Philipp Bouhler

German official

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June 17, 2026

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Philipp Bouhler was a high-ranking official in Nazi Germany and a close associate of Adolf Hitler. He was instrumental in the implementation of the T4 Program, a Nazi initiative that systematically murdered individuals deemed "unfit to live," including those with incurable illnesses, disabilities, or mental health conditions. Bouhler, along with Hitler's personal physician Karl Brandt, was tasked with expanding physicians' authority to grant "mercy killings". This program, named after its Berlin address, involved the killing of over 70,000 people during its official operation and continued covertly until the end of World War II. The T4 Program served as a precursor to the Holocaust, utilizing gas chambers and foreshadowing the mass deportations and exterminations that followed.1

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T4 Program
Karl Brandt and Chancellery chief Philipp Bouhler were “charged with responsibility for expanding the authority of physicians…so that patients considered incurable, according to the best available human judgment of their state of health, can be granted a mercy killing.”
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Karl Brandt and Chancellery chief Philipp Bouhler were “charged with responsibility for expanding the authority of physicians…so that patients considered incurable, according to the best available human judgment of their state of health, can be granted a mercy killing.”
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