Hans Asperger

Johann Friedrich Karl Asperger (, ; 18 February 1906 – 21 October 1980) was an Austrian physician.

Noted for his early studies on atypical neurology, specifically in children, he is the namesake of the autism spectrum disorder Asperger syndrome.

Hans Asperger was born in Neustiftgasse in the 7th district of Vienna, Austria, on 18 February 1906, and was raised on a farm in Hausbrunn not far from the city.

The eldest of three sons, his younger brother died shortly after birth.

As a youth, he joined the Wandering Scholars of the Bund Neuland(in the group of Fahrende Scholaren, which organized outdoor activities such as hiking and mountaineering).

According to his daughter, from 1916 to 1928, he followed an education oriented towards humanism, learning western philosophy, Latin and ancient Greek.

Asperger studied medicine at the University of Vienna under Franz Hamburger and practiced at the University Children's Hospital in Vienna.

"Founded in 1921, the Austria-based Bund was a split-off from the Christian-German Student Union (CDSB) but stressed its affinities with the German Youth Movement (...) which Asperger cited in 1974 as a guiding principle in his life".

He later stated that "[he] was moulded by the spirit of the German youth movement, which was one of the noblest blossoms of the German spirit".

He passed his secondary school final examination on 20 May 1925, with distinction and the grade of "very good" in all subjects.

After the death of Clemens von Pirquet in 1929, Franz Hamburger expelled the Jewish doctors from the clinic, and also tried to remove the women.

This movement maintained close links with the Hitler Youth from the 1930s onwards.

Hans Asperger was described as "cold and distant".

He collected over 10,000 books in his personal library during his lifetime.

He attributed his "progressive spiritual maturity" to his reading.

His former colleagues at the pediatric clinic in Vienna testified that he often quoted classical authors, poets or the Bible.

According to Czech, "with the appointment of Hamburger as president in 1930, the Vienna University Paediatric Clinic became a beacon of anti-Jewish policy, long before the Nazi takeover"

According to his daughter Maria Asperger-Felder, the two events that most affected Hans Asperger between 1931 and 1945 were, on the one hand, the development of curative education (Heilpädagogik), and on the other hand, the confrontation with the ideology of National Socialism.

Asperger earned his medical degree in 1931 and became director of the special education section at the university's children's clinic in Vienna in 1932.

Hans Asperger thus obtained his first post in May 1931, thanks to the "purge" of Jewish doctors, as Hamburger's assistant at the University Paediatric Clinic in Vienna.

He then worked for different departments.

When Erwin Lazar, the head of the curative pedagogy department died in 1932, Hans Asperger took over in May 1934 or 1935, as head of the department of Heilpädagogik (or: Heilpädagogische curative pedagogy) at the pediatric clinic in Vienna.

He joined an experienced team, consisting of psychiatrist Georg Frankl (who was Jewish), psychologist Josef Feldner and a nun, Sister Viktorine Zak.

Asperger's very rapid rise to head of the pediatric ward, despite his few publications and the existence of more qualified candidates, was facilitated by the anti-Jewish policy.

The team also included, from August 1933 to February 1936, a young doctor specializing in gastrointestinal disorders, Erwin Jekelius, who later became a major architect of the Nazi extermination.

The pedagogy employed in Heilpädagogik was inspired by Erwin Lazar, the founder of the clinic; Asperger continued and developed this approach.

He joined the Austrofascist Fatherland Front on 10 May 1934, nine days after Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss passed a new constitution making himself dictator.

Hans Asperger married Hanna Kalmon in 1935, whom he met during a mountain hike, and with whom he had five children; four daughters and a son: Gertrud (born 1936), Hans (born 1938), Hedwig (born 1940), Maria (born 1946) and Brigitte (born 1948).

Czech points out the changes in leadership: "The political orientation of Hamburger's assistants is illustrated by the fact that among those who obtained the highest academic qualification (habilitation), all, with the exception of Hans Asperger, were rejected in 1945 as Nazis".

Under the influence of Franz Chvostek junior, the Vienna clinic became a "hotbed of pan-Germanist and Nazi agitation".

In 1961, Gertrud Asperger completed her doctorate at Innsbruck.

Another daughter, Maria Asperger Felder, became a renowned child psychiatrist.

Hans Asperger and his daughter were also "socially well-connected".

Hans Asperger was a devout Christian, a practicing Catholic, but without the political tendencies generally associated with Catholicism at the time.

His faith was initially considered a disadvantage in his evaluation after the Anschluss.

He was a member of the Sankt-Lukas Guild, which, according to Sheffer and Czech, "advocated for Catholic eugenics," including support for "positive eugenics" (the multiplication of individuals considered desirable) rather than "negative eugenics" (the limitation of individuals considered undesirable).

Hans Asperger claimed to have discovered his future vocation as a doctor by dissecting the liver of a mouse during his final year of high school.

He wrote more than 300 publications on psychological disorders that posthumously acquired international renown in the 1980s.

His diagnosis of autism, which he termed "autistic psychopathy", also garnered controversy.

Further controversy arose during the late 2010s over allegations that Asperger referred children to a Nazi German clinic responsible for murdering disabled patients, although his knowledge and involvement remains unknown.