In Memoriam: Klaus Hüfner, Honorary President of WFUNA
* 22. January 1939 in Berlin; † 8. November 2025 in Berlin
WFUNA mourns the passing of Prof. Dr. Klaus Hüfner, our Honorary President and a lifelong advocate for the United Nations. His service and scholarship helped strengthen international cooperation and broaden public understanding of the UN’s work.
Born in Berlin, Klaus Hüfner earned his doctorate in economics in 1969 after studying economics, sociology and political science at institutions including the London School of Economics, the Institut de Hautes Études Internationales in Geneva and Princeton University. Early in his academic career he served as research associate at the Max Planck Institute for Educational Research and later held the professorship in economics at the Freie Universität Berlin from 1980 to 2002.
His engagement with WFUNA was long and influential. He served on the Executive Committee from 1975 to 1987, served as Vice-Chair from 1981 to 1983, Chair from 1983 to 1987, and later as Vice-President from 1989 to 1993. In 1993 he was elected Honorary President of WFUNA, a role he fulfilled with dignity and insight until his passing.
Klaus Hüfner stood up for WFUNA’s mission, vision, and values with consistency and conviction. He defended the role of global citizenship, supported transparent and inclusive governance, and stressed the need for an informed public that could engage the UN with clarity and purpose. He believed that WFUNA had a responsibility to bring people closer to the UN and to ensure that core UN principles, peace, human rights, and cooperation, remained at the center of its work.
Beyond WFUNA, Klaus Hüfner remained deeply engaged in German civil society and the UN arena. He had been a member of UNA-Germany since 1957 and served in many leadership roles over the decades. In recognition of his long and distinguished service, UNA-Germany named him an Honorary Member in 2024. He also supported the German UNESCO Commission for five decades and served as its President from 1998 to 2002. UNA-Germany awarded him the Dag Hammarskjöld Honorary Medal in 1998, and in 2011 he received the Grand Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
On behalf of WFUNA’s Leadership and Membership, we extend our sincere condolences to his family, friends, colleagues, and the many individuals whose lives he touched. We honour his memory by continuing the work to which he dedicated himself: an informed, engaged, and principled civil society for the United Nations.
– Dr. Shawn Chen, WFUNA President
– Aziel Goulandris, WFUNA Secretary-General
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