Autism’s Dark Roots in Nazi Vienna
A new book from the historian Edith Sheffer investigates the medical pioneer Hans Asperger’s involvement in a Third Reich eugenics program.
“F in science and art,” the Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger once proposed, “a dash of autism is essential.” For success in medicine during the heyday of the Third—which Nazi psychiatrists defined as commitment to community (just what autistic children were said to lack)—was crucial.
