[".... sustaining their lives has no advantage to the nation." Handicapped children as research subjects and the development of preventive tuberculosis vaccination].

A large number of disabled or mentally retarded children were killed in the so-called "Children's Special Departments" of the "Third Reich". Such children were also misused in scientific research. Ambitious physicians in the "Children's Special Departments" experimented on them in co-operation with other institutions. This happened, for example, in research on the tuberculosis vaccine. The effectiveness of the BCG-vaccine was primarily tested at the Children's University Hospital of Vienna. Disabled children were first given the BCG-vaccine and then deliberately contaminated with tuberculosis bacteria. Subsequently they were transferred to Vienna's "Children's Special Department" in order to be killed there. The efficacy of vaccination was supposed to be demonstrable in their autopsies. Vaccine experiments were also carried out in the "Children's Special Departments" of Berlin and Kaufbeuren. There were likewise co-operations with other institutions.