Valentin Faltlhauser was a psychiatrist and, from 1929, medical director of the Kaufbeuren sanatorium and nursing home. He came from an estate family in Wiesenfelden (Bavaria) and studied in Munich and Erlangen. In 1906, he submitted his doctoral thesis on Huntington’s disease. During the First World War, he was a staff doctor in the reserves.
As a psychiatrist, he was in favour of »open care«, in which chronically ill patients should be treated as outpatients wherever possible. Faltlhauser initially rejected »euthanasia« and the teachings of the eugenicists. However, this changed soon after the National Socialists came to power. He worked both for the NSDAP’s Racial Policy Office and as a judge at the Hereditary Health Court in Kempten. He became a »T4« expert for transfers to the Grafeneck and Hartheim killing centres. He also developed the so-called »starvation diet«, which caused the sick to starve to death within a few weeks. He was also involved in »paediatric euthanasia« as a member of the planning »Reich Committee for the Scientific Registration of Hereditary and Congenital Diseases« and as head of the »Paediatric Specialist Department in Kaufbeuren-Irsee.
