Academics
Robert Graham Knight BA PhD
Senior Lecturer in International History Email R.G.Knight@lboro.ac.uk |
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Biography
After studying history at Cambridge and the LSE, I taught in schools in England and universities in Germany and Austria. My research interests include British Foreign Policy towards Central Europe, Austria as a "post-Nazi" society and ethnic politics in the Cold War. I have analysed the "Waldheim Affair" in the Times Literary Supplement (upsetting the Austrian Foreign Minister), investigated the unappetising history of Austrian restitution, and given expert testimony to the Court which judged the libel by Mr Nicolai Tolstoy on Lord Toby Aldington. I have published on Austrian anti-Semitism and the restitution (or lack of it) of 'Aryanised' property, publishing an edition of Austrian Cabinet minutes entitled "I'm in favour of stringing things out." From 1998 to 2003 I was the non-Austrian appointee to the Commission, set up by the Austrian government to investigate Nazi expropriation and post-war restitution and compensation issues. As well as its findings the Commission edited and published 48 volumes of research. I have written a background article for the BBC and more recently a review of Austrian Restitution Policy for the Year Book of the Leo Baeck Institute as well as an article on Denazification in Carinthia for the Journal of Modern History.
In an interview with Germany's Deutsche Welle (English language service) I gave my opinion on Austrian attitudes to the National Socialism 70 years after the Anschluss.
In 2006 I gave the sixth Glasgow University Holocaust Memorial Lecture on Austria and the Holocaust – coming to terms with the past?
I am interested in the treatment of the Slovene minority in the Austrian province of Carinthia. My research in this area also led me to contribute to the debate about the British hand-over of Cossacks and anti-communist Yugoslavs in May 1945. In 1989 I was an expert witness in the High Court libel action of Lord Toby Aldington against Mr Nicolai Tolstoy.
A further interest is the history of the Cold War in central Europe and in particular the relationship between ethnicity and “high” Cold War politics. With financial help from the British Academy I have organised a series of workshops on this topic, including participants from Slovenia, Germany, Austria and Italy. The first workshop was held in September 2004.
I have also been supported by the British Academy in my research into denazification in Carinthia. I gave a lecture to the Slovene Academy on the subject in March 2007 and have recently published an article in the Journal of Modern History.
Detailed searchable list of publications.
Recent publications
Edited book
"Ich bin dafür, die Sache in die Länge zu ziehen": die Wortprotokolle der österreichischen Bundesregierung von 1945 bis 1952 über die Entschädigung der Juden, (Athenäum) Updated and revised edition with a new foreword (Boehlau) Vienna, Weimar, Cologne, 2000. ISBN 3-205-99147-8
Co-authored book
Historikerkommission der Republik Österreich, Vermögensentzug während der NS-Zeit sowie Rückstellungen und Entschädigungen seit 1945 in Österreich. Zusammenfassungen und Einschätzungen. Schlussbericht, Oldenbourg, Munich 2003ISBN: 3486567446.
Journal articles
'Ethnicity and Identity in the Cold War: The Carinthian border Dispute, 1945-1949', International History Review, 22 (2), June 2000, 274-303.
‘Liberal Values and post-Nazi politics. The Slovenes of Carinthia,' in Sieglinde Rosenburger and Andrej Markovits (eds.), Demokratie: Modus und Telos. Beiträge für Anton Pelinka, Innsbruck 2001.
‘Peter Wilkinson and the Carinthian Slovenes. A Report from April 1946 in Zbornik Janka Pleterskega ed. Oto Luthar and Jurij Perovsek, Slovene Academy, Ljubljana 2003, 427-442.
‘Staatsvertrag und Nationalsozialismus: ein unvermeidbarer Zusammenhang’, in Zeitgeschichte, 32 (4), July/August 2005, 215-227.
‘After the Taborstrasse. Austrian restitution revisited,’ in Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, vol 51,London and New York,2006, 237-263.
‘Denazification in the Austrian Province of Carinthia’, Journal of Modern History (September 2007)