Turns out Asperger was a Nazi

[BWV]

The Austrian doctor after whom Asperger syndrome is named was an active participant in the Nazi regime, assisting in the Third Reich’s so called euthanasia programme and supporting the concept of racial hygiene by deeming certain children unworthy to live, according to a study by a medical historian.

Herwig Czech, from Vienna’s Medical University, has made the claim in an academic paper published in the open access journal Molecular Autism, following eight years of research into the paediatrician Hans Asperger.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...aided-and-supported-nazi-programme-study-says

https://molecularautism.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13229-018-0208-6

 

[fresh_42]

I think this is a problematic judgement for several reasons.

Firstly, it's easier to judge if you already have all the facts. Many Jews in the Third Reich actually welcomed Hitler in the beginning, and I remember a Russian who liked the days of occupation for the law and order it brought with it. Both is hardly to imagine from a modern point of view.

Secondly, it is basically ambiguous to compare times. One can pick literally from each epoch people, who might have been reputable then and despicable from a modern standpoint.

Thirdly, there are really many people, who have been Nazis at the time, even scientists. Fortunately there also have been the others, although not enough. And even Henry Ford sympathized with them.

And last but not least, I would not imagine how nowadays prominent politicians, artists and scientists will be judged decades later. I'm sure there are as many questionable individuals among them and people will ask: How could they?

All those arguments cannot justify the facts, but put it into perspective.

 

[BWV]

But the point of the article, if you read it, is that Asberger actively sent disabled children to be murdered. That, to me, is not an issue of ambiguity or moral relevance

 

[Dr.D]

But the point of the article, if you read it, is that Asberger actively sent disabled children to be murdered. That, to me, is not an issue of ambiguity or moral relevance

So, what would you like to change? Take his name away from the condition? Do you have another candidate in mind.

 

[BWV]

I don't have an agenda, just interesting history - no clean hands for the medical establishment in the Third Reich. Asperger's Syndrome was eliminated from the DSM in 2013 - it was just rolled up into the broader category of Autistic Spectrum Disorders.

 

[pinball1970]

So, what would you like to change? Take his name away from the condition? Do you have another candidate in mind.

I think am with BWV on this one if all the claims are true

A few people (autistic) wrote into the free paper in the UK and said they would be happy to change the name.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Nazi is not right; he was not a member of the party.

He certainly was a eugenicist, but so were others, e.g. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood.

 

[fresh_42]

I'm not sure how far those articles reflect reality or are written to raise quotes. Wikipedia also states this, but a bit more factual:

His role during the Nazi period is assessed differently. Asperger was - possibly based on statements of himself - long years as someone who was in opposition to the National Socialists. In a study of the historian Herwig Czech of 2013/14, however, he was able to find evidence by analyzing older files that Asperger was involved in the so-called child euthanasia on Spiegelgrund in the murder of children and in 2018 provided further evidence for this. Concretely, Asperger had transferred two severely handicapped children directly to the Viennese institution, in which about 800 girls and boys were murdered. He was also in a commission in which it was selected whether children be brought in special schools or in the youth welfare institution. In summary it says:

“The narrative of Asperger as a principled opponent of National Socialism and a courageous defender of his patients against Nazi ‘euthanasia’ and other race hygiene measures does not hold up in the face of the historical evidence. What emerges is a much more problematic role played by this pioneer of autism research. Future use of the eponym should reflect the troubling context of its origins in Nazi-era Vienna."

This leaves two cases of "severely handicapped children", which is from our point of view a murder case. But was it in the 30's? The Spartans did the same. And what about the murdered girls in China and India and so on? It's too easy to judge nowadays in our western world. Again, I do not justify it. I try to imagine which ethics ruled at the time and place, because this is the only allowed measurement. Otherwise we should better start to immediately address nowadays problems instead, at least rather than discussing a name for a condition which wasn't even chosen by him, but by Lorna Wing.

