When the institute was founded, the official journal Ziel und Weg (Goal and Way) of the National Socialist German Doctors' League, which was led by Leonardo Conti, welcomed it and demanded: "The Half-Jew has to be treated like the Full-Jew ... so that he is no danger for the protection of the racial value of the European peoples.
Monthly for Global Politics, Racial Culture and the Jewish Question in all Countries" (Der Weltkampf.
Monatsschrift für Weltpolitik, völkische Kultur und die Judenfrage aller Länder) was edited by Ernst Graf zu Reventlow; contributors included Gregor Schwartz-Bostunitsch and Johann von Leers.
The effective aim of the institute was information-gathering for propaganda purposes in support of anti-Semitic policy and, later, the Holocaust.
It became the recipient of looted books and other cultural materials from Jewish libraries and institutions in the occupied territories.