14f13 misuse of power

[Nazgul]

Thread Title: Aktion 14f13 and the Misuse of Power: The Real Source of the Gassing Narrative?

My thesis is that the "Shoah" narrative needs to be reframed around documented administrative and industrial attrition rather than the traditional gassing claims. The 14f13 "euthanasia" program is the smoking gun here. This started years ago when Nessie questioned the ramp selections and the termination of "useless eaters," wrongly assuming it applied only to Jews. In my view, 14f13 is the actual source of the "gassing" allegations and the Zyklon B rubbish.

To understand why the "gassing" narrative took such a hold on the post-war imagination, we have to look at the precursor:

Aktion T4.

The T4 Foundation

Before the camps were even at full capacity, the T4 program (named after Tiergartenstraße 4 in Berlin) was already operational within the Reich. This was a "euthanasia" project targeting the mentally and physically disabled. It wasn't run by common soldiers, but by medical doctors who viewed the "incurable" as a biological burden on the state.

The Birth of 14f13

In 1941, this program was extended into the concentration camps under the code 14f13. The "14" was the Inspectorate of Concentration Camps' filing code for "Death," the "f" meant "Death of an inmate," and "13" was the specific code for "Sonderbehandlung" (Special Treatment) via the T4 facilities.

Selection by Doctors

In the early phase of 14f13, the process was strictly "medical":
The Questionnaires: Camp commandants would prepare lists of sick or "decrepit" prisoners.
The Commissions: T4 doctors (like Dr. Friedrich Mennecke) would visit the camps. These were medical "experts" who would sit at tables and "examine" hundreds of prisoners in a day—often just by looking at their physical state or their "productivity" record.

The Criteria: If a prisoner was "yellow" from TNT poisoning at a site like HASAG, or simply too emaciated to stand, the doctor would tick the box for 14f13.

Execution by T4 Personnel

Crucially, in this early period, the executions didn't happen in the camp "gas chambers" people talk about today. Instead:
The selected prisoners were transported to T4 Euthanasia Centres like Bernburg, Sonnenstein, or Hartheim.
The killings were carried out by T4 staff (nurses and technicians) using Carbon Monoxide (CO) gas.
The families were sent fake death certificates (frequently citing "heart failure" or "circulatory collapse").

The Shift to Camp Guards

My argument is that as the war progressed and the number of "useless eaters" exploded due to the appalling conditions I’ve researched (like those in Ukraine or the HASAG plants), the T4 doctors couldn't keep up. This is where the misuse of power began. The "medical" veneer was dropped, and the camp guards were effectively authorized to carry out the "weeding" themselves—often by shooting.

When a prisoner at the ramp saw a doctor or a guard "selecting" people, they knew it meant a death sentence. But they didn't know the administrative reality of 14f13; they only saw the result. This fear of the "medical selection" is, in my opinion, the psychological root of the gassing claims.

Aktion 14f13: Triage for All

In 1941, this program was extended into the concentration camps under the code 14f13. It is important to note that 14f13 was a campaign to murder any camp prisoners who were no longer deemed fit for work, regardless of their ethnic group. This included prisoners categorized as "asocials," political opponents like Czechs and Poles, and Soviet POWs. The common denominator was simply being a "burden to the state".

Ramp Selections as "Rapid Observations"

This administrative triage was most visible during the ramp selections at camps like Birkenau. While figures like Dr. Josef Mengele are often described as conducting "medical observations" here, these were not real medical checks. Because of the massive number of prisoners disembarking from transports, these were "on-sight" judgments.

Mengele and his colleagues would supervise the arriving transports, deciding within seconds who was "fit for work" and who was not. While he quickly noticed the elderly and the frail, his primary medical concern during these rapid observations was identifying infectious diseases like typhus, which threatened the stability of the camp's labour force and the SS staff.

Execution by T4 Personnel

In the early phase of 14f13, the process followed a strict, albeit pseudo-scientific, bureaucratic path:
The Questionnaires: Camp commandants prepared lists of "decrepit" prisoners.

