Dr Peter Pirker
Privatdozent (PD), Habilitated Lecturer
Phone: +43 512 507-44019
Email: Peter.Pirker[at]uibk.ac.at
Room no. 40613
Research interests
- Nazi rule and post-war politics in Austria and the Alps-Adriatic region
- Second World War, resistance and secret services
- Politics of the past and history
- History and migration, exile and asylum
Studies and academic career
- Visiting Professor at the Department of Contemporary History, University of Vienna (2026)
- since 2024 Research assistant at the kärnten.museum and the Department of Contemporary History, University of Innsbruck
- 2023-2024 Research assistant at the Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Graz
- 2022 Habilitation at the University of Klagenfurt
- 2019-2023 Research assistant at the Department of Contemporary History at the University of Innsbruck, project "Deserteure der Wehrmacht. Verweigerungsformen, Verfolgung, Solidarität, Vergangenheitspolitik in Tirol", "Flucht- und Zufluchtsorte von Wehrmachtsdeserteuren. Eine Fotodokumentation"
- 2014-2019 Research assistant at the Institute of Political Science, University of Vienna. Projects: "Politics of Remembrance and the Transition of Public Spaces. A Political and Social Analysis of Vienna" (WWTF); Re_map. Eine digitale Karte der Erinnerung für Wien; Datenvisualisierung "Politics of Remembrance – Explore Vienna’s Culture of Remembrance 1945-2018"; "Operation Greenup. Transnationale Befreiung, Widerstand und Erinnerung" (Research grant der Botstiber Foundation); "Schnappschüsse der Befreiung. Fotografien amerikanischer Soldaten, Mai 1945"
- 2013-2014 Research project "Radio Free Europe in Wien 1951-1961" (Research grant from the Botstiber Foundation; Visiting Scholar at Stanford University)
- 2012 Research project "Democratic Resistance. The British journalist G. E. R. Gedye as a transnational political actor in Europe" (Fellowships at the German Historical Institute, Washington D.C. and at the School of Advanced Studies, University of London)
- 2012-2013 Research project „Waisen nach NS-Opfern und ihre Behandlung in der Opferfürsorge" (for the Federal Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Consumer Protection)
- 2011-2012 Conceptualisation of the memorial for the victims of National Socialism in the Upper Drau Valley
- 2009-2011 Research project „NS-Gewalt im KZ-Außenlager Loibl/Ljubelj“ (with Lisa Rettl)
- 2010-2019 Lecturer at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Vienna, at the Institute of History at the University of Klagenfurt and at the teacher training colleges in Carinthia and Tyrol
- 2009 Co-curator of the Austrian section of the exhibition „’Was damals Recht war’. Soldaten und Zivilisten vor Gerichten der Wehrmacht“
- 2006-2008 Research assistant at the Institute of Political Science as part of the FWF project "The Austrian Section of the British Wartime Secret Service SOE. Policy, Personnel, Missions, Memory"
- 2000-2006 Editor at the Austria Press Agency (APA) and freelance journalist for ORF radio Ö1 and other media, freelance scientific project work
- 1999-2000 Employee of the Austrian Research Foundation for International Development (ÖFSE)
- 1992-1999 Studied political science and ethnology at the University of Vienna
Extract
- Desertieren in den Alpen. Widerständiges Handeln im Zweiten Weltkrieg, in: Michael Kasper, Robert Rollinger, Andreas Rudigier, Kai Ruffing (eds.): "Gesetzlose" in den Bergen, Vienna 2025, pp. 87-105 (peer reviewed).
- Stefan Wirlandner. Früher Sozialist, Gewerkschafter und Verkünder des Austro-Keynesianismus, in: Peter Autengruber, Wolfgang Greif, Alexander Neunherz (Hg.): Ins Rampenlicht. Persönlichkeiten der SPÖ zu Beginn der Zweiten Republik, Wien 2025, pp. 281–291.
- with Lisa Rettl, "Ich war mit Freuden dabei". Der KZ-Arzt Sigbert Ramsauer. Eine österreichische Geschichte (Reihe Mauthausen Studien, 18), revised and expanded new edition, Vienna 2024.
- Deserteure der Wehrmacht in Tirol, Vorarlberg und Südtirol. Ein Überblick, in: Beirat des Schwerpunkts Erinnerungskultur (Hg.), Vom Wert des Erinnerns. Wissenschaftliche Projekte der Förderperiode 2019-2023, Innsbruck 2024, pp. 165-212.
- with Ingrid Böhler (ed.), Flucht vor dem Krieg. Deserteure der Wehrmacht in Vorarlberg (Reihe Forschungen zur Geschichte Vorarlbergs 15 NF), Munich 2023.
- with Ingrid Böhler (ed.), Rudolf Bilgeri: Bei den Partisanen in Athen. Tagebuch eines Deserteurs der Wehrmacht, Innsbruck 2023.
