[1] After finishing high school in Gera in 1936, Köcher did his undergraduate work in Ancient History, Near Eastern Philology (Orientalische Philologie) and Philosophy at the Friedrich-Schiller-Universität of Jena.
After being taken as a prisoner of war by the US Army, he was released after a few weeks and worked as a teacher's assistant, until the University reopened in 1946 and Köcher was able to resume his studies.
His talent for making hand copies of cuneiform tables quickly became apparent when he assisted Erich Ebeling with his volume "Literarische Keilschrifttexte aus Assur" in 1953.
Köcher was introduced to cuneiform medicine through, among others, the work on Ebeling's "Keilschrifttexte zur assyrisch-babylonischen Drogen- und Pflanzenheilkunde" in 1955, which was mostly focused on the pharmacological series URU AN.NA.
Until his retirement in March 1983, he was a very active and dedicated teacher who had significant influence on many young physicians, historians and assyriologists alike.