Representatives of the labour union IG Metall bid farewell to the last 165 workers with flowers.
In 1972 he became a member of the German Metalworkers' Union and in 1974 he took the chair of regional trade unions youth organization in Munich (until 1979) and became a partymember of the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
After Heinz-Werner Meyer, the DGB’s chairman, died shortly before the DGB Federal Congress in 1994, Engelen-Kefer had to assume the chairmanship on a temporary basis until Dieter Schulte, member of the Managing Board of IG Metall, was nominated and elected as new DGB chairman.
After his return to Germany Matthöfer began work in the department of economics for the workers union IG Metall, followed by 4 years at the Organization for European Economic Cooperation in Washington, D.C. and Paris.