Birkhan, Helmut

Helmut Birkhan (born 1 February 1938) is an Austrian philologist who is Professor Emeritus of Old High German Language and Literature and the former Managing Director of the Institute for Germanic Studies at the University of Vienna. Having studied at Vienna under Otto Höfler, Birkhan specializes in Celtic, Germanic, and Indo-European studies, particularly the study of Celtic-Germanic contacts, Germanic linguistics and Medieval German literature from an interdisciplinary perspective, on which he has published numerous influential works. He has taught generations of students at Vienna, as is well known as a popularizer of scholarship for the broader Austrian public, particularly young people. Birkhan has tutored many influential scholars, including Hermann Reichert, Rudolf Simek, Florian Kragl, Melitta Adamson, Fritz Peter Knapp and Alfred Ebenbauer, and continues to teach, write and research.