[1] Erich Koch studied law and economics at Lausanne, Bonn, Berlin and at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich from 1893 to 1897 where he finished with a Dr.jur.

He belonged to the left wing of the National Liberal Party, was an admirer of Friedrich Naumann and an advocate of abolishing the Prussian Dreiklassenwahlrecht.

In January 1919, he was elected to the Weimar National Assembly for the DDP and achieved a powerful position within the party's parliamentary group.

He attempted a fundamental reform of criminal law, but as the Zentrum demanded the Justice department, Koch-Weser lost his position in April 1929.

[1] In the summer of 1930, Koch-Weser merged the DDP with Artur Mahraun's Young German Order into the Deutsche Staatspartei, trying to gather what remained of the pro-republican, Protestant middle-class in a single political party.

He emigrated to Brazil where he bought a large coffee plantation called Fazenda Janeta near Rolândia in the state of Paraná.