmar was born in Pomssen, a village south-east of Leipzig. His parents were Richard Kretschmar, a farm labourer, and his wife Lina Kretschmar. Schmidt describes them as "ardent Nazis." Gerhard was born blind, with either no legs or one leg, and with one arm. (The original medical records are lost, and second-hand accounts vary.) He was also subject to convulsions. Brandt later testified that the child was also "an Idiot", although how this was determined is not stated. Richard Kretschmar took the newborn Gerhard to Dr Werner Catel, a pediatrician at the University Children's Clinic in Leipzig, and asked that his son be "put to sleep.