From 1985 to 1989, Knütter was a member of the Advisory Council of the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, (BpB)).
In the 1970s Knütter's works covered the complex interrelationship of Jewry and left-wing politics; studying totalitarianism, he noted the anti-liberal and anti-pluralistic traits of far-right thinking (Reichling, 1993).
In co-authorship with Stefan Winckler, he has published the work A Handbook of Left-Wing Extremism - an Underestimated Danger (“Handbuch des Linksextremismus - Die unterschätzte Gefahr”), in which the authors claim that the activities of the potentially violent leftist militants - unlike those of the right-wing and far-right spectrum - are not paid due attention by the public.
Knütter's own positions, on the other hand, have also been questioned, and his right-wing connections mentioned in the yearly reports of the Office for the Protection of Constitution of North Rhine Westphalia.
[1] Knütter's most recent publication is “Antifascism: the Mental Civil War” (“Antifaschismus : der geistige Bürgerkrieg”), published by the German right-wing association Die Deutschen Konservativen.