Awards

• Short-listed for Mark Lynton History Prize 2019

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9780393609646

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With insightful, meticulous historical research Sheffer uncovers how, under Hitler's regime, the profession of psychiatry became the eyes and ears of the Third Reich. This important book should be read by anyone interested in psychology, psychiatry or medicine, so that we learn from history and do not repeat its terrifying mistakes. -- Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre, Cambridge University; author of Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty

Edith Sheffer's Asperger's Children: The origins of autism in Nazi Vienna is a deeply disturbing, thoroughly researched account that exposes the complicity of Hans Asperger in the murder of children suffering from what he called autistic psychopathy. The recovered voices of some of the children and their desperate parents are particularly chilling. -- Andrew Scull, Books of the Year 2018 - Times Literary Supplement ... historian Edith Sheffer has produced a stunning work of scholarship, revealing Asperger's relationship to National Socialism and his role in the extermination of disabled children. In this unputdownable tome, Sheffer reminds us chillingly of the way in which even the best-intentioned professionals fall prey to the political climate in which we practice. -- Therapy Today Edith Sheffer's meticulously researched book draws on case notes, interviews with perpetrators and victims, and scholarly papers. It illuminates not only the life of one of the most horrifying of Nazi sympathisers, but also the dark cavern of medical murder and cruelty, one of the monstrous aspects of Nazi social policy... Sheffer's book is unique... -- The Tablet ... searing new book... [Edith Sheffer's] meticulously researched yet readable account shines a dispassionate light on Asperger as a man actively complicit with Nazi eugenicists carrying out Hitler's child euthanasia program. -- Science Sheffer's book is excellent on the background to Viennese social and medical attitudes... -- The Catholic Herald Although at times an almost unbearably grim read, this superbly researched book is an important contribution to our understanding of attitudes to autism, and to our knowledge of one of the very darkest episodes in recent human history. -- The Telegraph ... a superbly researched account... It's hard to believe that anyone will want to identify with Asperger syndrome after reading Sheffer's extremely disturbing but very lucid book... -- Saskia Baron - The Observer ... a searing investigation of the Nazi links of the paediatrician Hans Asperger. -- Must Reads - The Sunday Times ... impeccable research... searing, wonderfully written book... -- Dominic Lawson - The Sunday Times ... historian Edith Sheffer's remarkable book Asperger's Children builds on Czech's study with her own original scholarship. She makes a compelling case that the foundational ideas of autism emerged in a society that strove for the opposite of neurodiversity. -- Simon Baron-Cohen - Nature With insightful, meticulous historical research Sheffer uncovers how, under Hitler's regime, the profession of psychiatry became the eyes and ears of the Third Reich. This important book should be read by anyone interested in psychology, psychiatry or medicine, so that we learn from history and do not repeat its terrifying mistakes. -- Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre, Cambridge University; author of Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty

... searing new book... [Edith Sheffer's] meticulously researched yet readable account shines a dispassionate light on Asperger as a man actively complicit with Nazi eugenicists carrying out Hitler's child euthanasia program. -- Science Sheffer's book is excellent on the background to Viennese social and medical attitudes... -- The Catholic Herald Although at times an almost unbearably grim read, this superbly researched book is an important contribution to our understanding of attitudes to autism, and to our knowledge of one of the very darkest episodes in recent human history. -- The Telegraph ... a superbly researched account... It's hard to believe that anyone will want to identify with Asperger syndrome after reading Sheffer's extremely disturbing but very lucid book... -- Saskia Baron - The Observer ... a searing investigation of the Nazi links of the paediatrician Hans Asperger. -- Must Reads - The Sunday Times ... impeccable research... searing, wonderfully written book... -- Dominic Lawson - The Sunday Times ... historian Edith Sheffer's remarkable book Asperger's Children builds on Czech's study with her own original scholarship. She makes a compelling case that the foundational ideas of autism emerged in a society that strove for the opposite of neurodiversity. -- Simon Baron-Cohen - Nature With insightful, meticulous historical research Sheffer uncovers how, under Hitler's regime, the profession of psychiatry became the eyes and ears of the Third Reich. This important book should be read by anyone interested in psychology, psychiatry or medicine, so that we learn from history and do not repeat its terrifying mistakes. -- Simon Baron-Cohen, Director of the Autism Research Centre, Cambridge University; author of Zero Degrees of Empathy: A New Theory of Human Cruelty

Author Information

Edith Sheffer is a historian of Germany and central Europe, and a senior fellow at the Institute of European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of the prize-winning Burned Bridge: How East and West Germans Made the Iron Curtain.

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