Koch Institute was extensively involved in “violent policies” of Nazi government, study finds

Four studies of the dark side of Germany’s medical profession during the Nazi era have been selected as winners in a research competition cosponsored by the German Medical Association and the German Health Ministry.

One of the winning studies focuses on the Robert Koch Institute, whose role in Germany today is similar to that of the Centers for Disease Control in the United States. As recently as the early 1990s the institute had downplayed its role in Nazi crimes, saying that only a handful of Koch staff members participated.

The paper, by Annette Hinz-Wessels of the Institute for the History of Medicine at Berlin’s Charité medical school, showed that the Robert Koch Institute, as a central agency for health matters, was extensively …