Background
Born in Düsseldorf to a strict Catholic family, Klausener followed his father"s career in public service, serving for a time in the Prussian Ministry of Commerce.
Born in Düsseldorf to a strict Catholic family, Klausener followed his father"s career in public service, serving for a time in the Prussian Ministry of Commerce.
The share of Klausener in boycott during the French occupancy Ruhr in 1923 and 1924 earned him a sentence of two months in prison. From 1924, Klausener served in the Prussia n the Ministry of Welfare, and later headed the police division Ministry of Interior of that state. From 1928, Klausener became head of "group" "Katholische Aktion "(Catholic Action).
Before 1933, Klausener strongly supported the police battle against illegal Nazi activities.
After Adolf Hitler and Nazis came to power in 1933, Hermann Göring became minister-president of Prussia. Klausener is displaced from the ministry of transport of Prussia when Göring started its Nazify the Prussian police.
The speech, though moderate in tone, criticized the violence and repression that had followed since Hitler became Chancellor. Klausener spoke at the Catholic Congress in the Berlin"s Hoppegarten, on 24 June 1934.
His passionate criticism of the repression was viewed by the Nazis as an open challenge.
Six days later, during the "Night of the Long Knives", Steamship officer Kurt Gildisch was ordered by Reinhard Heydrich to go to Klausener"s office at the Ministry of Transport to shoot him. After the killing, Gildisch was promoted in rank to Steamship-Sturmbannführer. After the end of the Nazi regime and after World World War II, a monument was erected to Klausener in Berlin.
Klausener relationship with the future Pope Pius XII has sometimes been controversial.
While authors like Guenter Lewy have expressed criticism of Pius for not intervening more forcefully in the case, other authors like Joseph Bottum and David G. Dalin have presented a more positive assessment of the attitude of Pius XII during that time.