Between 1939 and 1945 the Nazis systematically murdered as many as 200,000 mentally ill or physically disabled people whom they stigmatised as 'life unworthy of life'. This book is the first full-scale study in English of this complex and covert series of operations known as the 'euthanasia' programme. Using a wealth of original archive material, Michael Burleigh considers the role of all those involved in the programme: bureaucrats, doctors, nurses, health officials, lawyers, clerics, and also parents, relatives and the patients themselves.

'History writing is rarely this moving, or so admirably, effectively, moralistic' David Ceserani, The Guardian

'This is a terrible book. Everyone ought to read it. It is difficult to believe that this account could be improved upon' Anthony Storr, The Times

'Outstanding and chilling [Michael Burleigh] provides one of the most penetrating insights yet written into the individual mentalities - and the resulting collective mentality - of Nazism.' Niall Ferguson, The Sunday Telegraph

'An impressive and harrowing book whose suppleness, fluency and accretion of case histories and anecdotes particularise the horror.' Jonathan Meades, Mail on Sunday