Background
Victor Brack was born in Haaren on 9 November 1904.
Victor Brack was born in Haaren on 9 November 1904.
After studying economics at Munich, Brack became for a time the chauffeur of the future Reichsführer-SS. In 1936 he was appointed head liaison officer with the Department of Health by Philip Bouhler, though he had no previous medical experience. Subsequent¬ly he rose to become Bouhler's deputy and Chief of Section II in the Fiihrer’s Chancellery with the rank of Oberdienstleiter (approximately equivalent to colonel). Between December 1939 and August 1941 Brack’s office, known as T4 in the Reich Chancellery, was responsible, during the ‘Euthanasia Action', for disposing of more than 50,000 Germans- including the mentally sick, chronically sick and concentration camp prisoners defined as ‘unfit for work’, ‘politically undesirable elements’ and Jews.
Brack himself personally interviewed and selected personnel for the euthanasia establishments and in March 1941 offered the services of his network of institutes to Himmler, for the purpose of sterilizing 3-4,(XX) Jews daily in X-ray clinics. Later in 1941 he prepared to set up mobile gassing vans in Riga and Minsk to exterminate Jews ‘unsuitable for work’. Subsequently, he was closely involved in the construction of the death camps and the installation of gas chambers in Poland, operated by some of his personnel from the euthanasia institutes. On 20 August 1947 Brack was sentenced to death at the end of the Doctors' Trial, by an American military tribunal for his part in the euthanasia programme. He was hanged in Landsberg prison.
