Grafeneck Euthanasia Centre

The Grafeneck Euthanasia Centre housed in Grafeneck Castle was one of Nazi Germany's killing centres as part of their forced euthanasia programme. Today, it is a memorial site dedicated to the victims of the state-authorised programme also referred to since as Action T4. At least 10,500 mentally and physically disabled people, predominantly from Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, were systematically killed during 1940. It was one of the first places in Nazi Germany where people were killed in large numbers in a gas chamber using carbon monoxide. This was actually the beginning of the Euthanasia Programme. Here was also settled the central office of "Charitable Ambulance Transport GmbH", which was responsible for the transport of T4 and was headed by Reinhold Vorberg.LocationGrafeneck is a castle-like property in Grafeneck, a part of the municipality of Gomadingen in Baden-Württemberg.HistoryBuilt around 1560, the Grafeneck Castle served as a hunting lodge for the Dukes of Württemberg. In the 19th century, it was used by the Forest Service. The Samaritan Foundation acquired it in 1928, setting up a handicapped home. In 1929, the charitable non-profit organisation Samariterstiftung established an asylum for disabled people. On 13. October 1939 Richard Alber, from 1938 to 1944 Landrat of district Münsingen, ordered that Schloss Grafeneck had to be cleared the next day. Four buses brought around 100 disabled men and few women from Grafeneck (together with 12 employees) to the monastery St. Elizabeth in Reute. All patients who were accommodated there survived Aktion T 4.