National Socialist 'euthanasia' on trial. The trial before the Dresden regional court in 1947.

A touring exhibition of the Münchner Platz Memorial, Dresden, and the Pirna-Sonnenstein Memorial.

Nearly 14,000 handicapped and mentally ill persons were killed in the former Pirna-Sonnenstein sanatorium in 1940-41. By the end of the war the National Socialist 'euthanasia' programme had claimed several thousand more victims in other Saxon sanatoriums. The nursing staff involved and the physicians responsible were put on trial in the regional court building at Münchner Platz in Dresden. From 16 June to 7 July 1947 the case was tried before a jury in what came to be known as the Dresden 'euthanasia' trial. These were the most significant proceedings of their kind in eastern Germany. The trial represented a resolute attempt to exact retribution for the murder of innocent people by the means afforded by the rule of law. The course of the trial illustrates the opportunities available to German postwar society to come to grips with National Socialist crimes on its own. However, the subsequent development in eastern and western Germany also clearly shows the limitations and failures in the prosecution of the perpetrators of National Socialist crimes. Fifteen panels present the background, course and public impact of the trial as well as the further criminal prosecution of 'euthanasia' crimes in the two postwar German states. The exhibition presents the life stories of victims of the 'euthanasia' murders. Biographies of perpetrators are also examined with respect to their involvement in the crimes and their justification strategies in the trial. The exhibition is based primarily on the surviving trial documents as well as photographs and documents from archives in and beyond Saxony.

Technical information on the exhibition (German): Datenblatt Euthanasie-Prozess.pdf
Representative panels 5, 12, 13
Information flyers about the exhibition (German): Flyer Euthanasie-Prozess 1.pdf  Flyer Euthanasie-Prozess 2.pdf