Günter Bischof - The Prague Spring and the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968

Stefan Karneris the director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War-Consequences, Graz-Vienna-Klagenfurt (see http://www.bik.ac.at) and a professor and the deputy director of the Department of Economic, Social and Business History at the University of Graz. He is the chairman of the Austrian Part of the Austrian-Russian Commission of Historians, a member of the Czech-Austrian Commission of Historians, and a member of the editorial board of the Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung , Berlin. In 1995 he received the prestigious Austrian Scientist of the Year award. Karner is the author of more than twenty books, including Im Archipel GUPVI. Kriegsgefangenschaft und Internierung in der Sowjetunion 1941–1956 [In the GUPVI Archipelago: Prisoners of War and Internees in the Soviet Union 1941–1956], coeditor of Die Rote Armee in Österreich. Sowjetische Besatzung 1945–1955 (2 volumes) [The Red Army in Austria: The Soviet Occupation 1945–1955], and the editor of several book series.

Harald Knollis a senior fellow at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War-Consequences, Graz. He has published on prisoners of war in the USSR during and after World War II, especially on Stalin’s legal persecution of POWs, on the Austrian resistance against the Nazi regime, and on espionage in the Soviet occupation zone in Austria (1945–1955).

Petr Kolářserves as the ambassador of the Czech Republic to the United States. He was educated at Charles University in Prague and majored in information technology and library science and ethnography. He held fellowships at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, DC, the University of London’s Institute of Historical Research, and the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo. He worked as a specialist at the Institute for Ethnography and Folklore Studies and the Research Center for Peace and Disarmament Issues, as well as a researcher at the Institute for Contemporary History, all of the Czechoslovak Academy of Science; he also worked as a chief researcher at the Institute for Strategic Studies of the Ministry of Defense and at the Institute for International Relations, both in Prague. Kolář joined the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the mid-1990s and served as director of the Department for Czechs Living Abroad and Nongovernmental Relations; director of the Eastern & Southern Europe Territorial Department, as well as foreign policy adviser to the foreign minister. He also served as an adviser for European Integration and the Balkans to Vaclav Havel, president of the Czech Republic 1999–2003, and as Czech ambassador to the Kingdom of Sweden and the Republic of Ireland, as well as a deputy minister of foreign affairs for bilateral relations.

Mark Kramerstudied at Stanford and was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University. He has been a driving force in making new documents from former communist countries available through the Cold War International History Project of the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. He is the director of the Davis Center for Cold War Studies, Harvard University (see http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/) and editor of the Journal of Cold War Studies (MIT Press). He is the author of numerous articles and signal analyses on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the Cold War.

Nikita Petrovis leader of the research program on Soviet security studies at Memorial Moscow (see http://www.memo.ru/eng/memhrc/index.shtml). He is author of various books on the NKVD/KGB, including Stalin’s Loyal Executioner: People’s Commissar Nikolai Ezhov, 1895–1940 (with Marc Jansen), Kto rukovodil NKVD 1934–1941 [The Leaders of the NKVD 1934–1941] (with K. Skorkin), and Pervyi predsedatel’ KGB. Ivan Serov [Ivan Servov: The First Chairman of the KGB].

Mikhail Prozumenshchikovis the deputy director of the Russian State Archives of Contemporary History (RGANI), Moscow (former Archives of the Central Committee of the CPSU). He is author of Bol’shoy sport i bol’shaya politika [Big Sport and Big Policy] and many books and articles on the history of international relations during the second half of the twentieth century, the history of the CPSU and its role on the formation of Soviet foreign and home affairs, and So viet-Chinese relations. He is editor and the compiler of collections of documents concerning the XX Congress of CPSU in 1956, records of meetings of Presidium CC CPSU in the Khrushchev era, and the publication series “Culture and Power from Stalin to Gorbachev.”

Peter Ruggenthaleris a fellow at the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Research on War-Consequences, Graz; he is also a member of the AustrianRussian Commission of Historians and an expert and researcher for the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania (since 2004) and the Austrian Historians’ Commission (2000–2002). He was coordinator of the international research project on the “Prague Spring 1968.” He is the author of Stalins großer Bluff. Die Geschichte der Stalin-Note in Dokumenten der sowjetischen Führung [Stalin’s Big Bluff: The History of the Stalin-Note in the Records of the Soviet Leadership] and coauthor of Zwangsarbeit in der Landund Forstwirtschaft auf dem Gebiet Österreichs 1939 bis 1945 [Forced Labor in Agriculture and Forestry on Austrian Territory 1939–1945].

Georges-Henri Soutouis professor emeritus at Paris-Sorbonne (Paris IV) University. He belongs to the Diplomatic Archives Commission of the French Foreign Ministry and also serves as a member of the editorial board of several scholarly journals, including Relations Internationales , Revue Historique des Armées , and Contemporary European History ; he is coeditor of the Revue d’histoire diplomatique . He specializes in twentieth-century international history, particularly World War I, the Franco-German relationship, and East-West relations after 1945. In addition to numerous articles, Soutou has published L’Or et le Sang. Les buts de guerre économiques de la Première guerre mondiale ; L’Alliance incertaine. Les rapports politico-stratégiques franco-allemand 1943–1990s ; La Guerre de Cinquante Ans. Les relations Est-Ouest 1943–1990 ; and L’Europe de 1815 à nos jours .

Donald P. Steuryis a historian working in the Central Intelligence Agency’s Declassification Center. He previously served as a Soviet military analyst (1981–1992) and worked on the CIA History Staff from 1992 to 2007. He has written widely on the intelligence history in World War II and the Cold War and his publications include two documentary histories, On the Front Lines of the Cold War: The Intelligence War in Berlin, 1946–1961 and Intentions and Capabilities: Estimates on Soviet Strategic Forces, 1950–1983 . He has taught at the University of Southern California and the George Washington University and presently teaches at the University of Maryland University College. He also serves on the Academic Advisory Board of the Allied Museum in Berlin. He has a doctorate in modern European history from the University of California, Irvine.

Oldřich Tůmais the director of the Institute for Contemporary History of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, Czech Republic (see http://www.cas.cz/en/institute_det.php?ID=61). He has held many fellowships and is the author of many articles on Czechoslovakia in the Cold War.

Manfred Wilkeis a retired professor for sociology of the Professional School for Economics in Berlin (FHW). From 1992 to 2006 he was one of the two leaders of the research group on the SED state ( Forschungsverbund SED-Staat ) at the Free University of Berlin. He was a member of two Enquete-Commissions by the German Bundestag on the history of the SEDdictatorship. He is the author of Der SED-Staat ; Prager Frühling. Das internationale Krisenjahr 1968 (2 vols.), 2008. He is currently the project manger at the Institute for Contemporary History ( Institut für Zeitgeschichte ) MunichBerlin and the leader of the project The Berlin Wall: From SED Domestic Instrumentalization to Premier International Memory Site.