The Commissions: T4 doctors visited the camps to "assess" inmates. In practice, these doctors often selected individuals based on whether they had artificial limbs, wore spectacles, or had "unsatisfactory" personal histories.

The Transfer: Selected prisoners were initially transported to existing T4 killing centres like Bernburg, Sonnenstein, or Hartheim to be gassed by T4 staff.

As the war intensified and the demand for workers grew, the 14f13 program actually faced restrictions. By April 1943, orders were issued to "retire" only mentally ill or disabled prisoners, while even bed-ridden cripples were to be assigned work they could perform from their beds to support the war economy. This shift proves that the "selections" were always about economic utility and administrative "weeding," a process that prisoners—fearing the unknown—interpreted as a broader, indiscriminate program of extermination.

Aktion 14f13 — The Administrative "Bridge" to the Gassing Narrative

To understand the selections at Birkenau, we have to stop looking at them as a unique genocidal event and start seeing them as the final, high-speed evolution of Aktion 14f13.

1. The Linguistic Smoking Gun: "Sonderbehandlung"

It is critical to notice that the term used for the alleged gassings at Birkenau—Sonderbehandlung (Special Treatment)—was the exact same code used for 14f13 in the Reich camps since 1941. Administratively, 14f13 was the "bridge" between the T4 civilian euthanasia program and the camp system.

When Dr. Mengele stood on the ramp, he wasn't performing a new, unprecedented ritual; he was acting as a 14f13 Medical Examiner.

2. Rapid Observation vs. Medical Check

As we see in the letters of T4 doctors like Friedrich Mennecke, the "medical" side of 14f13 was a sham from the start. Mennecke boasted to his wife about examining 2,000 men in "assembly-line fashion."
By the time this reached Birkenau, the "checks" were even faster. Mengele’s "rapid observations" were designed to identify two 14f13 categories:

The Decrepit: The elderly, children, and the frail—the classic "useless eaters" targeted by T4 since 1940.

The Infectious: Because Birkenau was a logistical disaster, the primary driver for "selection" was often Typhus. Identifying the sick wasn't a "genocidal" goal in the SS’s mind; it was a 14f13 quarantine to protect the labor force and the guards.

3. The 1943 "Stop Order" and the Misuse of Power

The most damning evidence for the "misuse of power" is Secret Order No. 612/43 from the WVHA. Berlin explicitly ordered that:
"In the future, only mentally sick prisoners may be selected... All others (tubercular cases, bed-ridden cripples, etc.) are to be basically excepted... and drafted for work they can perform in bed."

The Conflict:
Berlin wanted labor at any cost. But on the ground at Birkenau and HASAG, the "Special Guards" and camp doctors ignored this. They saw a camp full of "yellow" TNT-poisoned workers or typhus victims and used the 14f13 "Sonderbehandlung" code as a trapdoor to dump the sick and save resources.

4. Why the Gassing Narrative Stuck

When a prisoner at the ramp saw their friends "selected" and sent to a "sanatorium" (the 14f13 lie), and then saw their clothes returned a day later, they knew it was a death sentence.

Because the 14f13 process was so brutal, so fast, and so often misused by local authorities to solve logistical crises, the victims interpreted it as an indiscriminate plan to kill everyone. The "gassing" claims and the "Zyklon B rubbish" are the result of prisoners trying to explain the Sonderbehandlung 14f13 they witnessed every day.

In my view, 14f13 didn't just "lead" to the Shoah; for many, 14f13 WAS the Shoah—an administrative "weeding" of the weak that was misread by history as a total extermination program.

[Stubble]

This sort of fits with what 'The Bloodhound' said, however, it is important to note we are talking orders of magnitude lower than what is touted as 'The Holocaust'.

Now, when we are talking about 'ramp selection', this was triage, not 'the final call'. People from the ramp were split and went to medical isolation or the central sauna. Both groups were deloused. In isolation, there were other selections. These were not a death sentence necessarily either. People from these selections would be either 'euthanized' under 14f13, or would be sent to a recovery camp based off of prognosis.

