The Association of Friends of the Federal Academy for Security Policy is a club that provides ideal and material support to the BAKS and contributes to the sustainable community building. The association aims to maintain, cultivate and develop personal relations with former seminar participants.

Since 1995, the Association of Friends has invited on a rotational basis a public figure to deliver the “Manfred Wörner speech” at the BAKS. This address is a keynote speech about security policy, named after the former Federal Minister of Defence, Manfred Wörner. To date, the following individuals have been invited to deliver the speech:

1996 Karsten Voigt

1997 Minister of State Dr. Werner Hoyer

1998 Jörg Schönbohm (since then every two years)

2000 Federal Minister (ret.) Prof. Dr. Klaus Töpfer

2002 Federal Minister Rudolf Scharping (turned down because of the Erfurt massacre)

2004 with Prof. Dr. Harald Müller

2006 with Federal Minister (ret.) Christian Schwarz-Schilling

2008 with State Secretary (ret.) Prof. Lothar Rühl

2010 Christian Schmidt, Member of the Bundestag, Parliamentary State Secretary, FMOD

2012 (suspended because of the 20th anniversary of the Federal Academy for Security Policy, instead a speech delivered by Federal Minister (ret.) Genscher)

2014 Prof. Dr. Dr. Klaus Töpfer, Executiv Director Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam

2016 Prof. Dr. Michael Stürmer, Chief Correspondent for "Die Welt"

2018 Dr. Klaus Scharioth

2022 Anne Sipiläinen, Ambassador of Finland and Per Thöresson, Ambassador of Sweden

 

Alternatingly, the Federal Academy confers the Karl Carstens Award, named after the Federal President Karl Carstens. The prize is bestowed on individuals who have rendered outstanding services to communicate security policy issues and the idea of comprehensive security in the broader public. Previous winners include:

1997 Gerhard Hubatschek, editor-in-chief of IAP-Dienst Sicherheitspolitik

1999 Rolf Clement, editor-in-chief at “Deutschlandfunk” (DLF) broadcasting station

2001 Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Leidhold, inventor of POL&IS

2003 Dr. Christine Kolmar, head of the policy department at “n-tv” German television programme

2005 Dr. Peter Scholl-Latour, publisher

2007 Helmut Markwort, editor-in-chief of FOCUS magazine

2009 Dr. Volker Perthes, SWP

2011 Paul Elmar Jöris, WDR

2013   Dr. Claus Kleber, ZDF

2015 Ambassador ret. Avi Primor

2017 Dr. Sylke Tempel, editor-in-chief Internationale Politik, posthume honor 2018

2019 Ahmad Mansour, psychologist and activist

2021 Gerald Knaus, Chairman of the European Stability Initiative

 

Do you want to join The Association of Friends? Then please send an e-mail to the secretary of the Association of Friends at

Mr. Rathjen at sekretaer-fk@baks.bund.de.