Tony Barta is a research associate at La Trobe University, in Melbourne, Australia. He was born in New Zealand, where his parents had found refuge when Hitler took over Austria.

He studied history and politics at the University of Otago and the Free University in Berlin. In 1969 he was appointed to the new history department at La Trobe, where he taught European history and founded the history and film programme. The essay ‘Film Nazis’ is in his book Screening the Past.

Research interests in 20th century Germany and 19th century Australia contributed to the developing discipline of Genocide Studies, where his theses about the colonial impacts on indigenous peoples led to Australian genocide being taken seriously and to a worldwide reputation. Tony Barta was invited to give a keynote address to the biennial conference of the International Organization of Genocide Scholars in Winnipeg, Canada, in June 2014.