Richard Nikolaus Graf Coudenhove-Kalergi
Encyclopedia
Richard Nikolaus Eijiro von Coudenhove-Kalergi (German
: Richard Nikolaus Eijiro Graf Coudenhove-Kalergi; Japanese
: Rihiyăruto-Nikorausu 栄次郎 (= Eijiro) Kūdenhōfu-Karerugī; November 16, 1894 – July 27, 1972) was an Austria
n politician
, geopolitician
, philosopher and count
of Coudenhove-Kalergi
. His parents were Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi
, Austrian diplomat, and Mitsuko Aoyama
, the daughter of an antiques-dealer and oil tycoon in Tokyo
.
His first book, titled Pan-Europa was published in 1923, contained a membership form for the Pan-Europa movement. Coudenhove-Kalergi's movement held its first Congress in Vienna
in 1926. In 1927 Aristide Briand
was elected honorary president. Personalities attending included: Albert Einstein
, Thomas Mann
and Sigmund Freud
.
count and diplomat of mixed European origin, and Mitsuko Aoyama
(1874–1941). His father, who spoke sixteen languages and embraced travel as the only means of prolonging life, had prematurely abandoned a career in the Austrian diplomatic service that took him to Athens
, Constantinople
, Rio de Janeiro
, and Tokyo
, to devote himself to study and writing. His parents met when the future countess helped the Austro-Hungarian diplomat stationed in Japan after he fell off a horse. In commenting on their union, Whittaker Chambers
described the future originator of Pan-Europe as "practically a Pan-European organization himself". He elaborated: "The Coudenhoves were a wealthy Flemish
family that fled to Austria during the French Revolution
. The Kalergis
were a wealthy Cretan
family. The line has been further crossed with Poles, Norwegians, Balts, French and Germans, but since the families were selective as well as cosmopolite, the hybridization has been consistently successful." The Kalergis family
roots trace to the Byzantine
royalty via Venetian
aristocracy, connecting with the Phokas
imperial dynasty. In 1300, Coudenhove-Kalergi's ancestor Alexios Phokas-Kalergis signed the treaty that made Crete a dominion of Venice.
family estates in Ronsperg, known today as Poběžovice
. His father personally taught his two sons Russian and Hungarian and toughened them both physically and morally. He took them on long walks in all weathers, made them sleep on straw mattresses and take cold showers, and taught them to shoot and fence so well that no one would ever dare challenge them. He also took them to Mass
every Sunday. On every Good Friday
, as the liturgy
came to the exhortation "oremus et pro perfidis Judaeis" ("Let us also pray for the faithless Jews"), the old count allegedly rose and walked out of the church in a protest against this supposed expression of antisemitism. (See Whittaker Chambers, loc. cit.)
Coudenhove-Kalergi studied at the Ecole épiscopale de Brixen
(Brixen) before attending the Theresianische Akademie in Vienna
from 1908 till 1913. He obtained his doctorate in philosophy with a thesis on Die Objectivität als Grundprinzip der Moral (The Objectivity as Fundamental Principle of Morals) in 1917 from the University of Vienna
. While still in his student years, he married the famous Viennese actress Ida Roland
in April 1915. His marriage to a divorcée
thirteen years his senior and a commoner
, caused a temporary split with his family.
, Kurt Schuschnigg
, Otto von Habsburg
, Winston Churchill
, and Charles de Gaulle
. His ideal political constituent was a gentleman
, a person adhering to honesty
, fair play, courtesy
, and rational discourse. He strove to replace the nationalist
German ideal of racial community with the goal of an ethnically heterogeneous and inclusive European nation based on a communality of culture, a nation whose geniuses were the "great Europeans" such as abbé de Saint-Pierre, Kant
, Napoleon, Giuseppe Mazzini
, Victor Hugo
, and Friedrich Nietzsche
.
and Oswald Spengler
to Arthur Schopenhauer
and Friedrich Nietzsche
. In politics, he was an enthusiastic supporter of "fourteen points
" made by Woodrow Wilson
on 8 January 1918 and pacifist
initiatives of Kurt Hiller
. In the early 1920s he joined a Masonic lodge
at Vienna
, where he would reach several degrees. In 1922 he co-founded the Pan-European Union (PEU) with Archduke Otto von Habsburg
, as "the only way of guarding against an eventual world hegemony by Russia". In the following year he published a manifesto entitled Pan-Europa, each copy containing a membership form which invited the reader to become a member of the Pan-Europa movement
. He favored social democracy as an improvement on "the feudal aristocracy of the sword" But his ambition was to create a conservative society that superseded democracy with "the social aristocracy of the spirit".
