Asperger's children: the origins of autism in nazi vienna, hardcover/edith sheffer

Hans Asperger, the pioneer of autism and Asperger syndrome in Nazi Vienna, has been celebrated for his compassionate defense of children with disabilities.

But in this groundbreaking book, prize-winning historian Edith Sheffer exposes not only Aspergers involvement in the racial policies of Hitlers Third Reich, but his complicity in the murder of children.

As the Nazi regime slaughtered millions across Europe during WWII, it sorted people according to race, religion, behavior, and physical condition for either treatment or elimination.

Nazi psychiatrists targeted children with different kinds of minds--especially those thought to lack social skills--claiming the Reich had no place for them.

Asperger and his colleagues endeavored to mold certain autistic children into productive citizens, while transferring others they deemed untreatable to Spiegelgrund, one of the Reichs deadliest child-killing centers.

In the first comprehensive history of the links between autism and Nazism, Sheffer uncovers how a diagnosis common today emerged from the atrocities of the Third Reich.

With vivid storytelling and wide-ranging research, Aspergers Children will move readers to rethink how societies assess, label, and treat those diagnosed with disabilities.