Comment on the the paper Persecutee in the Third Reich, full professor in the GDR: The communist physician Carl Coutelle (1908-1993) and his post-war career as pathologist by Nico Biermanns and Dominik Groß. Pathol. Res. Pract. (2023) 246 154487.

Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest As noted above I am the son of Carl Coutelle. However, the views expressed here, have less to do with this family relationship but are more based on the fact that, unlike the authors, I have experienced this time and its problems in the GDR myself as a medical student, medical doctor, scientist and university teacher.