 

[BWV]

This leaves two cases of "severely handicapped children", which is from our point of view a murder case. But was it in the 30's? The Spartans did the same. And what about the murdered girls in China and India and so on? It's too easy to judge nowadays in our western world. Again, I do not justify it. I try to imagine which ethics ruled at the time and place, because this is the only allowed measurement.

Well the ethics of 1940 Austria was that it was OK to murder disabled children as well as Jews, gay people, Gypsies etc. not sure where that argument gets you. Certainly the outright murder of disabled children was beyond the standards of the remainder of Western society of the time, certainly the Catholic society in which Asberger grew up in. Not that Sanger, Helen Keller, Leland Stanford and other prominent eugenicists of the period were necessarily against killing what they termed defectives, after all Nazi eugenics was largely adopted from American eugenics.

 

[fresh_42]

Well the ethics of 1940 Austria was that it was OK to murder disabled children as well as Jews, gay people, Gypsies etc. not sure where that argument gets you.

I did not have said this nor even something similar. Please do not misquote me! However, I'm not so sure and high-handed as you obviously are with respect to disabled children. We still have it today on this globe! Do you have any references which provide evidence to the value of life of disabled children back in the '30s or do you just claim whatever you like? I do not justify the deed, by no means, but you already wrongly stated that Asperger was a Nazi. It is easy to condemn people from a NYC penthouse appartment disregarding times as well as circumstances almost a century ago. Back then it wasn't that long ago when poor people in that region of the world sold their children to farmers for work ...

"The Swabian children (German: Schwabenkinder) were peasant children from poor families in the Alps of Austria and Switzerland who went to find work on farms in Upper Swabia and the Swabian Jura. Usually they were sent by their parents to become seasonal workers. ... The child markets were abolished in 1915, yet the trade of children did not end completely until compulsory schooling for foreign children was introduced in Württemberg in 1921." (Wikipedia)

... or had them work in industrial jobs or mining.

"In 1853, the minimum age for factory work was raised to twelve years. As late as 1858, however, 12,500 children between the ages of 8 and 14 worked in Prussian factories. As a result of child labor, the Labor Inspectorate was founded in Prussia. A child protection law, which came into force on 1 January 1904, prohibited the employment of children under the age of twelve in commercial enterprises in the German Empire. The child labor in family businesses was allowed in 1906 for under 10-year-olds." (Wikipedia)

What does this tell you about the value of life? Of disabled life? What makes me angry is the lack of consideration of conditions which are needed for a judgement, and the fact, that there are more urgent cases to worry about - today. I know that this sounds like a justification, which it is not. It is the demand to evaluate circumstances.

Certainly the outright murder of disabled children was beyond the standards of the remainder of Western society of the time, certainly the Catholic society in which Asberger grew up in.

What you all know. Can you support this statement, or are you again just guessing? E.g. the catholic church basically kept silent upon what happened during those years in Germany. Children didn't count as long as they haven't been baptized, and this catholic attitude lasted until the current pope (April 20, 2007).

"The Church's teaching expressed in the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church is that "Baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who have had the possibility of asking for this sacrament." (Wikipedia)

So don't tell me about the standards of a catholic environment, I grew up in one.

It is legitimate to question the name of this specific condition, and I would support to change it, although I'm not certain if it might help, i.e. people tend to use what they already are accustomed to. But to shout out Nazi is a bit too simple, easy, and cheap.

 

[Helios]

I think BWV should have said "the ethics of the Austrian people in 1940" instead of "the ethics of 1940 Austria" because countries themselves don't have ethics. They don't have minds or brains. There is no mind of Austria.

 

[BWV]

I did not have said this nor even something similar. Please do not misquote me! However, I'm not so sure and high-handed as you obviously are with respect to disabled children. We still have it today on this globe! Do you have any references which provide evidence to the value of life of disabled children back in the '30s or do you just claim whatever you like? I do not justify the deed, by no means, but you already wrongly stated that Asperger was a Nazi. It is easy to condemn people from a NYC penthouse appartment disregarding times as well as circumstances almost a century ago. Back then it wasn't that long ago when poor people in that region of the world sold their children to farmers for work ...

... or had them work in industrial jobs or mining.

