The Administrative Context of Sonderbehandlung
The claim that the term Sonderbehandlung (Special Treatment) was merely "jumped on" out of desperation ignores the specific administrative and legal framework of the camp system. The term was formally codified under Aktion 14f13 (also documented as Sonderbehandlung 14f13). This was the administrative extension of the T4 programme into the concentration camps, where the sick, the elderly, and those deemed arbeitsunfähig (unfit for work) were systematically culled.
The Legal Fear: From "Euthanasia" to Murder
It is important to note that the Nazi leadership was acutely aware that "euthanasia" or "mercy killing" (Gnadentod) could be legally misconstrued as murder (Mord) by the German judiciary and the public—particularly the churches. Because of this legal sensitivity, the term "mercy killing" was scrubbed from official bureaucratic titles and replaced with the more clinical and ambiguous "Sonderbehandlung". This allowed the state to operate outside the traditional penal code by framing the killing of prisoners as a standard administrative procedure.
Evidence in Documentation
While some argue the word has been "wrongly ascribed" to mass killing, the historical record shows that the term was a deliberate euphemism used to mask lethal actions in official paperwork.
SS Record-Keeping Manuals
Bouhler instructed Oberdienstleiter Viktor Brack... to implement the new order... The scheme operated under the Concentration Camps Inspector and the Reichsführer-SS under the name "Sonderbehandlung 14f13". The combination of numbers and letters was derived from the SS record-keeping system: 14 for the Concentration Camps Inspector, f for deaths (Todesfälle), and 13 for the cause of death—killing by poison gas in the T4 killing centers.
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Adolf Eichmann’s Definition
During his 1961 trial, Eichmann admitted that while the term had general logistical uses, its primary meaning within the camp system was lethal:
"Sonderbehandlung" means the transportation in general, the deportation... And special treatment also means killing, yes. But all of these things... IV B 4 could neither influence nor prevent nor promote.
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The Korherr Report (1943)
The term appears in the Korherr Report, which provided the statistical accounting of the "Final Solution." In section 5, Korherr specifically categorises Sonderbehandlung as a distinct entity from overall evacuations:
"Evakuierungen insgesamt (einschl. Theresienstadt und einschl. Sonderbehandlung) — 1,873,549 Juden."
The "Smoking Gun": Himmler’s Redaction
The most damning evidence that Sonderbehandlung was an incriminating term for killing is Heinrich Himmler’s direct order to remove it from the Korherr Report before it was shown to Hitler. Himmler instructed that it be replaced with the word durchgeschleust ("processed") to maintain the camouflage of the operation.
— Source: Himmler’s Directive to Korherr"The Reichsführer-SS [Himmler] wishes that in no place should 'special treatment of the Jews' be mentioned. It must be called 'transportation of the Jews toward the Russian East'..."
The Reality of "Mercy Killing" in the Camps
Finally, we must look at who was receiving this "special treatment." In many cases, these killings were applied to those who had become terminally ill through the camp system’s own systematic failures. This included victims of grueling transports who suffered from acute renal failure (such as the Corfu Jews) and the Muselmänner—prisoners whose bodies had broken down from starvation and exhaustion to the point of no return. Within the twisted logic of the Konzentrationslager, "Special Treatment" was the bureaucratic tool used to liquidate those the state had already rendered "life unworthy of life." It are these conditions which are the basis of ongong research
Closing Statement
The argument that Sonderbehandlung was not synonymous with killing fails because the Nazis themselves treated the word as an admission of a crime. They abandoned "euthanasia" to avoid the legal definition of murder, and they eventually abandoned "special treatment" because the euphemism had become too transparent. The term wasn't "jumped on" by historians; it was a carefully managed piece of linguistic camouflage designed to bridge the gap between state policy and industrialised killing which was terminating the lives of those terminally ill.