People who 'failed' these selections and arrived at Bergen Belsen for example would refuse transport to the camp saying 'I can walk, I can walk' not knowing they were at a recovery camp, not a death camp. There is testimony to this effect;



I'd timestamp it, but, I can't remember where it is exactly. There is a lot of other useful, if inconvenient, history in here.

(It may not be in this one. I just listened to it at 4x speed and didn't hear it. If this is the wrong presentation I apologize. I will track the clip down. When I do, I will likely clip it from the parent presentation and post it up by itself.)

Those who were indeed incurable however, those who got worse under care, not better, they were 'put down'.

This wasn't some 'wholesale campaign of murder'. It was viewed as medical compassion.

The ravages of epidemics led to comparatively large numbers of deaths via 14f13. When held against the mirror of 'The Holocaust' however, it is minuscule.

I'm not sure if you haven't read the Holocaust Handbook series, or, if you just discount its contents. Regardless, this is covered repeatedly through the volumes along with correspondence regarding both healthcare and euthanasia.

[Nazgul]

I'm not sure if you haven't read the Holocaust Handbook series, or, if you just discount its contents. Regardless, this is covered repeatedly through the volumes along with correspondence regarding both healthcare and euthanasia.

I have read those books, but I find more value in memoirs from people who were actually inside the system—like Peter Lantos, who provides a grounded account of survival rather than a dramatised narrative.
About 17,000 people were murdered under the 14f13 programme, which the Reich euphemistically called 'Sonderbehandlung' (Special Treatment). It is also important to note the role of private industry; companies like HASAG operated with a cold, corporate expediency. They often used their own guards rather than the SS to 'cull' prisoners who were no longer productive, treating human life as a spent resource.
I am currently looking deeper into Treblinka I (the labour camp) and the Ukrainian road crews (DG IV), where thousands died from exhaustion and brutality before ever reaching a destination. The murder of any individual is an abomination, so I fully respect why this horror is referred to as the Shoah.

[Stubble]

I stand on the shoulders of the handbooks a lot because they are well sourced and the references are clear. They also went through a lot of the documentation and collated the highlights in a lot of places.

Sure, there is still more winnowing to be done, but, 54 volumes is one hell of a start.

Of course primary accounts are important as well, however, just like anything else they need to be taken with a grain of salt.

Regarding death being tragic, you'll get no argument from me on that point. I will argue scale and scope however. Reflect on how many passed through the gates vs those deemed incurable and executed under 14f13. A 'holocaust' this does not make. There is also a fine line here between murder and mercy. Also, I'd like to see your source for '17,000'.

Regarding the conditions in the armament plants and the attrition rates, I'm interested in sources. I went back through Speer's desk and didn't see the types of requests for labor I would expect if people were dropping at the rates you posit.

If you have the numbers, I'd like to see your source.

I suppose I should take that to one of the other threads however.

[Nazgul]

A 'holocaust' this does not make. There is also a fine line here between murder and mercy. Also, I'd like to see your source for '17,000'.

As said I do not call this tragedy a holocaust, I call it the Shoah. The Holocaust to me is the total deaths of the catastrophe we call wwI and II. An ethnic group should not rise above all who perished.

http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org ... 14f13.html

Sources:

Friedlander, Henry. The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1995.

Kogon, Eugen; Langbein, Hermann; Rückerl, Adalbert; eds. Nazi Mass Murder, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1993.

Lifton, Robert Jay. The Nazi Doctors – Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, Papermac, London, 1990.

Sofsky, Wolfgang. The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1997.

[Stubble]

Thank you. Source verifies close enough.

The very limited scope surprises me given how upset Konrad Morgen was. I really expected a higher butchers bill. This may perhaps be an exhibition of avarice on my part having to look through 'holocaust calibrated goggles' at it. I mean, The Bloodhound sent men to the gallows.

[Nazgul]

The Bloodhound sent men to the gallows.

Why Konrad Morgen did not—or could not—prosecute.

The Shield of Bureaucracy: If a camp commandant like Koch or a factory manager used 14f13 to "weed out" 500 sick prisoners to make room for new arrivals, they were technically following an administrative directive. 14f13 was legal euthanasia, albeit misused at times.

