I will be on research leave in 2017/18 and will not hold regular office hours.

• Staatsexamen in History (University of Cologne)
• Doctoral degree in History, (Technical University of Berlin)

Dr Klaus Richter is a Birmingham Fellow and Lecturer in Eastern European History at the University of Birmingham. After studying history, art history, English and German philology at the University of Cologne, he worked as a research associate at the Centre for Research on Anti-Semitism at the Technical University of Berlin (2009 – 2011). In early 2012, he joined the German Historical Institute in Warsaw as a visiting scholar. He took up work at the University of Birmingham in October 2012.

• Lectures in the War Studies Core Module: “Rise of Modern War”
• Convenor of War Studies Core Module: “An Introduction to Strategy and Operational Art”
• Advanced Autumn Option: “Everyday life under Nazi and Soviet Occupation”
• Spring Option: “The First World War at the Eastern Front”
• Special Subject: “A History of Conflict, Occupation and Independence in East Central Europe”
• Group Research: “From Science to Extermination. Anti-Semitism in Europe”

I can supervise research topics in the following areas: late 19^th century to mid 20^th century East Central and Eastern European history, especially political history, the history of nationalism, of ethnic conflicts and ethnic relations, of anti-Semitism, of property redistribution, and of economy and commerce.

I am currently working on a history of Poland and the Baltics during the First World War and the interwar period, which focuses on the impact of occupation and revolution on the specifics of statehood in the region. I am particularly interested in the interplay between imperial normative frameworks, that continued to be a powerful force, and territorial politics implemented in the nation states.

My past research includes a doctoral thesis on anti-Semitism in Lithuania before World War I, which focussed on anti-Jewish violence and strategies to “emancipate” the peasants from Jewish merchants. I am also involved in the following projects:

• ‘Hinterlands and Hypertrophies. Assessments of the “Viability” of Empires and Nation-States in Central and Eastern Europe, 1900 – 1930's’ (as principal investigator). Together with Dr Jonathan Gumz, I analyse the origins, development and impact of the concept of “viability” and its practice in early 20^th century Central and Eastern Europe. The project is thus meant to establish a starting point for a historiography of modern state assessment and its practitioners. Viewing a state through the lens of “viability” (from German: Lebensfähigkeit, literal translation “the ability to live”) meant interpreting it as a living organism – be it in the form of the allegedly overstretched and disaggregating Habsburg and Romanov Empires, of hydrocephalic post-war Austria, of incoherent post-partition Poland or of acephalic Lithuania. Our project investigates how the circulation of knowledge and practices associated with “viability” lent the concept a dynamic character that changed over time. The project is funded by an AHRC Early Career Standard Research Grant for a time period of 24 months, starting in September 2017.

Recently concluded research projects:

• ‘Practices and Perceptions of Property Redistribution in Poland and the Baltic States, 1917 – 1934’ (as principal investigator). This project looks at the development of property distribution and its connection with state building in the former borderlands of the German and Russian empires following WWI – specifically Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The project is funded with a British Academy Small Research Grant for the time period April 2015 – March 2017.
• ‘Borders, Maps and Congresses. The New Order of East Central Europe from the Legacy of the Empires, 1917 – 1923.’ This project, which was co-ordinated by the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder, looked at the interplay of international diplomacy, practices of rule and spatial imaginaries in the drawing of borders after the First World War. The project ran from 2013 to 2016 and was funded by Viadrina University.
• ‘Population displacement and its political and cultural heritage in 20^th century Lithuania’ (Gyventojų dislokacija ir jos politinis bei kultūrinis palikimas XX amžiaus Lietuvoje). This project, which was co-ordinated by the University of Vilnius, examined the impact of displacement, refugee crises and deportations on Lithuanian society across the 20^th century. The project, which was funded by the European Structural Fund, started in 2013 and concluded in 2015.

Books:

• Contact Zones in the Historical Region of East Prussia / Kontaktų zonos istoriniame Rytų Prūsijos regione (Klaipėda, 2015), co-edited with Vasilijus Safronovas.
• ‘Antisemitismus in Litauen. Juden, Christen und die ‘Emanzipation’ der Bauern (1889-1914)’ [‘Anti-Semitism in Lithuania. Jews, Christians, and the ‘Emancipation’ of the Peasantry (1889-1914)’], Berlin: Metropol 2013.

Selected articles and book chapters:

• ‘“An Orgy of Licence?” Democracy and Property Redistribution in Poland and the Baltics in Their International Context, 1918 - 1926’, in Nationalities Papers, 2017.
• ‘“A mass which you could form into whatever you wanted. ” Refugees and State Building in Lithuania and Courland, 1914-21.’ In Europe on the Move. Refugees in the Era of the Great War, eds. Peter Gatrell and Lyubov Zhvanko (Manchester, 2017), pp. 45-65.
• ‘Displacement without moving. Secession, border changes and practices of population politics in Lithuania, 1916-1923’, in Population Displacement in Lithuania in the Twentieth Century. Experiences, Identities and Legacies, eds. Tomas Balkelis and Violeta Davoliūtė (Leiden, 2016), pp. 62-88.
• ‘“Go with the Hare’s Ticket.” Mobility and territorial policies in Ober Ost (1915 – 1918)’, in First World War Studies, 2016.
• ‘“Eine durch und durch demokratische Nation”. Demokratie und Minderheitenschutz in der Außendarstellung Litauens nach 1918’ [‘“A quintessentially democratic nation.” Democracy and minority protection in Lithuanian foreign policy after 1918’], in Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, 64 (2015), 2, pp. 194-217.
• “Horrible Were the Avengers, but the Jews Were Horrible, too.” Contemporaries Interpret the Anti-Jewish Riots in Dusetos, in: Sites of European Antisemitism in the Age of Mass Politics, 1880–1918, 1880-1918, eds. Daniel Unowsky and Robert Nemes (Waltham, 2014), pp. 199-214.

Contributions to websites:

• Thematic module “Lithuania in the interwar period” for the Herder-Institute online project Dokumente und Materialien für die Geschichte Ostmitteleuropas [Documents and materials for the history of East Central Europe]

Encyclopaedia entries:

• Several entries for the Handbuch des Antisemitismus [Handbook of Anti-Semitism], Vols. 4, 5, 6, Berlin 2011-2013.
• Several entries for the online encyclopaedia "1914-1918 online."

Reviews:

• Several reviews for H-Soz-u-Kult [hsozkult.de], Journal for Baltic Studies, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropaforschung (ZfO), Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft (ZfG), Lietuvos istorijos studijos, Pol-Int, Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, Darbai ir dienos