T4 Program, also called T4 Euthanasia Program, Nazi German effort to kill the mentally ill, physically or mentally disabled, emotionally distraught, and elderly. Adolf Hitler initiated the program in 1939, and, while it was officially discontinued in 1941, killings continued covertly until the German military defeat in 1945. The program was named for the Berlin address—Tiergartenstrasse 4—where the offices that directed it were located. The criteria for inclusion in this program were not exclusively genetic, nor were they necessarily based on infirmity. An important criterion was economic. Nazi officials assigned people to this program largely based on their economic productivity. The Nazis referred to the program’s victims as “burdensome lives” and “useless eaters.” The program’s personnel killed people at first by starvation and lethal injection, but they later chose asphyxiation by poison gas as the preferred killing technique. Program administrators established gas chambers at six killing centres in Germany and Austria.
