Newsgroups: alt.revisionism
Subject: Holocaust Almanac: Sonderkost - Starvation as policy
Followup-To: alt.revisionism
Organization: The Old Frog's Almanac, Vancouver Island, CANADA
Keywords: Falthauser,Kaufbeuren,Pfannmueller,Schultze,starvation

Archive/File: holocaust diet.01 
Last-modified: 24 Feb 93. knm.
See Also: holocaust/farben farben.002

I decided to include the following article in this series because it
reflects directly upon official government attitudes and actions
regarding those considered "useless eaters," and calls our attention to
the deliberate nature of those attitudes and actions. 

It is important to remember that this policy of starvation was quite
deliberate, as Dan Gannon and others who deny the Holocaust contend that
the dead found during the liberation of various death camps died of
starvation and disease, caused by the "horrible conditions" of "those
final days of the war." Clearly, the starvation, and subsequent physical
degeneration, were as deliberate as the homicidal gassings.

In addition to the text below, those wishing to learn more about the
deliberate starvation of Auschwitz inmates are directed to our I.G.
Farben archives, which deal with the Monowitz (The I.G.  Farben Buna
plant associated with the Auschwitz death camp) diet - in particular,
the file HOLOCAUST/FARBEN FARBEN.002.)

   "Starvation as a method of killing was a logical extension of the
   frequent imagery of mental patients as `useless eaters.' As a passive
   means of death, it was one more element of general neglect.  In many
   places, mentally ill patients had already been fed insufficiently;
   and the idea of not nourishing them was `in the air.' Moreover, the
   establishment of a new central accounting office clearly decreased
   the money available to the institutions.<7> (The decrease in heating
   in winter had similar causes and effects.) Dr.  Pfannmueller was
   responding radically to such a mood when he instituted his method of
   starving children to death at Eglfing-Haar.  In 1943, he would
   establish two Hungerha"user (`starvation houses') for an older
   population.

   On 17 November 1942, the Bavarian Interior Ministry held a conference
   with directors from mental hospitals throughout the area.  The state
   commissioner for health, Walter Schultze, asked the directors to
   provide a `special diet' (Sonderkost) for hopelessly ill patients.
   Because several doctors were hesitant about this idea, it was
   suggested that a ministerial proclamation to that effect would be
   useful.  Not at all hesitant was Dr.  Pfannmueller, who `dramatically
   ...  told how he had once grabbed a slice of bread from a nurse who
   had wanted to give it to a patient.' (Pfannmueller had been involved
   in the decision to hold the 1942 conference.) Also involved was the
   director of the Kaufbeuren Asylum, Dr.  Valentin Falthauser, who had
   directed the child `euthanasia' program there and had also served as
   a T4 expert since 1940.  Falthauser passes around the Kaufbeuren
   menu: `totally fat-free,' it consisted of potatoes, yellow turnips
   and cabbage (usually green, occasionally red) cooked in water.  `The
   effect,' he claimed, `should be a slow death, which should ensue in
   about three months.'<8>

   The directive followed on 30 November, supported, it was claimed, by
   orders from Berlin.  `In view of the war-related food situation and
   the health of the working asylum-inmates,' it was no longer justified
   to feed everyone equally, `whether they contribute productive work or
   are in therapy or whether, on the other hand, they are merely being
   cared for ...  without accomplishing any useful work worth
   mentioning.' The henceforth privileged patients were to be those
   performing useful work or in therapy, childrene capable of education,
   war casualties and those with senile diseases.  Directors were
   ordered to institute such a program `without delay.'<9>" (Lifton) 

<7> Klee, "Euthanasie" pp. 329-330
<8> Ibid., pp. 429-430
<9> Ibid.

                              Work Cited

Lifton, Robert J. The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology 
of Genocide.  London: Papermac, 1986 (Reprinted 1990)

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