Hans Asperger

Hans Asperger (1906 to 1980) was an Austrian physician who studied atypical neurology, especially in children, and gave his name to Asperger syndrome. He wrote more than 300 publications on psychological disorders, which won international renown only after his death, in the 1980s. His legacy became contested in the late 2010s, when he was accused of referring children to the Am Spiegelgrund clinic in Vienna during the Nazi period, a clinic that murdered hundreds of disabled children under the child euthanasia programs of the Third Reich. Later peer-reviewed studies concluded that, although what he knew of the program cannot be settled with certainty, he was not directly involved in it and did not breach professional medical ethics, and that the fatal decisions about some of his patients were made by other physicians. Historical records show that he did not report any children to the Berlin health authorities, although the law required it.