History of the Institut

In 1920 the first professorship in social hygiene in Germany was founded at the Friedrich Wilhelm University’s Institute of Hygiene. Alfred Grotjahn (1896-1931), the first to be appointed to the professorship, established social hygiene as an academic discipline in Germany and in 1922 became the chief architect of the Social Democratic Party’s public health care programme. After the National Socialists took over power in Germany in 1933, the institute was forced to close its doors and many members of its staff emigrated to the United States, Soviet Union, and other countries, where they played a key role in developing the field of public health. In Nazi Germany, sections of the former institute were reopened under the direction of Fritz Lenz, focusing on what was euphemistically referred to at the time as “race hygiene”.

In 1947 the professorship for social hygiene was re-established at the Humboldt University’s Institute of Hygiene and Microbiology and directed by Alfred Beyer (1885-1961), who reconceptualised and reorganised the field of study. In 1951 social hygiene was officially recognised in the GDR as a program of study leading to the state examination. From 1955 to 1959, Beyer served as the medical director of Charité Hospital in Berlin.

His successor, Kurt Winter (1909-1987), was appointed in 1957. Two years later and under Winter’s tenure, the Institute of Hygiene was separated from the Institute of Hygiene and Microbiology and became an independent institute at the Charité with its own Social Hygiene Department.

Following Winter’s retirement, Ingeborg Dahm became director of the Department of Social Hygiene in 1977. In 1986 the department became an independent Institute for Social Hygiene, which in 1990 and under the direction of Jens-Uwe Niehoff was renamed the Institute of Social Medicine and Epidemiology. This merged in 1993 with the Department of Occupational Medicine.

In 1995 Stefan N. Willich was appointed to the professorship in Social Medicine and Epidemiology and as director of the Institute of Occupational and Social Medicine and Epidemiology. Initially the institute was part of the building complex at the corner of Dorotheenstraße and Wilhelmstraße.

Since April 1, 2012, Claudia Witt is temporary director of the institute.