[2] In spring 1941, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler met with Reichsleiter Philipp Bouhler, head of the Hitler Chancellery to discuss his desire to relieve concentration camps of excess ballast, sick prisoners[3] and those no longer able to work.

[4] Bouhler was Hitler's agent for implementation of Aktion T4, the euthanasia program for the mentally ill, disabled and inmates of hospitals and nursing homes deemed unworthy of inclusion in Nazi society.

This panel included those already experienced from Aktion T4, such as professors Werner Heyde and Hermann Paul Nitsche and doctors Friedrich Mennecke, Curt Schmalenbach, Horst Schumann, Otto Hebold, Rudolf Lonauer, Robert Müller, Theodor Steinmeyer, Gerhard Wischer, Viktor Ratka and Hans Bodo Gorgaß.

This left just a few questions to be answered, such as personal information, date of admission to the camp, diagnosis of incurable disease, war injuries, criminal referral based on the German penal code and any previous offenses.

The final assessment was made using the information in the reporting form and was limited to the decision as to whether or not the prisoner would be steered toward "special treatment" 14f13.

Prisoners being considered for the preliminary selection were sometimes encouraged by the camp administration to come forward if they felt sick or unable to work.

Many prisoners believed the lie and readily volunteered but, after they were gassed at the killing centers, the victims' belongings were sent back to the camp warehouse for sorting.

Between September and November 1941, 3,000 prisoners from Dachau and several thousand people from Mauthausen and neighboring Gusen concentration camp, were gassed at Hartheim.

A detailed description was given by Vinzenz Nohel to the Linz Kriminalpolizei in September 1945, who were investigating Nazi war crimes that had taken place nearby.

Nohel, who had worked as a "burner" in the crematorium at the Hartheim Killing Facility, was convicted at the Dachau-Mauthausen Trial in 1946 and sentenced to death, for the murder of sick and incapacitated concentration camp prisoners and was executed in 1947.

Pursuant to the general guidelines of the Bavarian police of August 1, 1936, those to be taken into Schutzhaft ("protective custody") were "gypsies, vagrants, tramps, the "work-shy", idlers, beggars, prostitutes, troublemakers, career criminals, rowdies, traffic violators, psychopaths and the mentally ill."[10] Shortages of labour for the war economy led to a Concentration Camps Inspectorate (CCI) decree on March 26, 1942, which was distributed to all camp commandants.

The camp commandants of the concentration camps are asked to focus particular attention to this.The Chief of the Central Office (signed) Liebehenschel SS-Obersturmbannführer[12]A year later, the deteriorating war situation required further restrictions on selections, to ensure that every able-bodied worker could be put to work in the war economy.

The Reichsführer-SS and Chief of the German Police has decided that in the future, only mentally ill prisoners may be retired by the doctors' panel assembled for Action 14f13.

The fuel requirements for this purpose are therefore dropped.After these guidelines were issued, only the Hartheim Killing Facility was needed and those at Bernburg and Sonnenstein were closed, bringing the first phase of Aktion 14f13 to an end.

According to a command from April 11, 1944, new guidelines were issued and began the second phase of Aktion 14f13 in which no forms were filled and selections were not made by a doctors' panel.

Those being gassed at Hartheim included forced laborers from eastern Europe, who were unfit for work, Soviet prisoners of war and Hungarian Jews, as well as concentration camp inmates.