Hans-Joachim Veen (born 29 August 1944, in Strasbourg) is a German political scientist who since 1994 works as honorary professor at the University of Trier, Germany.
Before his studies, he served as a soldier with Reconnaissance Battalion 3 at Lüneburg for two years. He is bearing the rank of a full colonel (res.) and served as commander of Tank Battalion 524 in Lingen. His last reserve training he served as chief of staff German armed forces command USA and Canada in Reston/Virginia.
He then studied political science, public law and history at the University of Hamburg and the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg.
In 1975/1976 he worked as scientific assistant at the chair of Wilhelm Hennis at the University of Freiburg and received his Ph.D. in 1976.
From 1983 to 1999 he worked as Director of research at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and earned himself a reputation in the fields of research on elections and political parties and scientific political consulting. Since 2000 he has been head of the project "Democracy and political party development in eastern Europe" within the foundation. With this project he has opened the way for a systematic support of political parties in young democracies through the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation. Today he is still active in this field.
In 1994/95 he served as an interim professor for comparative government studies at the University of Trier.
Since 2002 Veen is chairman of the board of the Stiftung Ettersberg (Ettersberg-foundation) in Weimar. The foundation is dedicated to the comparative study of European dictatorships and their democratic transition.
From 2007 to 2009 Hans-Joachim Veen also serves as a head of the Thuringian governmental committee for violence prevention. From 2009 to 2012 he was moderating the History Network Thüringen, a committee dealing with coming to terms with the SED dictatorship. At the time being he is a member of the scientific council with the federal commissioner for the documents of the state security service of the former German Democratic Republic (BStU), he was reelected head of the council on January 21, 2013.
In 1993 he was awarded the "Bundesverdientskreuz" because of his merits with regard to the development of the political, economical and historical sciences at the universities of the newly formed German states through a multi-year program for visiting professors which Veen initiated and organized.