- with Kerstin von Lingen (ed.), Deserteure der Wehrmacht und der Waffen-SS. Entziehungsformen, Solidarität, Verfolgung (Reihe Krieg in der Geschichte 122), Paderborn 2023.
- with Ingrid Böhler (ed.), Deserteure der Wehrmacht im alpinen Raum. Neue Forschungen, zeitgeschichte, 49 (2022) 4.
- Deserteure in den Alpen. Vermessungen von Fluchten aus der Wehrmacht, in: zeitgeschichte 49 (2022) 4, pp. 459-490.
- with Andreas Kranebitter, Filling the Gap: Displaced Persons and Émigré Scholars in the Post-slavery Society of the U.S. South, in: Gabriele Anderl, Linder Erker, Christoph Reinprecht (eds.): Internment Refugee Camps. Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Bielefeld 2022, pp. 251-267.
- with Elena Messner (ed.), Kriege gehören ins Museum. Aber wie?, Vienna 2021.
- with Johannes Kramer, Die „Alpensöhne“ im Zweiten Weltkrieg. Schlaglichter auf die Wehrmacht im Reichsgau Tirol und Vorarlberg und die Tiroler in der Wehrmacht, in: Matthias Egger (ed.): "...aber mir steckt der Schreck noch in allen Knochen." Innsbruck zwischen Diktatur, Krieg und Befreiung 1933–1950, Innsbruck 2020, pp. 139-172.
- with Matthias Breit, Schnappschüsse der Befreiung. Fotografien amerikanischer Soldaten im Frühjahr 1945, Innsbruck-Vienna 2020.
- The Victim Myth Revisited. Politics of History in Austria up until the Waldheim Affair, in: Contemporary Austrian Studies, 29 (2020), pp. 153-174.
- Codename Brooklyn. Jüdische Agenten im Feindesland - Die Operation Greenup, Innsbruck 2019.
- with Philipp Rode, Mathias Lichtenwagner, From palimpsest to me-moiré: Exploring urban memorial landscapes of political violence, in: Political Geography, 74, October 2019. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0962629818302889
- with Johannes Kramer, Mathias Lichtenwagner, Transnational Memory Spaces in the Making: WWII and Holocaust Remembrance in Vienna, in: International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 32 (2019), pp. 439-458. rdcu.be/bHj84
- with Johannes Kramer, From Traitors to Role Models. Rehabilitation and Memorialisation of Wehrmacht Deserters in Austria, in: Eleonora Narvselius, Gelinada Grinchenko (eds.): Traitors, Collaborators and Deserters in Contemporary European Politics of Memory, Basingstoke: 2018, pp. 59-85.
- with Magnus Koch, Johannes Kramer, Contested Heroes, Contested Spaces: Politics of Remembrance at Vienna Heldenplatz/Ballhausplatz, in: Jörg Echternkamp, Stephan Jaeger (eds.): Views of Violence. Representing the Second World War in Museums and Memorials, New York 2019, pp. 174-214.
Extract
gefördert vom Bundesministerium für Inneres, Land Tirol, Land Vorarlberg und Stadt Innsbruck
Laufzeit: Oktober 2024 - September 2028
gefördert vom Land Tirol, Stadt Innsbruck und Land Vorarlberg
Laufzeit Tirol: November 2019 - Oktober 2022
Laufzeit Vorarlberg: März 2020 - Dezember 2022
gefördert vom Zukunftsfonds der Republik Österreich und Nationalfonds der Republik Österreich für Opfer des Nationalsozialismus
Laufzeit: Juli 2022 - Dezember 2023
Functions
- Member of the Review Board of the journal zeitgeschichte and the International Academic Advisory Board of the Austrian Journal of Historical Sciences
- Member of the Society for Exile Research, the Theodor Kramer Society, the Personal Committee for Justice for the Victims of Nazi Military Justice, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Museum of Military History / Military History Institute and Chairman of the aegide Association.
Awards
- 2020 Honour Award of the State of Carinthia for Humanities and Social Sciences
- 2019 First prize in the "Digital Products" category at the International Cartographic Exhibition of the International Cartographic Association (ICA) in Tokyo for the data visualisation www.porem.wien (with the development team)
- 2015 Hans Maršalek Prize (2nd place, with the cultural association kuland) for the project "Aus dem Gedächtnis in die Erinnerung"
- 2013 Michael Mitterauer Prize for Social, Cultural and Economic History from the Institute for Economic and Social History at the University of Vienna for the book "Subversion deutscher Herrschaft"
- 2010 Dissertation prize from the Arbeitskreis Deutsche Englandforschung (ADEF)
- 2009 Herbert Steiner Recognition Award from the Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW) for the dissertation