In 1946, an American military court tried German doctors and administrators for their participation in war crimes and crimes against humanity. This is one of the criminal charges against them.

Between September 1939 and April 1945 all of the defendants Karl Brandt, Blome, Brack, and Hoven unlawfully, willfully, and knowingly committed war crimes . . . in that they . . . ordered, abetted, took a consenting part in, and were connected with plans and enterprises involving the execution of the so-called "euthanasia" program of the German Reich in the course of which the defendants herein murdered hundreds of thousands of human beings . . . This program involved the systematic and secret execution of the aged, insane, incurably ill, of deformed children, and other persons, by gas, lethal injections . . . in nursing homes, hospitals, and asylums. Such persons were regarded as "useless eaters" and a burden to the German war machine. The relatives of these victims were informed that they died from natural causes, such as heart failure. German doctors involved in the "euthanasia" program were also sent to Eastern occupied countries to assist in the mass extermination of Jews.

–Count 2: War Crimes
Trials of War Criminals before the Nuremberg
Military Tribunals, 1946


According to the passage, why did the Nazis feel justified in murdering people with disabilities?

They felt they were a burden to society.
They suspected they had committed war crimes.
They knew they were likely to die of heart failure anyway.
They discovered that most of them were Jewish.