#OTD: On August 24, 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered the official suspension of Aktion T4, Nazi Germany’s so-called “euthanasia” program—the systematic murder of institutionalized people with mental and physical disabilities.

The program began in 1939 and involved murdering patients through gassing, lethal overdoses, starvation, and neglect. Between January 1940 and August 1941, approximately 70,273 people were killed at six centralized gassing facilities, according to the program’s own records.

Public awareness and protests contributed to the suspension. Catholic Bishop Clemens August von Galen delivered a widely circulated sermon condemning the killings on August 3, 1941. Hitler’s order stopped the centralized, openly organized phase of T4, but it did not end Nazi mass murder of disabled people. Decentralized killings in hospitals and institutions continued through the war, and many T4 personnel were later transferred to help conduct mass murder in occupied Eastern Europe.

Thus, August 24, 1941, marks the official suspension—not the true end—of the Nazi euthanasia killings. Estimates for the total number of people murdered in the broader disability-killing program, including its covert continuation, reach roughly 200,000 or more.