Wolfgang Klaue

Wolfgang Klaue was Director of the Staatliches Filmarchiv der DDR (East German Film Archive) from 1969 to 1991, a member of the FIAF Executive Committee for that entire period, FIAF President from 1979 to 1984, and Head of the FIAF Cataloguing Commission from 1969 to 1979.

He began his archival career as Head of the Scientific Department of the Staatliches Filmarchiv der DDR (East German Film Archive), working under Herbert Volkmann, and took over as the archive's Director in 1969. He retained his post until 1991, when the Staatliches Filmarchiv der DDR became part of re-united Germany's Bundesarchiv. In the 1970s he played a key role in the formulation of UNESCO's Recommendation for the Safeguarding and Preservaton of the Moving Image (adoped on 27 October 1980). That achievement was awarded by a UNESCO Silver Medal presented to Klaue in 1987 - a very rare honour. Under his leadership, the Staatliches Filmarchiv der DDR also hosted the very first FIAF Summer School (1973) and four more thereafter. From 1998 to his retirement in 2003, Wolfgang Klaue was the founding chairman of the DEFA Stiftung, which was established on 15 December 1998 to preserve and make accessible the films made at the East German DEFA studios.

Wolfgang Klaue was elected FIAF Honorary Member in 1992, and remained an active member of the FIAF community for many years after that. During the 2008 Congress in Paris, he moderated a Second Century Forum on the topic of African film archives, which led to the “Film Archives in Africa” project. Over the last decade, he was in regular contact with the FIAF Secretariat and was always willing to share his knowledge with the Senior Administrator, in particular on historical matters.