Gerhard Koch (physician)

Gerhard Koch (born February 7, 1913 in Neubrandenburg ; † December 27, 1999 in Nuremberg ) was a German neurologist and geneticist .

Life

Gerhard Koch, son of the Neubrandenburg merchant and grocer Hermann Koch, attended the grammar school in his hometown and passed his Abitur here around 1931. He joined the Hitler Youth in 1930 and the Artamanen in 1932 . Later he belonged to the NS Student Union , the NSDAP , the SA and the SS . He studied medicine and natural sciences at the universities of Rostock , Königsberg and Breslau . During his studies in 1934 he became a member of the Alemannia Königsberg fraternity . In 1939 he obtained his license to practice medicineand on June 14, 1940 was awarded a doctorate by the University of Marburg. med. PhD . He then received a grant from the German Research Foundation to continue his epilepsy research. In 1942 Otmar von Verschuer recruited him as an external employee of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics .

After the end of the war he worked as a visiting doctor with Julius Hallervorden in Dillenburg and then at the University Clinic Tübingen. In 1947 he became a specialist in neurology and psychiatry . After Verschuer became professor of human genetics at the University of Münster in 1951 , Koch took over the management of the human genetic-psychoneurological research center there in 1952. In 1954 he received his habilitation in Münster . In 1965 he founded the Institute for Human Genetics at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg , where he took over the chair for human genetics and anthropology . In 1978 he retired .

In 1949 he was one of the founders of the Society for Constitution Research and in 1967 of the "Society for Combating Cystic Fibrosis". From 1968 he was a member of the scientific advisory board of "Lebenshilfe for the mentally handicapped child". His autobiography Rich Years of a Human Geneticist appeared in 1982, but without any reference to his membership in Nazi organizations.

Among other things, he was awarded the Michael Prize of the Michael Foundation in 1967.

Publications (selection)

• The Society for Constitutional Research. Beginning and end of 1942–1965: The institutes for anthropology, racial biology, human genetics at German universities. The racial political offices of the years 1933–1945. Erlangen 1985.
• Human genetics and neuro-psychiatry in my time (1932–1978). Years of decision. Erlangen / Jena 1993.

literature

• Prof. Dr. Koch †. In: FAU Unikurier Magazin. Issue 101, November 2000.
• Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. 2nd Edition. S. Fischer, Frankfurt 2003, ISBN 3-10-039309-0 , p. 323.
• Niels C. Lösch: Race as a construct. Life and work of Eugen Fischer. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3-631-31746-8 , p. 658.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans-Walter Schmuhl : Crossing borders. The Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics, 1927–1945. Wallstein, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-799-3 , p. 365 ( online ).
2. ↑ Friedrich Vohl (publisher's representative): Fraternity members regular role. 1991, p. 163.
3. ↑ Diss. Inaug. About the clinical picture of osteochondritis deformans juvenilis. (1940).
4. ↑ Alexander von Schwerin: Experimentalization of the human being: The geneticist Hans Nachtsheim and the comparative hereditary pathology 1920-1945. Wallstein, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89244-773-X , p. 308, fn. 115 ( online )
5. ↑ Benoît Massin: Race and inheritance as a profession. The main fields of research at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Human Heredity and Eugenics in National Socialism. In: Hans-Walter Schmuhl (Ed.): Race research at Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes before and after 1933. Wallstein, Göttingen 2003, ISBN 3-89244-471-4 , pp. 190–244, here p. 221 ( online ) .
6. ^ Ernst Klee: The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 323.

Web links

• Literature about Gerhard Koch in the state bibliography MV