In "Death Comes in Yellow," Felicja Karay describes the HASAG Werkschutz (factory security) as a brutal, corrupt force that selected "unproductive" prisoners—often those suffering from toxic picric acid exposure—for immediate execution based on industrial utility rather than SS protocol. Operating with autonomy, these guards utilized their power for personal gain and extortion, acting as the primary agents in a system that viewed laborers as expendable industrial fuel.

Legality of the "Cull": To Morgen, this was "proper" camp management. He only intervened when the process was bypassed—for example, if a guard killed a prisoner for personal pleasure or stole the gold teeth that were supposed to be sent to the Reichsbank.

Summary of the Conflict
My view is that the Shoah was not a single "grand plan" from day one, but rather an accumulation of these "administrative weedings" that eventually expanded into a total program. This aligns with the Functionalist school of history, which argues that the Shoah evolved through the "cumulative radicalization" of bureaucrats and local authorities trying to solve "problems" (like "useless eaters") through increasingly lethal means. It all links to expediency and a lack of due care.

[Stubble]

Dude, Koch got sent to the gallows over 3 questionable deaths, not the 2,000,000 he apparently personally killed at Majdanek. I'm assuming he personally opened the valves on the CO2 (that's right, carbon di oxide) bottles to kill everyone, like Kramer at Natzweiler-Struthof with his funnel and garden spigot. I can only imagine someone getting caught murdering 500 people.

Now, Morgen played things up for the allies post war and was a compliant witness like Hoess and others. Rest assured however, had that kind of thing been going on, he would have strung the men responsible up together.

Had the program been used the way you imply, the death toll would be significantly higher, confirmably so, and Morgen would have been the one given the drop, not Koch.

[Nazgul]

Dude, Koch got sent to the gallows over 3 questionable deaths, not the 2,000,000 he apparently performed at Majdanek.

Had the program been used the way you imply, the death toll would be significantly higher, confirmablly so, and Morgen would have been the one given the drop, not Koch.

Karl-Otto Koch was the subject of a rare internal SS prosecution. On 17 August 1944, SS Judge Konrad Morgen formally indicted the Kochs, charging Karl with the embezzlement and concealment of goods valued at at least 200,000 RM, as well as the premeditated murder of three inmates. These murders were allegedly carried out to silence witnesses before they could testify to the SS investigatory commission.

Under the Nazi legal framework, the unauthorized killing of prisoners was considered "arbitrary" and a violation of SS discipline. However, had Koch utilized Aktion 14f13—the program designed to "euthanize" sick or "unproductive" prisoners—the killings would have been sanctioned by the state.

Koch was ultimately executed by the SS, not for the systematic brutality of the camp system, but for corruption and unauthorized killings that threatened SS internal order. While some argue that the specific charges involved a "low" number of victims relative to the camp’s total mortality, this does not necessarily suggest that 14f13 was used sparingly; rather, it highlights that Koch’s specific "crimes" were those that fell outside the state's officially sanctioned machinery of death.

While I cited 17 thousands deaths some authors have put the 14f13 victim count as high as 40 thousand which would seem reasonable considering what happened in the HASAG munition plants.

[Stubble]

I'll have to read the decision again, I got the impression the death sentence was for the unauthorized killings more than the embezzlement. Anybody got a copy handy? I'm not sure I can find my copy in a timely manner (I need to organize this shit).

Regardless, Morgen had a file on 14f13 and he was looking to crack skulls over it. I've heard authors try to do some gymnastics about this and say 'it was to save the German reputation' or 'he was trying to slip the noose', but, honestly, those excuses don't make any fucking sense. The guy didn't like 14f13 and wholesale murder wasn't going to happen under his nose.

[Nazgul]

Regardless, Morgen had a file on 14f13 and he was looking to crack skulls over it. I've heard authors try to do some gymnastics about this and say 'it was to save the German reputation' or 'he was trying to slip the noose', but, honestly, those excuses don't make any fucking sense. The guy didn't like 14f13 and wholesale murder wasn't going to happen under his nose.

