Pediatrician Hans Asperger (pictured), after whom the condition of Asperger Syndrome was named, actively cooperated with the Nazi regime, a new study has found

The doctor who gave his name to Asperger syndrome sent helpless disabled children to their deaths in a vile euthanasia clinic, a study shows.

Dr Hans Asperger, an Austrian psychiatrist, was first to chronicle the condition, a form of high-functioning autism in 1944.

He wrote detailed case notes about child patients suffering from what he called 'autistic psychopathy' while working in Vienna under Nazi rule.

The research overturns decades of claims that the child psychiatrist was an 'Oskar Schindler' figure who saved children from being killed or used in horrific medical experiments.

Now patient groups said the research triggers the question whether is still acceptable to continue to call the condition - after the discredited doctor.

Asperger is believed to have consigned dozens of children to their death at Am Spiegelgrund, a children's clinic in Vienna's notorious Steinhof hospital.

The clinic served the Nazi goal of eugenically engineering a genetically 'pure' society through 'racial hygiene' and the elimination of lives deemed a burden.

Doomed: Herta Schreiber, three, (pictured) died in hospital - Asperger said the 'child must be an unbearable burden to the mother'

In Am Spiegelgrund, some 789 children were either given lethal injections or left to starve to death - and their deaths recorded as 'pneumonia', researchers claim.

Dr Herwig Czech, a historian of medicine at the Medical University of Vienna, has analysed previously unseen documents including Dr Asperger's personnel file and case records of his patients from between 1928 and 1944 which had previously been thought to have been destroyed.

He concludes Asperger referred several 'profoundly disabled' children to the Am Spiegelgrund clinic - mostly from being given drug overdoses.

Asperger referred profoundly disabled children to the Am Spiegelgrund clinic, which participated in the Third Reich's child euthanasia program

Herwig Czech said: 'These findings about Hans Asperger are the result of many years of careful research in the archives.

'What emerges is that Asperger successfully sought to accommodate himself to the Nazi regime and was rewarded with career opportunities in return.'

Dr Czech said it was unlikely Asperger was unaware patients were being put to death in the 'overcrowded' clinic.

In 1944, Asperger published his definition of the condition as people who exhibited 'a lack of empathy, little ability to form friendships, one-sided conversation, intense absorption in a special interest, and clumsy movements'

The claims had reached the UK by 1941, when Royal Air Force dropped leaflets in Vienna stating that Dr Erwin Jekelius, director of the Steinhof hospital and Am Spiegelgrund was responsible for 'the systematic murder of patients'.

Dr Czech, cites the case of three-year-old Herta Schreiber as being sent to her death.

Herta was diagnosed as suffering 'severe personality disorder', 'idiocy' and 'seizures'.

Asperger said 'the child must be an unbearable burden to the mother, who has to care for five healthy children' and recommended 'permanent placement at Spiegelgrund'.

Dr Czech said it may be that 'permanent placement' was a 'euphemism for murder'.

The girl's mother also appeared to be aware of her daughter's likely fate, with a note saying: 'If she cannot be helped, it would be better if she died..'

Herta was admitted on July 1, and died of pneumonia on September 2.

Dr Czech said that pneumonia was typically induced at the clinic by administering barbiturates.

