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"
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
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.