The deliberate starving of babies was a long-established Nazi technique of killing. Baby starvation was first carried out during the euthanasia killings in 1939, when physically or mentally handicapped babies were deliberately left to die. Hermann Pfannmüller, a Nazi doctor and early exponent of infanticide by starvation, stated in 1939 that starving was a ‘simpler and more natural’ way than poison or injection. He devised a method whereby the baby’s food was not suddenly withdrawn, but rations were slowly reduced. This was the means now practised at Ravensbrück: although the mothers had very
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