The machine that can be rented and is then collected to be re-used by other clients kills painlessly at the push of a button.

The machine, which is smaller than the size of a shoebox, and is painted green, involves the user putting a needle in a vein and the machine does the rest at the touch of a button.

The poison it uses, potassium chloride, is the same as that used in executions in the United States.

Kusch, who calls his machine "an act of Christian love", was a public prosecutor in Stuttgart, and was a member of the German conservatives CDU and the Hamburg regional parliament until he founded his own party in Hamburg.

His main intention is to circumvent the existing prohibition on active euthanasia in Germany.