Freelance researcher, writer and journalist in Vienna; worked for the Historical Commission of the Republic of Austria; current member of the Commission for Provenance Research and vice-president of the Österreichische Gesellschaft für Exilforschung (öge) (Austrian Society for Exile Studies); numerous publications on modern history (e.g., Nazi expulsion and looting policy, Jewish history, Nazi looting of art and cultural objects, the art market, and past and present refugee and asylum policy); Käthe Leichter Prize (1994); Leon Zelman Prize for Dialogue and Understanding (2016); Preis der Stadt Wien für Publizistik (City of Vienna Prize for Scholarly and Journalistic Publishing) (2020).
Bernhard Altmann came from an orthodox Jewish family in Galicia. His maternal grandparents had a knitwear factory in Przemyśl, where he was born, managed by his mother Keile (later Karoline) Tischler before she married.