Something of a departure in a way, I want to talk today about something that blogging friend Orac is talking about today, namely that a bunch of arsonists have burnt down the office of the Holocaust History Project in an apparent attempt to stifle the work that goes on there.
The HHP is a vital cog in the machinery that fights against the neo-fascist perpetuated denial of the Holocaust. It puts out educational material to schools in the US designed to educated about the nature and effects of the holocaust.
The Nazi regime is estimated to have murdered approx 275,000 disabled people during its reign, reasoning that:
It was argued that allowing disabled people to live and have children, led to the “unfit” reproducing more quickly than “the fit”. It was said that this weakened society’s ability to function efficiently, placing an unnecessary toll on non-disabled people.
I’ll leave you to reflect on how disconcertingly familiar that sounds to some sentiments repeated today by a certain section of people.
On the grounds that disabled people were less worthwhile and an unfair burden on society, a widespread and compulsory sterilisation program took place. This began in 1933…..sterilisation was followed by an active killing program, which started in 1939
Under a secret plan called the ‘T4 Program’ (T4 was a reference to the address of the program’s Berlin HQ – Tiergartenstrasse 4), disabled people in Germany were killed by lethal injection or poison gas. The T4 Program saw a string of six death camps – called “euthanasia centres” – set up across Germany and Austria. These centres contained gassing installations designed to look like shower stalls.
This is why organisations like the Holocaust History Project are vital. If we are ever to learn from the mistakes of the past we cannot allow the ignorant and brutal to hold sway.
Left Brain Right Brain 
The argument eugenecists use can be turned around. If you tamper with nature by artificially selecting people, e.g. via pre-natal genetic testing, this could easily lead to a catastrophe. Google “Would you have allowed Bill Gates to be born”.
For a chilling reminder of how the Nazis dealt with disabled people try this site
It is worth remembering that while all this was going on in Vienna Hans Asperger was in Vienna saving children in his clinic, in part by emphasizing the positive aspects of autistic intelligence.
So if autism is genetic, would you expect a lower incidence in Germany compared to other countries?
http://www.mugsy.org/wing.htm
The only study from Germany in the above link was omitted from the comparisons. The variations between the different studies seems big enough that even if it was included I doubt you could read anything into it.
Andrew: I’d think maybe in Germany vs America (but America has a lot of confounds). Definitely not in Germany vs France or Poland or the like.
Germany vs the UK, maybe … but again, there’s an element of confounds.
And you can’t compare Germany to anything in Africa or Asia, since there simply aren’t meaningful numbers for the latter two areas…
Hi Andrew,
You wrote “So if autism is genetic, would you expect a lower incidence in Germany compared to other countries?”
Excellent question. There isn’t any current well controlled German epidemiology that can answer it unfortunately.
The variations in prevalence were huge at the time of that study, as those authors suggest, this seems to be due to diagnostic criteria.
A contemporary study might tell more, as there is now some reliability in score internationally. We see the same prevalence in the US (Bertrand et al., 2001) the UK (Chakrabarti & Fombonne, 2005) and Japan (Honda et al, 2005). Although, how would we correlate the murder of possible autistics under the Nazis to current levels of autism in Germnay. It would be pretty sketchy. I would oppose such a study, I think.
That would be interesting if there were a way to consistently measure the population across nationaly borders. But that is not even possible in the same country… see this article:
http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/autism/mandell.pdf … plus this essay here:
http://www.autism-watch.org/general/edu.shtml
As you noted… the numbers for Germany were omitted. Since the paper was in the early 1990’s, one can assume that there were still effects from East and West Germany becoming one country less than 5 years before. Each side had different educational, medical, economic, industrial and employment factors that could come into play (a German made product I bought in 1990 is stamped “Made in West Germany”).
Also, population in Europe is not static. There were people who moved out of Germany when things just started to get dire (like in the 1930’s) who moved back, immigrants from other countries … and many children born with fathers from the occupying countries (USA, Russia and others… including Canada, an Alberta cousin was stationed in Baden Baden).
While I believe you might have a plausible idea, it is one where too many other factors are involved to provide any real data.