The Daily Telegraph

Child doctor Asperger ‘willingly became cog in the Nazi killing machine’

Study reveals man whose name was given to the autistic condition sent young to their deaths

- By Henry Bodkin

THE pioneering Austrian paediatric­ian whose name came to describe patients with Asperger’s syndrome was in fact a Nazi collaborat­or who sent children to their deaths, new research reveals.

Hans Asperger, for decades regarded as a hero in the field of autism treatment and research, was said to have shielded his young patients from the menace of Hitler’s annexation.

But analysis of a crucial set of documents, which was previously assumed destroyed, shows he not only collaborat­ed with the Nazis but “actively contribute­d” to their eugenics programme.

Published in the journal Molecular Autism, the study says Asperger referred “profoundly disabled” children to the Am Spiegelgru­nd clinic in Vienna despite knowing what took place there. The children were murdered through starvation or lethal drugs as part of the Third Reich’s goal of engineerin­g a geneticall­y “pure” society through “racial hygiene”. Their cause of death was recorded as pneumonia.

Asperger, who died in 1980, subsequent­ly became director of a Viennese children’s clinic and after the war was appointed chairman of paediatric­s at the University of Vienna.

In his inaugurati­on speech he boasted of being hunted by the Gestapo for supposedly refusing to hand over children. However, the new research by Herwig Czech, a historian of medicine at the Medical University of Vienna, finds no evidence for this.

Instead, he concludes “Asperger managed to accommodat­e himself to the Nazi regime and was rewarded for his affirmatio­ns of loyalty with career opportunit­ies”.

Mr Czech also found the paediatric­ian “publicly legitimise­d race hygiene policies including forced sterilisat­ions”.

A linked editorial, co-written by Cambridge experts, says Asperger “willingly became a cog in the Nazi killing machine” and describes a wider corruption of the psychiatri­c profession which “became part of the eyes and ears of the Third Reich”.

Asperger was the first to designate a group of children with distinct psychologi­cal characteri­stics as “autistic psychopath­s”. He published a study on the topic in 1944, which only found internatio­nal acknowledg­ement in 1980, after which “Asperger’s syndrome” became increasing­ly used, in recognitio­n of his contributi­on to the field.

Asperger’s syndrome is one of a range of similar conditions on the autism spectrum disorder which affects a person’s social interactio­n, communicat­ion and behaviour.

Carole Povey, director at the UK’S Centre of Autism, said: “Obviously, no one with a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome should feel in any way tainted by this very troubling history.”

 ??  ?? Dr Hans Asperger at the children’s clinic of Vienna University in the Thirties. He is said to have actively collaborat­ed with the Nazis
Dr Hans Asperger at the children’s clinic of Vienna University in the Thirties. He is said to have actively collaborat­ed with the Nazis

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