User:Claireh0611/sandbox

Involvement of Hans Asperger
There are dueling opinions on the question of Asperger’s involvement with the Nazi eugenics program or if he was aware of the euthanasia program occurring at Am Spiegelgrund. During World War II, Asperger worked as a doctor in the University of Vienna Pediatric Clinic, which was in close proximity to Am Spiegelgrund. In Molecular Autism in 2018, Herwig Czech attempted to dissect Asperger’s involvement with the clinic. Czech found that Asperger signed his diagnostic reports with “Heil Hitler,” and his name was present in the patient files of mentally deficient children who were sent to Am Spiegelgrund. One notable patient of Am Spiegelgrund whom Asperger had a great involvement with was Herta Schreiber, a three-year-old child who had experienced mental and physical delays after having encephalitis. In his diagnostic report of Schreiber, Asperger wrote:

“Severe personality disorder (post-encephalitic?): most severe motoric retardation; erethic idiocy; seizures. At home the child must be an unbearable burden to the mother, who has to care for five healthy children. Permanent placement at Spiegelgrund seems absolutely necessary.”

While it is not confirmed that Asperger was aware of the euthanasia happening at Am Spiegelgrund, it is notable that he called for Schreiber’s “permanent placement;” he did not expect her to ever return to her family or society. Czech’s opinions are refuted by those of Ketil Slagstad, who stated that while Asperger’s involvement should be examined according to the circumstances at the time, it is not disputable that he sent patients to Am Spiegelgrund, and the diagnosis “Asperger’s syndrome” should only be used when there is awareness of Asperger’s past.

Authors with differing opinions give Asperger’s devout Catholicism and his lack of membership to the Nazi party as reasons that he was not associated with the medical and racial eugenics occurring at the time. Instead, he was reported to have been more involved with the diagnoses of disabled patients and was said to have “protected” children from Nazi eugenic policies (Silberman); his diagnoses were described as “prescient” as opposed to “thin research.” Asperger was not personally involved in any euthanasias and “was cleared of wrongdoing after the war.” (Sheffer) It is described that in a draft of a speech Asperger was preparing, his colleague Josef Feldner stated that it was “...a bit too Nazi for your reputation.” (Felder)