Am Spiegelgrund clinic

Am Spiegelgrund was a children's clinic in Vienna where 789 patients were murdered under the Nazi program of child euthanasia. The clinic was established in 1940, and operated out of Am Steinhof psychiatric hospital buildings emptied by Aktion T4. It was closed in 1945, after the liberation of Vienna. At Am Spiegelgrund, sick and disabled children and adolescents were subjected to unethical human experimentation and medical neglect, as well as physical and psychological abuse. Some died by lethal injection and gas poisoning; others by disease, starvation, exposure to the elements, and "accidents" relating to their conditions. The brains of up to 800 victims were preserved in jars and housed in the hospital for decades. In 1942, the clinic was divided into the Vienna Municipal Mental Clinic for Children "Am Spiegelgrund" and the Vienna Municipal Reformatory "Am Spiegelgrund". Children and adolescents committed to the reformatory were also physically and psychologically abused. The clinic has gained contemporary notoriety, due in part to the treatment of children by lead psychiatrist Heinrich Gross. Gross was responsible for the deaths of at least nine "defective" children, but may have played a major role in the killing of hundreds more, and preserved many dead children as medical specimens. Gross went unpunished for his actions after the end of World War II and became a court psychiatrist in Austria, with much of what he did only becoming public knowledge very late in his life. The clinic is also today known because of the children referred to it by Austrian psychiatrist Hans Asperger, whose possible role in the patient selection process in the Children's Ward came to light in the 2010s, making him a highly controversial figure in recent years. However, a 2024 analysis by Klaus Schepker and Christine Freitag, based on the examination of patient medical records and transfers, concluded that Hans Asperger did not violate professional medical ethics during the Nazi period, did not participate in or recommend child euthanasia, and that fatal decisions were made by other physicians responsible for patient transfers and reporting.

Beginning in the spring of 1938, an extensive network of facilities was established for the documentation, observation, evaluation and selection of children and adolescents, whose social behavior, disabilities, and/or parentage did not comply with the Nazi ideology. The recording of these individuals often began in infancy. Doctors and midwives across the Reich reported mental and physical abnormalities in newborns and children to health authorities. In 1941 in Vienna, seventy-two percent of newborns were documented within their first year of life by the city's more than 100 maternity clinics. Anyone who came into contact with a health institution was systematically recorded into a "hereditary database" which included the patient's genetic information. Over 700,000 Viennese citizens were entered into this database. Genetic information was compounded with school assessments and with employer information and criminal records, when applicable. Many within Vienna's healthcare system adhered to Nazi eugenics, and patients of all ages were funneled into specialized facilities, in which many patients were mistreated and killed. Throughout Germany and Austria, euthanasia centers were established, including Hadamar Euthanasia Centre and Hartheim Euthanasia Centre, for people with mental or physical disabilities. Children were not spared. Many children were "mercifully" sent to children's hospitals, and among the most prominent of these was the Kinderspital (Children's Clinic) Am Spiegelgrund in Vienna. Among the patients were those deemed "life unworthy of life". As part of the Steinhof psychiatric complex the Spiegel

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