In July 1933 a so-called Hereditary Health Court was established at the district courthouse in Erkelenz as in all districts in the German Empire, whose task was to direct the forced sterilisation of mentally and physically handicapped people as part of what later became Hitler's "Euthanasia Programme", known after the war as Action T4. This programme of Nazi violence saw the systematic murder of those seen by the Nazis as "asocial", "inferior" and "unworthy of living". In Erkelenz, such people ended up in Nazareth House in Immerath.