Assistant Professor Daniel Siter (1992) is a Slovenian historian, researcher, author, lecturer and Editor-in-Chief and Head of Alma Mater Press at Alma Mater Europaea University. Dr Siter is also Head of Research and lead author at the International Research Centre for Second World War Maribor, located in the former Nazi prisoner-of-war camp (Stalag XVIII D in Maribor). In 2025, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia appointed him to the Governing Council of the Regional Archives Maribor.
Education, Employment and Academic Career:
After obtaining degrees in history and geography (2015) from the Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor, he completed his master's degree in 2019 at the Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana with the thesis "Rogaška Slatina During the Period of German Occupation (1941–1945)", for which he was nominated for the Slovenian University Prešeren Award. During his master's studies, he was actively involved in research, fieldwork, educational, and publishing activities within a four-year ARIS research project on occupation and state borders in occupied Slovenia. He was also a co-author of the notable exhibition "Rogaška Slatina as a Border Town of the Third Reich, 1941–1945" (2018).
In 2020, he joined Alma Mater Europaea University as a young researcher and assistant for historiography. In December 2024, he earned his doctorate with distinction, defending a dissertation entitled "Subversive Activity of Swabian-German Cultural Association and the Role of its Members on Slovenian Soil Between 1922–1945". In his doctoral research, he demonstrated the subversive nature of the Swabian-German Cultural Association and examined the political and (para)military role of its members in Nazi Germany's preparations for the invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In April 2025, he was elected to the academic title of Assistant Professor for Historiography at Alma Mater Europaea University.
Research Field, Experience, Teaching and Commissions:
His research focuses on twentieth-century Slovenian and European history, primarily the Second World War in Slovenia, as well as the pre-war and post-war periods, examining military, political, economic, cultural, social, and everyday life aspects and events, and their far-reaching consequences. His areas of expertise include the life of Adolf Hitler, the history of Nazism, dark cultural and military heritage (and its interpretation), Nazi prisoner-of-war and concentration camps, international humanitarian law, Kulturbund, German minority in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, occupation borders, German occupation policy in Slovenia, memory studies, oral and public history, commemorative and memorial practices.
He has extensive research experience in archives, museums, libraries and other research institutions worldwide (London, Moscow, Freiburg, Ludwigsburg, Obersalzberg, Belgrade, Zagreb, and Graz, among others). He has already conducted and documented more than 25 in-depth interviews (professionally recorded oral testimonies) with surviving eyewitnesses of the Second World War and Nazi war terror, genocide, implementation of Germanisation and denationalising policy and characteristics of everyday life in occupied Slovenia.
- Since 2020, he has been a member of the ARIS programme group »Research of Cultural Formations« (P6–0278)
- Between 2021 and 2022, he was a researcher in a bilateral cooperation project between the Republic of Slovenia and Hungary.
- Between 2020 and 2023, he taught Alma Mater students about scientific publishing, research methodology, scholarly writing and reviewing.
- Since 2022, he has been an external associate and head of research at the International Research Centre for the Second World War Maribor.
- Since 2024, he has also been a member of the University Commission for Scientific and Research Work, responsible for evaluating scholarly works and doctoral dissertations.
- Since 2025, he has served as Editor-in-Chief and Head of Alma Mater Press.
- From October 2026, he will lecture two study courses at the Department of History, Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor.
Bibliography, Major Works and Awards:
His bibliography includes more than 185 units. For his acclaimed and pioneering scholarly book Rogaška Slatina Under the Swastika: Spa Resort During the Occupation of 1941–1945 (published in two editions in 2021 and 2023), a product of extensive, complex, and in-depth four-year research, he received an official municipal award, recognition from Slovenian President Borut Pahor and was among the nominees for municipal person of the year in 2022.
He is also the author of nine original historical exhibitions, numerous scholarly articles, contributions, commentaries, and book reviews, invited lectures and published conference papers. His public engagement includes keynote addresses at commemorative ceremonies, public speeches, media interviews, podcasts and social platform appearances, and radio and television discussion programmes. He is a leading editor and author of a multi-authored book, published by the international academic publisher LIT Verlag (2025). In 2025, he received an award from Alma Mater Europaea University for international activities and promotion.
He regularly organises, moderates, chairs, and appears as an invited lecturer at international scholarly conferences, symposia, round tables and practical workshops both in Slovenia and abroad (most notable: Tajikistan: Dušanbe, 2026; Russia: Moscow, 2024–26 and Vologda, 2025; Kazakhstan: Almaty, 2025; South Africa: Johannesburg, 2022; Canterbury, Belgrade, Novi Sad, Zagreb, Prague, etc.). As a keynote speaker, he regularly takes part in historical events, commemorations, and memorial ceremonies. In Žiri in 2024, he served as a keynote speaker at an official commemorative ceremony alongside Slovenia's Minister of Culture, Dr Asta Vrečko. He was an invited guest speaker on Slovenia's influential AIDEA podcast (2024) and TEDx event (2025).
As an author of the exhibition on the destructive activities of the Nazi prisoner-of-war camp Stalag XVIII D, in 2024, he delivered the opening lecture in Moscow at the special invitation of the Victory Museum. In 2025, he opened a new exhibition at the central exhibition hall in Moscow (Manege) and, on the 80th anniversary of the Nuremberg Trials, served as a lecturer at an international scholarly conference at the Victory Museum.
In 2025, in Vologda and in 2026 in Dušanbe, he met officially for the first time with descendants of Soviet prisoners of war who had died in Maribor. During lectures at the Vologda Library and the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan, he ceremonially handed over newly discovered archival documents and other primary sources to the relatives of the deceased POW as part of a broader humanitarian and memorial initiative.
For further details, please see:
