ETA: Anger directed at her, not you; I hope that's clear.
It was not necessarily, so I appreciate the ETA as well as the link. I agree with Mnookin that Sheffer would have done better to start the story with her son's feelings rather than leave them feeling like an ulterior motive, and I agree with you that the effect comes off like a smear campaign rather than the recognition of a complicated piece of history.
Toward this point—
And that wasn't so we could be exterminated; ironically, it's always been inferred that he was passionate in the defense of the positive qualities and capacity to contribute of children with (what came to be known as) "Asperger's syndrome" because (apparently despite his allegiances) he didn't want us disposed of.
After encountering the initial review of Sheffer, I went and read Herwig Czech's "Hans Asperger, National Socialism, and 'race hygiene' in Nazi-era Vienna" (Molecular Autism 2018 9:29) because it's freely available online. He is the Austrian medical historian whose work was mentioned but not reviewed by the New York Review of Books; his article came out a month before Sheffer's book. He devotes more than a few lines to considering that claim and does not find evidence in favor of it.
He is very clear about what Asperger can and cannot be accused of:
"Neither the Spiegelgrund files nor the case records from Asperger's own ward contain evidence that he ever reported one of his patients to the Public Health Office for the purpose of sterilization . . . Unlike with Herta and Elisabeth Schreiber [two cases where the family circumstances and nature of disability make it difficult to interpret Asperger as in any way not knowing that his recommendation for 'permanent placement' at Spiegelgrund would lead to death], in the 14 cases in question, there is no indication that Asperger expected the children he recommended for transferal to Spiegelgrund (explicitly or by suggestion) to be killed there."
But he really does not believe that just because Asperger didn't rush to tip his child patients into the T-4 program means he was engaged in active protection of them:
"The language he employed to diagnose his patients was often remarkably harsh (even in comparison with assessments written by the staff at Vienna's notorious Spiegelgrund 'euthanasia' institution), belying the notion that he tried to protect the children under his care by embellishing their diagnoses . . . This argument is problematic for several reasons. First, the idea that Asperger tried to protect autistic children from Nazi race hygiene cannot be easily reconciled with the fact that he dedicated a section of his 1944 paper to the hereditary basis of the condition, insisting that 'any explanation based on exogenous factors is absurd'. While this position anticipated later advances in autism research, the question arises whether under the circumstances it was prudent to put such an emphasis on heredity. Had protecting his autistic patients been his primary goal, he could have taken a more flexible position, one less likely to draw the attention of race hygienists to his patients. Second, his prognoses for the 'autistic psychopaths' were far from universally optimistic . . . the argument that Asperger focused on the better-functioning cases in order to protect all of his patients (presumably, by deflecting attention from the less well-functioning) is questionable given that Asperger by no means withheld from his readers the severe impairments of some of the boys. Third, there is a fundamental flaw in the assumption that highlighting the potential of some of his patients would benefit all of them. The children at the lower end of the spectrum did not benefit from the potential ascribed to those on the higher end, even if they shared the overall diagnosis of 'autistic psychopathy.' Their fate did not depend on the diagnostic label but on the individual assessment of their skills or disabilities. If anything, the utilitarian argument of 'social worth' employed by Asperger (and by many of his colleagues) increased the danger to those children who could not fulfill these expectations. Focusing on the higher functioning children did nothing to lift the boat for all of them; those on the lower end still risked being left to drown."
And he does not—in sharp contrast to Shaffer—feel that this information should make any difference to the continued use of the diagnosis or the term:
"An overall appraisal of Asperger's place in the history of youth psychiatry and Heilpädagogik and as a pioneer of autism research will have to go beyond the focus of this paper, which despite the importance of the Nazi period for understanding Asperger's life and work cannot replace a long due biography. Regarding Asperger's contributions to autism research, there is no evidence to consider them tainted by his problematic role during National Socialism. They are, nevertheless, inseparable from the historical context in which they were first formulated, and which I hope to have shed some new light on. The fate of 'Asperger's syndrome' will probably be determined by considerations other than the problematic historical circumstances of its first description—these should not, in any case, lead to its purge from the medical lexicon. Rather, it should be seen as an opportunity to foster awareness of the concept's troubled origins."
It looks as though Czech was much more interested in determining what Asperger's relationship to the Nazi apparatus actually was, Sheffer in eliding Lorna Wing from the narrative and foregrounding the Nazi horrors. These are different goals, and so I am sorry that Sheffer appears to be receiving so much more attention than Czech.
no subject
It was not necessarily, so I appreciate the ETA as well as the link. I agree with Mnookin that Sheffer would have done better to start the story with her son's feelings rather than leave them feeling like an ulterior motive, and I agree with you that the effect comes off like a smear campaign rather than the recognition of a complicated piece of history.
Toward this point—
And that wasn't so we could be exterminated; ironically, it's always been inferred that he was passionate in the defense of the positive qualities and capacity to contribute of children with (what came to be known as) "Asperger's syndrome" because (apparently despite his allegiances) he didn't want us disposed of.
After encountering the initial review of Sheffer, I went and read Herwig Czech's "Hans Asperger, National Socialism, and 'race hygiene' in Nazi-era Vienna" (Molecular Autism 2018 9:29) because it's freely available online. He is the Austrian medical historian whose work was mentioned but not reviewed by the New York Review of Books; his article came out a month before Sheffer's book. He devotes more than a few lines to considering that claim and does not find evidence in favor of it.
He is very clear about what Asperger can and cannot be accused of:
"Neither the Spiegelgrund files nor the case records from Asperger's own ward contain evidence that he ever reported one of his patients to the Public Health Office for the purpose of sterilization . . . Unlike with Herta and Elisabeth Schreiber [two cases where the family circumstances and nature of disability make it difficult to interpret Asperger as in any way not knowing that his recommendation for 'permanent placement' at Spiegelgrund would lead to death], in the 14 cases in question, there is no indication that Asperger expected the children he recommended for transferal to Spiegelgrund (explicitly or by suggestion) to be killed there."
But he really does not believe that just because Asperger didn't rush to tip his child patients into the T-4 program means he was engaged in active protection of them:
"The language he employed to diagnose his patients was often remarkably harsh (even in comparison with assessments written by the staff at Vienna's notorious Spiegelgrund 'euthanasia' institution), belying the notion that he tried to protect the children under his care by embellishing their diagnoses . . . This argument is problematic for several reasons. First, the idea that Asperger tried to protect autistic children from Nazi race hygiene cannot be easily reconciled with the fact that he dedicated a section of his 1944 paper to the hereditary basis of the condition, insisting that 'any explanation based on exogenous factors is absurd'. While this position anticipated later advances in autism research, the question arises whether under the circumstances it was prudent to put such an emphasis on heredity. Had protecting his autistic patients been his primary goal, he could have taken a more flexible position, one less likely to draw the attention of race hygienists to his patients. Second, his prognoses for the 'autistic psychopaths' were far from universally optimistic . . . the argument that Asperger focused on the better-functioning cases in order to protect all of his patients (presumably, by deflecting attention from the less well-functioning) is questionable given that Asperger by no means withheld from his readers the severe impairments of some of the boys. Third, there is a fundamental flaw in the assumption that highlighting the potential of some of his patients would benefit all of them. The children at the lower end of the spectrum did not benefit from the potential ascribed to those on the higher end, even if they shared the overall diagnosis of 'autistic psychopathy.' Their fate did not depend on the diagnostic label but on the individual assessment of their skills or disabilities. If anything, the utilitarian argument of 'social worth' employed by Asperger (and by many of his colleagues) increased the danger to those children who could not fulfill these expectations. Focusing on the higher functioning children did nothing to lift the boat for all of them; those on the lower end still risked being left to drown."
And he does not—in sharp contrast to Shaffer—feel that this information should make any difference to the continued use of the diagnosis or the term:
"An overall appraisal of Asperger's place in the history of youth psychiatry and Heilpädagogik and as a pioneer of autism research will have to go beyond the focus of this paper, which despite the importance of the Nazi period for understanding Asperger's life and work cannot replace a long due biography. Regarding Asperger's contributions to autism research, there is no evidence to consider them tainted by his problematic role during National Socialism. They are, nevertheless, inseparable from the historical context in which they were first formulated, and which I hope to have shed some new light on. The fate of 'Asperger's syndrome' will probably be determined by considerations other than the problematic historical circumstances of its first description—these should not, in any case, lead to its purge from the medical lexicon. Rather, it should be seen as an opportunity to foster awareness of the concept's troubled origins."
It looks as though Czech was much more interested in determining what Asperger's relationship to the Nazi apparatus actually was, Sheffer in eliding Lorna Wing from the narrative and foregrounding the Nazi horrors. These are different goals, and so I am sorry that Sheffer appears to be receiving so much more attention than Czech.