Featured Alumni

Dr. Martin Kofler (M.A. UNO History 1998)

Profession: editor in contemporary history publishing; free lance historian of the Cold War and Austrian regional history; consultant for historical exhibitions

Martin Kofler graduated from UNO with a Master's degree in History in 1998. A UNO his focus was on Cold War Studies and he wrote a thesis on “ Berlin , Neutrality, and Cold War Propaganda: Nikita Khrushchev's Visit to Austria in 1960.” It was steeped in archival work at the National Archives in Washington and the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston , as well as archival records from the Austrian National Archives in Vienna . At UNO Günter Bischof and Joseph Logsdon were his principal advisers, as well as Reinhold Wagnleitner, a noted Cold War scholar and visiting guest professor in the spring of 1998 from the University of Salzburg in Austria . He came to UNO through the long-standing partnership agreement with the University of Innsbruck in1994/95 and returned as the “CenterAustria fellow” in 1997/98 to complete his thesis. At CenterAustria he was an assistant editor for the journal Contemporary Austrian Studies and also served as a special assistant to help organize the 1998 “Marshall Plan in Austria ” symposium.

Of his UNO experience he says: " It was very special for me to finish much more than just another studies program in history at UNO: basic readings, new topics (i.e. Central America & the Caribbean , or Historiography), discussing leading sessions, and uncountable book reviews as well as presentations proved to be quite a challenge in which I happily succeeded in spite of English not being my native language. I also enjoyed the close support of my UNO Professors very much! "

Martin Kofler is straight out of the spectacular Austrian Alps. He was born in 1971 in Lienz, the capital city of Eastern Tyrol , where he also attended high school. He studied contemporary history with Professor Rolf Steininger at the University of Innsbruck and graduated with a Mag. Phil. Degree in 1994. After serving his mandatory civil service with handicapped and AIDS patients (1995/96) and completing his M.A. at UNO, he returned to Innsbruck to work on his PhD, He completed his dissertation on Kennedy and Austria: Neutrality in the Cold War in 2002 and published it as a prize-winning book in 2003.

While working on his dissertation, he started a career in publishing with the fledgling new publisher StudienVerlag in Innsbruck . Martin soon advanced to become their contemporary history editor and has helped make StudienVerlag the premier publishing house for contemporary history in Austria in less than ten years.

But Martin also continued his career as a prolific scholar of contemporary history. Next to his continuing interest in Cold War Studies , he has published on regional Austrian history . He has half a dozen books and almost three dozen scholarly articles to this credit. Martin Kofler, in fact, has established himself as the premier authority on his native East Tyrol in the Twentieth Century. He was commissioned by his native city of Lienz to work on the provenance of the collection of Albin Egger Lienz paintings in Castle Bruck, which sparked the restitution of paintings to their rightful heirs, after such paintings had been unlawfully obtained by the City of Lienz during the Nazi period. He has also worked as a scholarly consultant to historical exhibits in Lienz and Vienna and is staging a large exhibit in Lienz on “ East Tyrol in the Twentieth Century” in the summer of 2007.

(Recommended and written by Günter Bischof)

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