Karl-Otto Koch met his end because he stepped outside the "legal" machinery of the SS. On 17 August 1944, SS Judge Konrad Morgen indicted the Kochs for the embezzlement of 200,000 RM and the unauthorized murder of three inmates. These weren't "state" killings; they were private executions intended to cover up Koch’s financial crimes.

In the twisted reality of the Third Reich, Aktion 14f13 was a state-sanctioned medical program. Because it was backed by an official decree, it was "legal." As a judge, Morgen’s hands were tied regarding 14f13—he could not prosecute a man for following a government directive, no matter how much "wholesale murder" it involved.

Koch’s mistake was thinking he had the same authority as the state. He committed "arbitrary" murders, which the SS viewed as a breakdown of military discipline. By executing Koch, the SS wasn't punishing him for being a killer; they were punishing him for being a thief and a rogue who ignored the law. The fact that the number of deaths in Koch's indictment was relatively low isn't an accident—it's proof that Morgen was only able to charge him for the murders that fell outside the "legal" 14f13 framework.

[Stubble]

This fella danced for unauthorized killings too...

Spoiler

Hermann Florstedt

Not the 2,000,000 at Majdanek mind you, but, murder none the less. Operation Harvest Festival I'm sure, right? Or was it, something else?

(Ultimately the SS Courts investigated some 800 people and indicated at least 200 although not everyone was executed or even ended up doing time. The levels of corruption varied.)

Morgen talked to Himmler about 14f13, he wasn't the only one, the authority was restricted and later revoked. It was unpopular, just like T4.

We are talking about a government that completed 3 nuclear tests but didn't use the bomb because they didn't want to kill innocent people and couldn't see a way to use it without doing so.

This wasn't some morally corrupt criminal government bent on murder. Matter of factly, they rooted out corruption, even inside their own ranks.

The picture you are trying to paint here doesn't look at all like what I see when I look at the same thing.

[Nazgul]

The picture you are trying to paint here doesn't look at all like what I see when I look at the same thing.

You’re missing a vital distinction between state-directed operations and state-enabled actions within private industry.

When I talk about HASAG, I am referring to a private corporation where the guards were often not SS, but Werkschutz (factory security) and female overseers trained at Ravensbrück. These guards weren't waiting for a direct 'Order of the Führer' for every action; they were utilizing Aktion 14f13 as a legal shield to 'clear out' unproductive labor. The government didn't need to order every individual death—they simply provided the legislation that reclassified those deaths as 'euthanasia' rather than murder.

Regarding Konrad Morgen: your point actually reinforces my argument. Morgen was a strict legalist. He 'cracked skulls' over Karl-Otto Koch’s embezzlement and arbitrary murders because those actions violated the SS’s internal code and damaged its discipline. However, he could not touch the systematic killings under 14f13 because, under the laws of the Third Reich, that program was legal.

The 'low numbers' in Koch’s indictment (three murders) aren't evidence of a lack of killing at Buchenwald; they are evidence of what Morgen could legally prove was unauthorized. He couldn't prosecute the state-sanctioned 'system'; he could only prosecute the men who broke the system’s own administrative rules. To suggest this was a government 'rooting out corruption' for moral reasons ignores the reality: they weren't punishing Koch for being a killer; they were punishing him for being a thief and for killing without the proper paperwork.

This is off topic but I will mention it here briefly.

The Nuclear Claim:

The assertion that the German government refrained from using a nuclear bomb out of moral concern for "innocents" is a historical myth. The reality is that the Uranverein (German Nuclear Program) never possessed a weapon to use.

Failure of Criticality: Unlike Enrico Fermi, who achieved the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction at the University of Chicago in 1942, the Germans never successfully built a functional nuclear reactor.

The Haigerloch Experiments: As late as March 1945, at the B-VIII research reactor in Haigerloch, German scientists failed to reach criticality (a self-sustaining reaction), let alone the weaponisation of fissile material.

Lack of Fissile Material: The Germans lacked the industrial infrastructure—similar to the massive Manhattan Project facilities at Oak Ridge—to enrich uranium-235 or produce plutonium in quantities required for an atomic device.

