|
?:reviewBody
|
-
In 1981, English psychiatrist Lorna Wing proposed the term Asperger's syndrome as a syndrome in which individuals exhibited some symptoms of autism but did not fit that diagnosis as it was understood at the time. Wing chose that name as a reference to Austrian psychiatrist Hans Asperger, whose case reports Wing used to define the syndrome. In 1944, Asperger described a condition he termed autistic psychopathy. Early childhood autism, as a condition, had been described a year earlier by psychiatrist Leo Kanner. Wing argued Asperger's research described individuals who should be included together with early childhood autism, in a wider group of conditions which have, in common, impairment of development of social interaction, communication and imagination. Today, both conditions would fit under an Autism Spectrum Disorder diagnosis. Wing, as described in her 1981 paper, chose the name Asperger's syndrome as more precise and less problematic term than the autistic psychopathy terminology proposed by Asperger: Historians and medical researchers have, however, argued that naming something after Asperger is problematic in and of itself because of his actions during the Nazis' rise to power in the 1930s and 1940s. Though Asperger himself claimed to have resisted Nazi atrocities and held his academic post at the University of Vienna until 1977, the argument that he collaborated with them stems most centrally from the role Asperger played sending children to an infamous children's medical clinic known as Am Spiegelgrund. From September 1939 to the end of World War II, the Nazis undertook a program of involuntary euthanasia targeting disabled children now known as Aktion T4. As described by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: One of these clinics was Am Spiegelgrund, which was closely connected to a children's clinic that employed Asperger — the Vienna University Children’s Clinic — and which was run by a former colleague of his. In 1935 he took charge of the clinic's remedial education ward. In at least two documented instances, children assessed by Asperger at his clinic were sent to Am Spiegelgrund where they perished. As described by medical historian Herwig Czech, in 1941 Asperger examined a girl at his clinic named Herta Schreiber who was two months shy of her 3rd birthday. In records he recommended that Schreiber be sent to Am Spiegelgrund: The girl was ultimately sent to Spiegelgrund. A day after her third birthday, Czech wrote, Herta died of pneumonia, the most common cause of death at Spiegelgrund, which was routinely induced by the administration of barbiturates over a longer period of time. The other documented case concerns a 5-year-old girl named Elisabeth Schreiber (apparently unrelated to Herta). In this case, he argued Spiegelgrund would be the best possibility for her, as revealed in his notes: She died of pneumonia—like Herta and so many other children at Spiegelgrund—on 30 September 1942, Czech wrote, shortly before her sixth birthday. Until recently, the prevailing view regarding Asperger was that he resisted the efforts of the Nazis — a view that stems largely from his own assertions. In a 1974 interview, Asperger claimed that: It is impossible to determine whether Asperger in some cases abstained from reporting children who met the criteria for child euthanasia,' Czech argued. However, it is documented that he personally referred a number of children to the Spiegelgrund 'euthanasia' facility. At the very least, as Ketil Slagstad wrote in the Norwegian journal Tidsskriftet, Asperger was a well-adjusted piece in a deadly regime. While he never joined the Nazi party, he did belong to several Nazi adjacent organizations. He was as well, Czech wrote, able to thrive professionally under the Nazis, including — Asperger said — thanks to the protection of Franz Hamburger, an avowed Nazi and eugenicst. On several occasions, the Nazi regime deemed Asperger to be politically reliable. At a time when Jewish academics and academics deemed politically unreliable were being kicked out of university posts, Asperger was able to advance his own career. In light of these facts and of the documentation that he recommended at least two children to Am Spiegelgrund, the claim that Asperger's syndrome is named after a man who aided the Nazis is True.
(en)
|
![[This page as RDF]](http://data.gesis.org/claimskg/static/rdf-icon.gif){kind=icon}