Close

Hans Asperger

CBC Radio Interview: “A Nazi in all but name”: Author argues Asperger’s syndrome should be renamed

Edith Sheffer Interview with CBC Radio The Current Anna Maria Tremonti

The Austrian pediatrician for whom Asperger syndrome is named doesn’t deserve the honour of that title, because he collaborated with Nazis to euthanize children, according to a professor. Hans Asperger conducted pioneering research into what he termed “autistic psychopathy” during the Second World War in Vienna, but was also involved in screening children in line with Nazi policies […]

Read More

The Mercury News: UC Berkeley historian exposes Hans Asperger as Nazi-era autism doctor who sent kids to their deaths

The Mercury news Review of Aspergers Children Book

After UC Berkeley historian Edith Sheffer learned that her 17-month-old son had autism, she did what many parents in her situation do: She read everything she could. And like many parents, Sheffer soon came across stories about Hans Asperger. In autism circles, he’s long been known as the pioneering Viennese doctor whose name became synonymous […]

Read More

Asperger’s Children by Edith Sheffer review – the origins of autism in Nazi Vienna

By Ian Thomson In popular legend, Asperger was an Oskar Schindler figure who shielded his charges from euthanasia. The truth is more uncomfortable. In nursing homes across the Third Reich, children diagnosed with “autistic spectrum disorder” (as it might be termed today) were systematically murdered. Caring for these “useless mouths” drained the Aryan state. It was […]

Read More

Bob Brockie: Edith Sheffer’s book exposes Hans Asperger’s crimes.

Stuff NZ review of Asperger's Children book

After a long, distinguished career as a practicing psychologist and medical specialist, Hans Asperger, professor of psychology at Vienna University, died in 1980. Starting in the 1930s, Asperger made a name for himself as a pediatrician, specialising in the mental disorders of children and was a pioneer in the study of autism. He found that severely autistic […]

Read More

Literary Hub: What Reviewers Say About Asperger’s Children Book

lithub reviews of Asperger's Children

Literary Hub is an organizing principle in the service of literary culture, a single, trusted, daily source for all the news, ideas and richness of contemporary literary life. There is more great literary content online than ever before, but it is scattered, easily lost—with the help of its editorial partners, Lit Hub is a site readers […]

Read More

The Horrifying History of Hans Asperger

By Jill Escher A new book by Bay Area scholar of German history Edith Sheffer tells a detailed, grisly story of the Nazi disability death machine and the role within it played by Hans Asperger, the Vienna clinician for whom the now defunct diagnosis of “Asperger’s Syndrome” was named. “Asperger’s Children: The Origins of Autism […]

Read More