In short, the Nazis didn't "choose" not to use the bomb; they failed to build it. Attributing this failure to humanitarianism ignores the regime's well-documented use of V-2 rockets against civilian populations in London and Antwerp, which proves they had no qualms about using indiscriminate "wonder weapons" (Wunderwaffen) to kill innocents.

[Stubble]

Morgen is representative of sentiment and was not alone.

Concerning testing, the Germans tested 3 nuclear weapons. They used a 'gun type' device. They did enrichment out by Ordruff.

The first device was dirty and the second produced an over yield.

I will put a thread together at some point. I stress that the strontium 90 from the baby teeth in the 50's is inexplicable without successful German nuclear weapons testing.

Also, in 2018 a guy was arrested for recovering German fissile material from ww2.

[Nazgul]

Morgen is representative of sentiment and was not alone.

Concerning testing, the Germans tested 3 nuclear weapons. They used a 'gun type device. They did enrichment out by Ordruff.

The first device was dirty and the second produced an over yield.

I will put a thread together at some point I will stress that the strontium 90 from the baby teeth in the 50's is inexplicable without successful German nuclear weapons testing.

Also, in 2018 a guy was arrested for recovering German fissile material from ww2.

1. The Strontium-90 "Inexplicability" (The Data Error)

The claim that Strontium-90 in 1950s baby teeth proves German testing is a massive Correlation vs. Causation error.

The Physics: Strontium-90 is a byproduct of nuclear fission. However, between 1945 and 1958, the US, USSR, and UK conducted over 150 atmospheric nuclear tests (Operation Sandstone, Greenhouse, Ivy, Castle, etc.).

The Systems Audit: To suggest that a few "dirty" tests in Ohrdruf in 1945 caused a global spike in 1955, while ignoring 150+ confirmed megaton-scale atmospheric blasts, is a failure of scale. It’s like blaming a single car exhaust for the smog in Beijing while ignoring the 500 factories next door.

2. The Enrichment Bottleneck (The kJ/kcal of Physics)

The Manpower/Energy Variable: The US Manhattan Project required 130,000 people and roughly 10% of the entire US electrical grid (Oak Ridge) to enrich enough Uranium for two bombs.

The German Reality: By 1944–45, Germany was under total "Industrial Triage." Their electrical grid was being hammered by the war (the 94 million war), and their "manpower" was being churned through the 14f13 loop.

The Audit: Where is the "Hidden Oak Ridge" in Germany? A "gun-type" device needs highly enriched
. You can't do that in a basement in Ohrdruf; you need massive industrial "hardware" that simply didn't exist in the Allied reconnaissance photos.

3. The "Over-Yield" Myth

The Technical Trap: A gun-type device (like Little Boy) is actually very inefficient. It’s hard to get an "over-yield" from a primitive design because the material tends to blow itself apart before full fission (pre-detonation).
The Hearsay: Stories of "Ohrdruf tests" usually rely on a single witness (Cläre Werner) who saw a "flash." In a war of 100 million deaths, flashes are everywhere—conventional ammo dumps, magnesium flares, or V-weapon failures.

4. The "Arrested for Fissile Material" (2018)

This likely refers to the "Bernd T." case or similar hobbyists finding "uranium cubes."
The Reality: The Germans did have uranium (the Heisenberg cubes), but they never achieved a self-sustaining chain reaction (criticality). Finding a piece of raw uranium today isn't proof of a bomb; it’s proof of a failed laboratory experiment.

This is a 'Hardware' fantasy that ignores the Industrial Audit. Nuclear weapons aren't just about 'sentiment' or 'secret tests'; they are about Energy Inputs.

Thermodynamics: The enrichment of requires a massive caloric and electrical investment. In 1945, Germany was running an industrial deficit so severe they were using 14f13 to clear 'unproductive' workers. They didn't have the kJ/kcal to run a Manhattan Project.

Scale: Blaming 1950s Strontium-90 on Ohrdruf while ignoring 150+ Allied atmospheric tests is a failure of basic Systems Analysis.

The Variable: Finding fissile material today just proves they had the 'fuel' but lacked the 'engine.' Like the Shoah, the German nuclear program was a victim of the regime's own Administrative Chaos and resource exhaustion