Like other sane people, I am aghast that such scare tactic would be used and even more shocked that it is actually believed.
My great-grandmother killed herself because of an identical story.
Let me give you some background first. My mother was born in Straubing, Bavaria in 1917. She came to maturity during Hitler's rule and lived through WW II. She never talked much about Hitler or about those years. Just brief anecdotes.
The one which is the inspiration for this detail is about her grandmother. My mother's mother had tuberculosis and bore eight children. Catholic, no birth control. But I digress. The grandmother played a major role in the family as a caregiver during the mother's illness and intermittent trips to the spa.
When Hitler came to power my mother's grandmother drowned herself because she knew Hitler would gas the old people. Now, Hitler gassed a lot of people including mentally and physically handicapped though I don't believe the "useful" elderly were a specific target.
My mother will be 92 next month and is in the advanced stages of Alzheimers. Perhaps her grandmother was as well when she took her own life.
But the point is ... this idea may have been floated originally as hyperbole (am I being too generous in my thinking?), but people now believe it. Will some act on their mistaken belief? Do these people have any concept of the possible consequences of their political games?