Werner Catel

Who was Werner Catel?

Werner Catel, Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at the University of Leipzig, was one of three doctors considered an expert on the programme of euthanasia for children and participated in the Action T4 "euthanasia" program for the Nazis, the other two being Carl Hans Heinze Sennhenn and Ernst Wentzler.

In early 1939 a farm labourer called Richard Kretschmar requested Catel's permission to euthanize one of his children, now identified as Gerhard Kretschmar, who had been born blind and deformed. Catel deferred the matter and suggested the father write directly to Hitler for permission. Hitler subsequently sent Dr. Karl Brandt to confer with Catel and decide on a course of action. On July 25, 1939 the child was killed.

The T4 program was influenced by a popular book written in 1920 by Alfred Hoche and Karl Binding. Catel as part of this program was surely influenced by it, too. In his 1962 publication, "Grenzsituation des Lebens", Catel argued for the reintroduction of euthanasia. As had Binding and Hoche, Catel identified three possible types of euthanasia.

Reine Euthanasie:

"Real" euthanasia was seen as the killing of a person who was suffering from so much pain, that an ever increasing amount of pain reducing drugs had to be administered. This consequently lead to the person's death.