Luminal / Luminaletten, containing the active ingredient phenobarbital, are still commonly used drugs for the medical treatment of epilepsy. In 1990, the pharmaceutical company Bayer transferred the manufacturing rights to the American company Desitin.

LUMINAL

The drug with the trade name Luminal / Luminaletten (active ingredient phenobarbital) was approved in 1912 and was used in »children’s euthanasia« from 1940 to 1945. The murders according to the »Luminal scheme« were developed in the »children’s ward« in Leipzig-Dösen.

Together with morphine and veronal, the drug belongs to the class of narcotics known as barbiturates. It has been used since its approval for the treatment of epilepsy and was long used as a popular sleeping aid. In the popular series »Geisteskrankenpflege. A Teaching and Handbook for Mental Health Nurses,« published in 1937, states the following about medicinal sedatives: »These also include various types of sleeping pills, some of which are also given as sedatives or, like Luminal and Prominal, have proven effective as seizure-limiting agents.«

Adults were allowed to receive a maximum single dose of 0.4 grams and a maximum daily dose of 0.8 grams of Luminal. Children were only allowed to receive between 0.015 and 0.2 grams, depending on their age.

Luminal and other barbiturates were administered to children and adolescents in the »children’s wards« of the institutions over a long period of time in order to induce shallow breathing and thereby provoke respiratory diseases such as pneumonia. Often, the children died a protracted death by suffocation.

If this was not enough to cause the death of the children and adolescents, they were given further doses or morphine to hasten death. On cold days, the children were left unclothed and the windows of their rooms were opened to accelerate respiratory infections. Many medical records list the official cause of death as »catarrh, pneumonia,« but the administration of medication was not usually noted. In addition to pneumonia and bronchitis, tuberculosis and diphtheria also appear as alleged causes of death.