What does this tell you about the value of life? Of disabled life? What makes me angry is the lack of consideration of conditions which are needed for a judgement, and the fact, that there are more urgent cases to worry about - today. I know that this sounds like a justification, which it is not. It is the demand to evaluate circumstances.

What you all know. Can you support this statement, or are you again just guessing? E.g. the catholic church basically kept silent upon what happened during those years in Germany. Children didn't count as long as they haven't been baptized, and this catholic attitude lasted until the current pope (April 20, 2007).

So don't tell me about the standards of a catholic environment, I grew up in one.

It is legitimate to question the name of this specific condition, and I would support to change it, although I'm not certain if it might help, i.e. people tend to use what they already are accustomed to. But to shout out Nazi is a bit too simple, easy, and cheap.

Sorry, but killing children is beyond the pale, particularly for a doctor for whom the victims are his patients. I don’t think that an issue of cultural relativism between now and 75 years ago. The OP thread title was hyperbolic, but so what? If you weren’t a member of the Nazi party but supported some of the worst of its policies and saw your career flourish as a result what is the difference?

I mention the Catholic Church because, whatever it’s other failings, it consistently and loudly opposed eugenics.

 

[Helios]

I don’t think that an issue of cultural relativism between now and 75 years ago.

This sentence doesn't seem grammatically correct

The OP thread title was hyperbolic

This is not true. The OP thread title was false. Asperger was not a Nazi.

 

[fresh_42]

I mention the Catholic Church because, whatever it’s other failings, it consistently and loudly opposed eugenics.

On August 3, 1941, the bishop and later Cardinal Clemens August Count von Galen in the St. Lamberti Church in Münster a sermon on the destruction of "unworthy" life in the context of "Action T4", in which he indicted the open removal of mentally and physically disabled people to nursing homes and their subsequent assassination indicted. ... Von Galen stated that he had learned how "On the order of Berlin" mentally ill patients were sent to systematic killing for they would be unproductive and therefore "unworthy of life". He condemned this previously secretive practice in all sharpness. That speech presented a novelty insofar as the church until then avoided referring to the "euthanasia" killings openly or addressing the public or publicly criticizing it for different reasons.

http://wwwuser.gwdg.de/~terhoeve/Die Reaktion der katholischen Kirche auf das Euthanasie-Programm I am DrittenReich.pdf

Ten years late, don't you think so?

Again, the world wasn't, isn't and never will be as black and white as some like to sell it. There is a good reason why our trials are so complicated and lengthy.

The only ones - exceptions like M. Spanlang or M. Kolbe and others aside - who openly opposed the Nazi orders, basically for getting drafted, have been Jehova's witnesses.

 

[BWV]

http://wwwuser.gwdg.de/~terhoeve/Die Reaktion der katholischen Kirche auf das Euthanasie-Programm I am DrittenReich.pdf

Ten years late, don't you think so?

Again, the world wasn't, isn't and never will be as black and white as some like to sell it. There is a good reason why our trials are so complicated and lengthy.

The only ones - exceptions like M. Spanlang or M. Kolbe and others aside - who openly opposed the Nazi orders, basically for getting drafted, have been Jehova's witnesses.

Ten years? It was less than 2, the killings began in September 1939 with the start of the war

Far from being socially acceptable, even the Nazis had to tread lightly when starting the program:

Karl Brandt, personal doctor to Hitler and Hans Lammers, the head of the Reich Chancellery, testified after the war that Hitler had told them as early as 1933—when the sterilisation law was passed—that he favoured the killing of the incurably ill but recognised that public opinion would not accept this.[38] In 1935, Hitler told the Leader of Reich Doctors, Gerhard Wagner, that the question could not be taken up in peacetime, "Such a problem could be more smoothly and easily carried out in war". He wrote that he intended to "radically solve" the problem of the mental asylums in such an event.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4

Again, apparently we disagree on the murder of disabled children in an advanced Western society 79 years ago being a morally ambiguous issue.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Interesting report. Thanks for sharing. The hostility level is too high on this one for further discussion. Closing shop.