Bouhler, Philip (1899 - 1945)
Born in Munich on 2 September 1899, the son of a retired colonel, Bouhler rose to become Chief of the Fuhrer's Chancellery and
head of the notorious euthanasia programme . After four years in the Royal Bavarian Cadet Corps and service in World War I (during which he was seriously wounded), Bouhler apprenticed with various publishers.
In 1922 he abandoned the University of Munich philosophy school to help edit the Volkische Beobachter. From 1925 to 1934 he was Geschaftsfuhrer (business manager) of the NSDAP.
In 1933 he became a Reichsleiter of the Nazi Party and was elected member of the Reichstag for the district of Westphalia. In 1934 he was made Police President of Munich and became Hitler's Chief of Chancery, responsible for the preparation of decrees that were never officially published. At the same time Bouhler was also Chief of the Party's Censorship Committee for the Protection of National Socialist Literature and of the Study Group for German History Books and Educational Material.
In 1942 he published Napolean, the Comet - Path of a Genius, which was one of Hitler's favourite bedtime reading books. The soft - faced, bespectacled, mild - spoken Bouhler who 'looked more like an American college - boy than a Gruppenfuhrer of the SS' (Gerald Reitlinger) was one of the shadowiest figures in the National Socialist elite. His office was responsible for the euthanasia institutes which used gas chambers filled with carbon monoxide gas to get rid of the mentally sick - and later for the gassing camps for Jews in Poland.
On 16 August 1941 Bouhler was ordered by Hitler to halt the euthanasia programme as a result of public protests. At the end of the war, Bouhler increasingly sought Goering's protection and it was at the latter's headquarters at Zell - am - See in May 1945 that Bouhler and his wife committed suicide shortly before the Americans arrived.
http://home.nordnet.fr/~fghesquier/T4c.htm
http://www.davidicke.net/emagazine/v.../nazidocs.html
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/text/x04/xm0414.html
http://www.geocities.com/onemansmind/hr/nazi/T4.html
Re: Philip Bouhler
