Berlin Charite: The storied history of the hospital treating Alexei Navalny

Berlin Charite was established in 1710 as a center for plague patients and 100 years later it grew to house a medical university. From then on, its campus has handled patients as well as research students. More than half of Germany’s Nobel Prize winners for medicine or physiology worked at the hospital.

During the Nazi regime, many physicians from Charite were involved in ethical crimes related to medicine. The Charite hospital was also responsible for autopsies on Jewish suicide victims and the executed resistance fighters of July 20th. After the war, the hospital fell under the jurisdiction of the German Democratic Republic, as it was located in East Berlin.

Berlin Charite became a European care hub during the outbreak of the Ebola virus in Africa in 2015. A South Korean medic, who was working in Sierra Leone and became infected with the virus, was flown to Berlin for treatment. The patient was sent to Berlin at the request of the South Korean government, which said his anonymity would be better kept there.

Charite was the first hospital to detect a locally transmitted coronavirus infection in Germany, back in March. Since then, it has gained prominence as Christian Drosten, director of Charite’s Institute of Virology, has played a public role in policy during the COVID-19 health crisis and been a scientific voice during the pandemic, through his many public appearances and weekly podcast.

The hospital has attracted international attention by offering support to prominent international politicians. In March 2014, Ukrainian opposition politician and presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko was treated at Charite. She suffered a total of three slipped discs, which she had acquired during her two and a half years imprisonment.

In 2018, Pyotr Verzilov, an associate of the Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot and staunch Vladimir Putin critic was flown from Moscow to Berlin, after showing symptoms of poisoning. Charité head doctor Kai-Uwe Eckardt treated the activist. Verzilov's case is said to have set the precedent for Alexei Navalny's supporters to consider Berlin for his treatment.

Vladimir Putin critic and prominent Russian dissident Alexei Navalny was flown to Charite Berlin from a hospital in Omsk, Russia, to be treated for suspected poisoning. The activist traveled on a chartered flight paid for by the NGO Cinema for Peace. Chancellor Angela Merkel was among those who pushed for a speedy transfer for Navalny to Germany.