Reidar_Hedman
Reidar Hedman
Finnish educator and politician
Lennart Reidar Armas Hedman (17 June 1896 Vanaja – 26 October 1961 in Tullinge, Stockholm County, Sweden)[1] was a Finnish educator, eugenist and far-right politician. He had a master's degree in philosophy.[2] He had studied genetics at the University of Helsinki under Harry Federley.[3]
Reidar Hedman was the director of the Perttula Education Institute for the Feeble-Minded, the first Finnish-language developmental disability institution founded by his father Edvin Hedman, in 1927–1944.[4] Hedman specialized in eugenics and racial hygiene and supported a comprehensive forced sterilization program for the mentally handicapped.[5] Hedman believed that human intelligence was the basis of all spiritual life and could not be elevated through education, for example.[6]