Interviewee: Benno Müller-Hill, James Watson. Benno Müller-Hill takes James Watson on a tour of the gas chamber at Bernberg Psychiatric Hospital, one of six euthanasia facilities for mental patients established in 1940-41. (DNAi Location: Chronicle > in the third reich > "the final solution" > Reasons for killing. ) Although euthanasia was first used for children with severe birth defects, the practice was extended to mentally ill adults at the beginning of the war – to free up hospital space for wounded soldiers.

Müller-Hill: So, and then finally they had to be burned after, either the brain had to be taken out and sent to [Julius] Hallervorden in Berlin and presumably there were more dissection places here, which are not any more here. And then, they were burned, but this is, frankly I do not know where. Watson: It must have been out of the building. Müller-Hill: It must have been outside presumably. I do not know. Watson: Is that a furnace, that I think is a furnace. Müller-Hill: That is the furnace, that's a picture of the furnace with, and as I said they, they burned about two, three persons at the same time, it must be hard work, much, they claimed much harder work than killing them. Watson: But they killed 14,000 people here at Bernberg. Müller-Hill: Including the people from the concentration camps.

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