WHO WAS HANS ASPERGER AND WHAT IS HIS LEGACY? Hans Asperger was born in Austria in 1906 and lived through both World Wars. As a paediatrician, he studied mental disorders in children around his native Vienna. After graduating with his medical degree in 1931 he went on to become director of the special education section at the university children's clinic in Vienna in 1932. As an adult male in 1939 when the Second World War broke out, he was a medical officer and opened a school for children. After this was bombed and destroyed, a lot of his research was lost. Despite this, he published his first work in 1944. He defined a condition which would later adopt his name in four young boys. He observed a pattern of behaviour and abilities that he called 'autistic psychopathy'. The pattern included 'a lack of empathy, little ability to form friendships, one-sided conversation, intense absorption in a special interest, and clumsy movements.' Asperger called children with this condition 'little professors,' because of their ability to talk about their favourite subject in great detail. One of the boys, named Fritz V, became an astronomer who solved an error in Isaac Newton's original work. During his lifetime, he received little recognition for his work and only won a handful or accolades in his local area. After his death in 1980, his work was translated from his native German and the term 'Asperger's syndrome' was first coined. Posthumously, his definition and work has gained widespread recognition. A recent study by Dr Herwig Czech, a historian of medicine, has analysed previously unseen documents including Dr Asperger's personnel file and case records of his patients from between 1928 and 1944 which had previously been thought to have been destroyed. The documents suggest that Professor Asperger ingratiated himself with the Nazi regime to the extent of participating in its murderous euthanasia programme. Asperger is said to have referred profoundly disabled children to the notorious Am Spiegelgrund clinic, where their "unworthy" lives were snuffed out. An estimated 789 children, many with severe mental problems, were systematically killed at the Vienna clinic, mostly by lethal injection and gassing. Others died from disease and starvation, or were subjected to harsh medical experiments. Advertisement

Asperger was a medical officer in the Second World War and opened a school for children. After this was bombed and destroyed, a lot of his research was also destroyed

Research suggests that Asperger co-operated actively with the Nazi Regime that occupied his native Austria up to 1945.

The deaths of the children formed part of 'Aktion T4', a horrific euthanasia programme personally authorised by Adolf Hitler, which set out to cull the incurable and severely disabled.

Dr Czech details a similar death of Elizabeth Schreiber, aged six, in similar circumstances.

Up to 300,000 victims, including children, were exterminated at clinics in Germany, Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic between 1939 and 1945.

Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of Cambridge University and Professor Joseph Buxbaum of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the editors in chief of the journal that published the article defended their decision to publish the dossier on Asperger.

Professor Baron Cohen said: 'We are aware that the article and its publication will be controversial.

WHAT WERE THE THIRD REICH'S EUTHANISA PLANS FOR CHILDREN? 'Aktion T4' is the name given to the horrific euthanasia programme personally authorised by Adolf Hitler who set out to cull the incurable and severely disabled. Up to 300,000 victims, including children, were exterminated at clinics in Germany, Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic between 1939 and 1945. Karl Brandt (pictured) was Hitler's physician and was appointed to head up the child euthanasia programme Authorised by the Third Reich himself in late 1939, after the war broke out, certain physicians were authorised to send the 'incurable' patients to certain sites. Hitler appointed his physician, Karl Brandt, to head up the plans. At these sites the victims were 'involuntarily euthanised', mainly through lethal injection and gassing. One clinic in Vienna, near the childhood home of Hitler, was called Am Spiegelgrund. Here, 789 children were murdered under the Aktion T4 programme. The brains of up to 800 victims were preserved in jars and housed in the hospital for decades. Advertisement

Asperger is said to have referred disabled children to the Am Spiegelgrund clinic, where their 'unworthy' lives were cruely ended. An estimated 789 children, many with severe mental problems, were systematically killed at the Vienna clinic, by lethal injection or gassing

'We believe that it deserves to be published in order to expose the truth about how a medical doctor who, for a long time, was seen as only having made valuable contributions to the field of pediatrics and child psychiatry, was guilty of actively assisting the Nazis in their abhorrent eugenics and euthanasia policies.

'This historical evidence must now be made available.'

Professor Buxbaum said: 'We are persuaded by Herwig Czech's article that Asperger was not just doing his best to survive in intolerable conditions, but was complicit with his Nazi superiors in targeting society's most vulnerable people'.

Now patient groups are considering whether the condition should be renamed.

Carol Povey, Director at the Centre of Autism for the National Autistic Society, said:'Autism affects everyone differently and people often have their own way of talking about autism.

'We will be listening closely to the response to this news so we can continue to make sure the language we use to describe autism reflects the preferences of autistic people and their families.'

'Obviously no-one with a diagnosis of Asperger syndrome should feel in any way tainted by this very troubling history.'

Asperger’s involvement with the Nazis is also outlined in newly published book by Edith Sheffer, ‘Asperger's Children: The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna.'