Born in Cincinnati, Ohio to Daniel von Hagen (February 29, 1924 – August 7, 2019), a high school history teacher, and Martha (Kastner) von Hagen (d. 2013), he chaired the task force on review of the school's curriculum, headed its Inter-regional Council, and served as director of the master's program in international affairs. He served on the editorial boards of
Ab Imperio, and
Kritika. Von Hagen served on several professional association boards (the National Council for Eurasian and East European Studies, the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, and the Association for the Study of Nationalities, among others). He also was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Human Rights Watch Eurasia Steering Committee. He served as a consultant for the Russian Archives Project of Primary Source Microfilms (Gale Group). From 2002 to 2005, Von Hagen was president of the International Association for Ukrainian Studies. Hagen served as the Emeritus Professor of history and global studies with a joint appointment in the School of History, Philosophy and Religious Studies and School of International Letters and Cultures in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. He also was the founding director of the Office for Veteran and Military Academic Engagement at Arizona State University. He wrote
Soldiers in the Proletarian Dictatorship: The Red Army and the Soviet Socialist State, 1917-1930 (Cornell, 1990) and
War in a European Borderland: Occupations and Occupation Plans in Galicia and Ukraine, 1914-1918 (U of Washington Press, 2007); and co-edited (with Jane Burbank and Anatoly Remnev) the title
Geographies of Empire: Ruling Russia, 1700-1991 (Indiana, 2004). He wrote articles and essays on topics in historiography, civil-military relations, nationality politics and minority history, and cultural history. ==Walter Duranty investigation==