Schloss Hartheim

The building became notorious as one of the centers for the Nazi program known as Aktion T4, in which German citizens deemed mentally or physically unfit were systematically murdered with poison gas.

Hartheim lies in the middle of the so-called Eferding Basin, that runs along the River Danube from Ottensheim to Aschach an der Donau.

In 1287, three brothers, Conrad, Peter and Henry of Hartheim, were named as owners of the castle as part of a barter arrangement with the Wilhering Abbey.

In 1898, Camillo Henry, Prince of Starhemberg, donated the castle building, the outbuildings and some land to the Upper Austrian State Welfare Society (Oberösterreichischen Landeswohltätigkeitsverein or OÖ.

[4] In 1946, Alice Ricciardi-von Platen, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who practised near Linz, Austria, was invited to join the German team observing the so-called Doctors' trial in Nuremberg.

Her 1948 book, Die Tötung Geisteskranker in Deutschland, ("The killing of the mentally ill in Germany"), was judged a scandal by German medical professionals.

Since 2003, Hartheim Castle has been a memorial site dedicated to the ten thousands of physically and mentally handicapped persons, concentration camp prisoners and forced laborers who were murdered there by the Nazis.