Klinger was born on 24 September 1972 in Rijeka, SFR Yugoslavia,[3] but his family roots are reportedly in Pakrac and of German ethnic descent.
He gained master's degree at the Central European University in Budapest and doctoral degree at the European University Institute in Florence, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation titled "Negotiating the Nation: Fiume, from Autonomism to State making 1848-1924".
[2] Aside from Italian and Croatian Klinger also spoke German, English, Friulian, Russian and Slovene.
[2] Klinger was found with a gunshot wound to the head on 31 January 2015 in Astoria Park in Queens, New York, where he had been attending a conference on former Yugoslavia, the Second World War and the post-war Balkans.
[5] His acquaintance Alexander Bonich was questioned by the police on the following day, when he admitted to killing Klinger.