Andreas Rett

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Andreas Rett as lecturer at the Vienna Lectures in 1987
Pavilion C Neurological Hospital Rosenhügel in Hietzing

Andreas Rett (born January 2, 1924 in Fürth , Bavaria , † April 25, 1997 in Vienna ) was a German- Austrian neuropediatrician , author and first person to describe the Rett syndrome .

Live and act

His family moved from Fürth to Innsbruck in 1929 for economic reasons . As a schoolboy, Rett had been a member of the Hitler Youth since September 1, 1932 and later also a Hitler Youth leader. His father founded a cleaning company in Innsbruck, where his son Andreas was to be his successor. However, he decided to study medicine, whereupon his father disinherited him. Rett studied medicine for two semesters at the University of Innsbruck before he was drafted into the Navy for the next three and a half years . After being wounded twice, he was stationed on a hospital ship in the Mediterranean, where Rett was used despite his limited experience as a doctor and surgeon.

After the Second World War , Rett returned to the University of Innsbruck, but was initially not allowed to study due to his Nazi past. It was only after Rett had denied any membership in the Hitler Youth and the NSDAP that he was allowed to study. He successfully completed his medical studies in 1949 and then worked as a doctor in Innsbruck , Vienna and Zurich . In Vienna he worked as a pediatrician at the Preyer's Children's Hospital under Konrad Eberle . In 1956, Rett founded a department for children with behavioral problems at the Lainz Hospital .

In 1963, together with Fritz Muster, who was managing director of Jugend am Werk from 1966 to 1980, he founded the first sheltered workshop for young people with nervous disorders in Vienna.

In 1966 he published the first description of Rett Syndrome , a disorder of the brain metabolism that is inherited in an X-linked dominant manner and is therefore practically only observed in girls and leads to a delay in motor and psychological development. In 1967 he completed his habilitation in neuropediatrics .

His medical work for people with disabilities was promoted by the director of the old people's home in Lainz , Otto Zsygmund, and started against some resistance in Pavilion XVII of the Lainz Hospital . In 1975 it led to the establishment of the department for developmentally disabled children at the Rosenhügel Neurological Hospital in Vienna.

Rett's decade-long demand from society was that children with disabilities should also be children, with all physical, emotional and spiritual demands.

However, Rett also advocated the very controversial sterilization of women with "intellectual disabilities" and, according to his own statements, practiced this systematically for years himself. In the book Das hirngeschädigte Kind (the 5th edition of 1981) Rett reports with his co-author and Employee Horst Seidler that they have been practicing “termination of pregnancy in the mentally handicapped for 20 years” and that they have “always combined the termination with subsequent fallopian tube ligature”. Disabled people's associations and integration scholars such as Innsbruck's educational scientist Volker Schönwiese see these practices as "serious encroachments on the freedom and personal rights of disabled people". In journalism, too, Rett repeatedly called for the forced sterilization of the disabled.

Although Rett dealt early with the National Socialist past of his subject in publications, he did not mention that he had been a member of the National Socialist party NSDAP since September 1, 1942 , membership no. 9260108. Rett's professional career after 1945 also suggests a personal and structural continuity of former National Socialist academics in the Association of Socialist Academics (BSA). In 1967, among other things, Rett was also a member of the “ Felix Mandl Circle ”. Rett published a scientific article together with his BSA colleague Heinrich Gross . The basis of this article was based on brain preparations that were taken from murdered children at Am Spiegelgrund as part of the National Socialist child euthanasia . The existing secondary literature on this subject assumes that Rett knew about the origin of the preparations used.

He confessed to membership in the Freemasons , where his work, his life and his medical attitude were influenced.

In the 13th district of Vienna , a green area was named Andreas-Rett-Park on April 25, 2002 . The research report Street names of Vienna since 1860 as “political places of remembrance” , published in 2013, dealt with the controversial assessment of Rett.

One of his daughters is the television presenter Barbara Rett .

Publications (selection)

  • The brain damaged child. (later editions together with Horst Seidler ), Jugend und Volk, Vienna 1971; 5th edition 1981 ISBN 3-7141-7411-7
  • with Friederike Grasemann and Albertine Wesecky: Music therapy for the disabled. Huber, Bern 1981, ISBN 3-456-81100-4
  • with Horst Seidler : The Reichssippenamt decides. Racial Biology in National Socialism. Jugend und Volk, Vienna / Munich 1982, ISBN 3-224-16508-1 .
  • with Horst Seidler: Racial hygiene. A path to National Socialism. Jugend und Volk, Vienna / Munich 1988, ISBN 3-224-16530-8 .
  • Mongolism - Biological, Educational and Social Aspects. Huber, Bern 1983, ISBN 3-456-81088-1
  • with Bo Olsson: left handed. Huber, Bern 1989, ISBN 3-456-81727-4
  • Children in our hands. A life with the disabled. ORAC, Vienna 1990, ISBN 3-7015-0178-5 .
  • with Germain Weber: Down syndrome in adulthood. Clinical, psychological and social aspects of Mongolism. Huber, Bern 1990, ISBN 3-456-81804-1
  • The story of childhood as cultural history. With a conversation between the author and Hubert Christian Ehalt , Viennese lectures. Picus, Vienna 1992, ISBN 3-85452-310-6

Recognitions

Web links

Commons : Andreas Rett  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ronen, Meaney et al .: From Eugenic Euthanasia to Habilitation of `` Disabled '' Children: Andreas Rett's Contribution . In: Journal of Child Neurology , Volume 24, Number 1, January 2009, ulb.ac.be (PDF)
  2. ↑ a b c d e Street names of Vienna since 1860 as “political places of remembrance” (PDF; 4.4 MB) final research project report, Vienna, July 2013, p. 227 ff.
  3. ↑ Fritz Muster. In: Children in our hands - A life with the disabled. P. 141.
  4. ↑ ORF online presence ( Memento from April 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Brief description of the Rett syndrome
  5. ↑ Film Rett Syndrome Online youtube.com 3:11 min
  6. ↑ Otto Zsygmund. In: Children in our hands - A life with the disabled. P. 138.
  7. ^ Rosenhügel Neurological Center
  8. ↑ The story of childhood as cultural history. Modest by the extent of what is attainable, p. 30.
  9. ↑ Volker Schönwiese : Individualizing Eugenics. To the practice of Andreas Rett . In: wertes unwert Leben , BIZEPS brochure, pp. 69–79
  10. ^ Benedikt Sauer , Mittagsmagazin-Spezial, RAI-Sender Bozen, April 5, 2012.
  11. ↑ see web links: Individualizing Eugenics . To the practice of A. Rett
  12. ↑ With facsimile of the confirmation of admission from the German. Federal Archives
  13. ↑ Children in our hands - a life with the disabled. P. 140
  14. ^ Hietzing: naming the "Andreas-Rett-Park" , Rathauskorrespondenz, City of Vienna, April 23, 2002, accessed July 11, 2019.
  15. ^ Vienna City Hall correspondence. December 13, 1958, sheet 2496.
  16. ↑ The pioneers of everyday life . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna December 14, 1958, p. 6 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
  17. ^ Vienna City Hall correspondence. January 17, 1959, sheet 83.
  18. ↑ For men of the people . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna January 18, 1959, p. 2 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
personal data
SURNAME Rett, Andreas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian doctor and author
DATE OF BIRTH January 2, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Fuerth
DATE OF DEATH April 25, 1997
Place of death Vienna