From the article:
Quote:
Asperger did take considerable pride in his “Heilpädagogik” – therapeutic pedagogy – which promoted the popular idea among his colleagues and Nazi leaders at a time of labour shortages that in certain cases people with autism made excellent soldiers and reliable workers. But Asperger also wrote about the need to “carry out restrictive measures” against patients deemed to be incurable and with hereditary conditions “out of a sense of great responsibility” towards the German race.
This paragraph stands out for me.
Keeping in mind that this is the Third Reich we are talking about and in no way a democracy, Asperger may have had to throw a smaller portion of them under the bus to save the larger portion of them that could be deemed useful to
der Reich. It's one of those sh***y dilemmas where the lesser evil has to be chosen, or have the powers in charge make the choice and gas a lot more or all of them. It would have done much more harm than good if he'd protested or tried to fight the system since it was not the type of regime to tolerate any resistance, real or imagined.
I wouldn't want to jump to conclusions about Asperger's culpability without further study of evidence. If there are any written directives issued, office memos, personal correspondence, notes, or journals surviving they would need to be scrutinized to peice together a fair verdict.
That’s an interesting point.
05 Jul 2020, 10:32 am
