Robert Koch - Honors and Awards

Honors and Awards

Koch on the Moon is named after him. The Robert Koch Prize and Medal were created to honour microbiologists who make groundbreaking discoveries or who contribute to global health in a unique way. The now-defunct Robert Koch Hospital at Koch, Missouri (south of St. Louis, Missouri), was also named in his honor. A hagiographic account of Koch's career can be found in the 1939 Nazi propaganda film Robert Koch, der Bekämpfer des Todes (The fighter against death), directed by Hans Steinhoff and starring Emil Jannings as Koch.

Because the construction efforts on Veliki Brijun Island were jeopardized by malaria outbreaks which occurred during summer months, and even Austrian steel industrialist Paul Kupelweiser himself fell ill with the disease, at the turn of the century Kupelweiser invited in Koch, who at the time was studying different forms of malaria and quinine-based treatments. Koch accepted the invitation and spent two years, from 1900 to 1902, on the Brijuni Islands and Kupelwieser erected a monument to Koch, which still stands in the vicinity of the 15th-century Church of St. German on Veliki Brijun.