Kaiser Wilhelm Society

The Kaiser Wilhelm Society was an umbrella organisation for many institutes, testing stations, and research units created under its authority.

Internally, money was raised from individuals, industry and the government, as well as through the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaft (Emergency Association of German Science).

External to Germany, the Rockefeller Foundation granted students worldwide one-year study stipends for whichever institute they chose.

Some studied in Germany,[2][3][4] in contrast to the German universities, with their formal independence from state administration, the institutions of the Kaiser Wilhelm Gesellschaft had no obligation to teach students.

During World War II, some of the weapons and medical research performed by the KWI was connected to fatal human experimentation on living test subjects (prisoners) in Nazi concentration camps.

Meanwhile, members of the British occupation forces, specifically in the Research Branch of the OMGUS, saw the society in a more favourable light and tried to dissuade the Americans from taking such action.

Also, Colonel Bertie Blount was on the staff of the British Research Branch, and he had received his doctorate at Göttingen under Walther Borsche.