Born in Düsseldorf to a strict Catholic family. His father, Peter Klausener (1844-1904), was a member of the Austrian Flirsch Klausener family, who came to the Rhineland in 1740, and are relatives of the Cluysenaar family. His father studied law and served as an assessor and justice of the peace in Malmedy, Prussia. His mother, Elisabeth Bisenbach (1864-1944), was from an upper-class family in Düsseldorf. Klausener followed his father's career in public service, serving for a time in the Prussian Ministry of Commerce. He served as an artillery officer in Belgium, France and on the eastern front of World War I, and was awarded the Iron Cross Second Class in 1914 and the Iron Cross First Class in 1917. Klausener's participation in a boycott during the French occupancy of Ruhr in 1923 and 1924, however, earned him a sentence of two months in prison.