On 3rd August 1941 in St. Lambert’s church Bishop Clemens August accused the Nazi regime of murdering mentally handicapped persons. He points out that his written protests and appeals had been of no avail.

“We must expect, therefore, that the poor defenceless patients are, sooner or later, going to be killed. Why? . . . because in the judgement of some official body, on the decision of some committee, they have become “unworthy to live”, because they are classed as “unproductive members of the national community”. The judgment is that they can no longer produce any goods: they are like an old piece of machinery which no longer works, like an old horse which has become incurably lame, like a cow which no longer gives any milk. What happens to an old piece of machinery? It is thrown on the scrap heap. What happens to a lame horse, an unproductive cow? I will not pursue the comparison to the end – so fearful is its appropriateness and its illuminating power . . . If it is once admitted that men have the right to kill “unproductive” fellow­men – even though it is at present applied only to poor and defenceless mentally ill patients – then the way is open for the murder of all unproductive men and women: the incurably ill, those disabled in industry or war. The way is open, indeed, for the murder of all of us, when we become old and infirm and therefore unproductive”.