A seven year investigation into the work of Germany’s largest organisation that funds research, between 1920 and 1970 has confirmed that German scientists used the Nazis’ totalitarian regime to conduct lethal experiments.

The German research foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) remains the country’s largest funder of research, with an annual budget of about €1.3bn (£970m; $1.9bn). The independent investigation found that the organisation and most of the scientists it funded had succumbed to serving the Nazi regime “almost completely and without scruple” after its rise to power in 1933.

This started with the expulsion of Jewish and other scientists not in political favour from the foundation …