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 […]
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 […]
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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 […]
Most of us think of Dr. Hans Asperger as a benevolent and compassionate Austrian psychiatrist whose penetrating analysis of pediatric “psychopathy” led to our present understanding of the autism spectrum of disorders. He has been regarded as a considerate defender of children with disabilities and a leader among Vienna psychiatrists. In this groundbreaking study of […]
Julia Boyd reviews Asperger’s Children by Edith Sheffer To anyone who thought of Hans Asperger as a brilliant doctor whose pioneering work in child psychiatry led to a more enlightened understanding of autism, Edith Sheffer’s book will come as a nasty shock. At first, he seems set to emerge a hero. After all, anyone who could […]