On this day in 1939, the first request for child euthanasia was sent to Hitler’s chancellery. Commonly known as the case of “Child K”, the child, born in 1939 near Leipzig, Germany, was blind, and also missing an arm and a leg. Accounts of the case vary since no official medical records exist, but it is clear that the parents were proud Nazis. Shortly after his birth, the child’s parents, Richard and Lina Kretschmar, took him to the Leipzig University Children’s Clinic and requested that the child be put to sleep. Dr. Werner Catel refused, saying that such actions were illegal. Richard Kretschmar wrote directly to Hitler, requesting that “that monster”, as he referred to his son, be euthanized. The request was sent to Hitler’s private chancellery. There, the petition was read by Philipp Bouhler and Hans Hefelman, who decided to bring the request to Hitler’s attention directly because he was a strong advocate for so-called ‘mercy killings’ of people with severe disabilities. Upon reading the request, Hitler summoned his physician, Karl Brandt, to investigate further. He told Brandt that if the child’s condition was as described, the killing would be authorized. Brandt met with the physicians in Leipzig and met the Kretschmar family in Pomssen. Having seen the child himself, Brandt informed Dr. Catel and Dr. Helmut Kohl of Hitler’s instructions and assured them any legal action taken against them would be thrown out. The doctors agreed, and the child was murdered. Official church death records in Pomßen listed the child’s cause of death as “heart weakness” and stated that he died at home, but historians believe that Catel and Kohl injected him with Luminal, a seizure medication. The child lived from February 20, 1939, to July 25, 1939. Euthanasia in Nazi Germany would come to take a total of over 250,000 lives.Not a lot is known about Child K, and until 2006, the child’s name remained a secret until he was identified as Gerhard Kretschmar. Historians still debate whether his name should be used: Some insist on keeping the name private, as per German medical privacy laws, while others insist on using Gerhard’s name as a way of keeping his memory and identity as an individual alive.