Hans Asperger (18 February 1906 – 21 October 1980) was an Austrian physician and eugenicist who discovered "Asperger's syndrome" in 1944.
Biography[]
Hans Asperger was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary on 18 February 1906, and he was involved in the Catholic conservative German Youth Movement as a boy. He earned his medical degree from the University of Vienna in 1931 and joined the Fatherland Front on 10 May 1934, becoming a fascist. Following the Anschluss, he became a member of several Nazi Party organizations and served as a medical officer in occupied Yugoslavia. One of his brothers was killed at the Battle of Stalingrad, while his school for children was bombed and destroyed late in the war. Asperger was actively involved in the Nazi Party's activities during the war, including supporting their Aktion T4 euthanasia program by sending two children to the Spiegelgrund clinic and supporting the NSDAP's race hygiene poliices. In 1944, he discovered "Asperger's syndrome" when he observed social anxiety, clumsiness, and a lack of empathy in four child patients, and, after the publication of his paper, he found a tenured position at the University of Vienna after the war. He died in 1980 at the age of 74.