Hearing about the acts of Nazis has unfortunately become a part of day-to-day life in recent months, with marches in America and other nasty events occurring far too frequently. However, this week the atrocities which happened during the war hit a lot closer to home, when Herwig Czech published ‘Hans Asperger, National Socialism, and “race hygiene” in Nazi-era Vienna’: a report that casts a new, and darker, light on autism researcher, Hans Asperger.
In the report, Czech cites new information gathered from Asperger’s personal files which illustrate that Asperger’s involvement with the Nazis didn’t just end at taking opportunities over his Jewish colleagues (as once theorised), but that Asperger also adhered to many Nazi ideologies, resulting in the forced sterilisation of autistic children as well as arrangements for many of his patients (including a 3 year old girl) to be collected for euthanasia clinics – a decision which, he believed, was ‘out of great responsibility towards the German people’.
A Response to Hans Asperger’s Actions:
In response to the new information concerning Hans Asperger, Carol Povey of the National Autistic Society stated that: ‘no one with a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome should feel in any way tainted by this very troubling history.’ However I’ve got to admit it’s kind of hard not to.
I was at university this week, trying to cram for an assessment, when the news of the publishing reached me and although I had much bigger priorities to concern myself with on that day, it wasn’t long until the news was circling my mind, casting shadows over all my thoughts.
Sure, I had heard stories of Hans Asperger’s involvement with the Nazi’s before. In fact, the first autism blog I ever read featured a long discussion about Hans Asperger’s activities during the 40s. But truth be told I read that 10 years ago, and never finished that article as I use to subscribe to the ‘ignorance is bliss’ philosophy – something which is considerably easier when the alternative is admitting that the man who part of your identity is named after, not only sent children to their deaths, but also regarded people just like me with disgust and disdain.
Herwig Czech, the writer of the report on Hans Asperger, has stated that: ‘there is no evidence to show [Asperger’s] contributions to autism research were tainted by his problematic role’ and that ‘purging the term Asperger from the medical lexicon would not be helpful.’ However, these are thoughts I can’t quite bring myself to share.
I understand that everyone reacts different but, to me, this news is all too reminiscent of how I felt after hearing about the crimes of Lostprophets lead singer: Ian Watkins; Suddenly it didn’t matter that their music had formed the soundtrack to my final days of high school, or that the band still had five other members who were not associated with Watkins, as from then on, whenever I thought of anything to do with their music, it made me feel disgusting – as all I could think of was that one vile individual who had preyed on vulnerable children.
The problem here is that I can’t just delete Asperger’s off my playlist and move on… or can I?
Asperger’s as a concept was recently removed in the DSM-5 (for reasons which I have discussed here) and although this has been a slightly controversial topic in the past, I can’t imagine there would be too much resistance in light of this recent discovery. Of course, the benefits of this would mean that everyone would have the same universal diagnosis, which is handy for many reasons, but personally, I can’t think of a greater motive for progress than to remove any association of Hans Asperger from this great community and let his name be eventually lost with time.
Carry on the Conversation:
This is a conversation which needs to be had, so today please share your thoughts on the simple question’ where do we go now?’ in the comments below.
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Thank you for reading and I will see you next Saturday for more thoughts from across the spectrum.
