Russians, the elderly and disabled children

The brutality of the Nazi regime extended to the killing of thousands of Russians, Poles, the elderly, and disabled children–all recorded in the M Room. Some prisoners spoke about the killing of children in orphanages because of their disabilities, and how the elderly were refused treatment in hospitals because they were 'cripples'. The murder of these groups was part of Hitler's plan to create a pure 'Aryan Race'. What comes across in the transcripts is that the prisoners never questioned the morality of these actions by the Nazi Regime.

One prisoner, for example, was overheard saying that 3,000 Russians escaped from Smolensk where they were imprisoned under 'appalling conditions', and 2,500 who were recaptured were 'systematically shot'. Another prisoner talked about the use of stud farms (the Lebensborn programme) where 'good German girls' agreed to conceive the baby of an SS officer. A few days before she went into labour, she was taken back to one of the special 'stud farms'. After the birth, the baby was immediately taken away by the Nazi regime. The mother never saw her child again.

Knowledge of this programme was not made public until the 1980s, and yet the secret listeners had already heard about it. They were not allowed to talk about their work because they had signed the Official Secrets' Act.