From April 1924 to March 1938, Coudenhove-Kalergi worked as an editor and principal author of the journal Paneuropa. He published his main work, the three volumes of Kampf um Paneuropa (The fight for Paneuropa) between 1925 and 1928. In 1926, the first Congress of the Pan-European Union met in Vienna, and the 2,000 delegates elected Coudenhove-Kalergi president of the Central Council. His original plan was to divide the world into five groups of states: a United States of Europe that would link continental countries with French possessions in Africa
; a Pan-American Union encompassing North and South Americas; the British Commonwealth circling the globe; the USSR spanning Eurasia; and a Pan-Asian Union whereby Japan and China would control most of the Pacific. The only hope for a Europe devastated by war was to federate along lines that the Hungarian-born Romanian Aurel Popovici
and others had proposed for Austria-Hungary
. According to Coudenhove-Kalergi, Pan-Europe would encompass and extend a more flexible and more competitive Austria-Hungary, with English serving as world language, spoken by everyone in addition to his native tongue. He predicted that individualism and socialism would learn to cooperate instead of compete, and urged that capitalism and communism cross-fertilize each other just as the Protestant Reformation had spurred the Catholic Church to regenerate itself.
Coudenhove-Kalergi attempted to enlist prominent European politicians in his pan-European cause. He offered the presidency of the Austrian branch of the Pan-European Union to Ignaz Seipel
, who accepted the offer unhesitatingly and rewarded his beneficiary with an office in the old Imperial palace in Vienna. Coudenhove-Kalergi had less success with Tomáš Masaryk
, who referred him to his uncooperative Prime Minister
Edvard Beneš
. The idea of pan-Europe elicited support from politicians as diverse in their orientation as Carlo Sforza
and Hjalmar Schacht
. Although Coudenhove-Kalergi found himself unable to sway Benito Mussolini
, his ideas influenced Aristide Briand
and his inspired speech in favor of a European Union in the League of Nations
on 8 September 1929, as well as his famous 1930 "Memorandum on the Organization of a Regime of European Federal Union". Meanwhile, his Pan-Europeanism earned vivid loathing from Adolf Hitler
, who excoriated its pacifism and mechanical economism and belittled its founder as "everybody's bastard".
After the annexation of Austria
by the Third Reich in 1938, Coudenhove-Kalergi fled to Czechoslovakia
, and thence to France
. As France fell to Germany in 1940, he escaped to the United States
by way of Switzerland
and Portugal
. During the war
, he continued his call for the unification of Europe along the Paris-London axis. His wartime politics and peripeties served as the real life basis for fictional Resistance hero Victor Laszlo, the Paul Henreid character in Casablanca
. He published his work Crusade for Paneurope in 1944. His appeal for the unification of Europe enjoyed some support from Winston Churchill
, Allen Dulles, and "Wild Bill" Donovan
. After the announcement of the Atlantic Charter
on 14 August 1941, he composed a memorandum entitled "Austria's Independence in the light of the Atlantic Charter" and sent it to Winston Churchill
and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In his position statement, Coudenhove-Kalergi took up the goals of the charter and recommended himself as head of government in exile. Both Churchill and FDR distanced themselves from this document. From 1942 until his return to France in 1945, he taught at the New York University
, which appointed him professor of history in 1944.
The end of war
inaugurated a revival of pan-European hopes. Winston Churchill's celebrated speech of 19 September 1946 to the Academic Youth in Zurich
commended "the exertions of the Pan-European Union which owes so much to Count Coudenhove-Kalergi and which commanded the services of the famous French patriot and statesman Aristide Briand." In November 1946 and the spring of 1947, Coudenhove-Kalergi circulated an enquiry addressed to members of European parliaments. This enquiry resulted in the founding of the European Parliamentary Union
(EPU), a nominally private organization that held its preliminary conference on 4–5 July at Gstaad, Switzerland, and followed it with its first full conference from 8 to 12 September. Speaking at the first EPU conference, Coudenhove-Kalergi argued that the constitution of a wide market with a stable currency was the vehicle for Europe to reconstruct its potential and take the place it deserves within the concert of Nations. On less guarded occasions he was heard to advocate a revival of Charlemagne's
empire. In 1950 he received the first annual Karlspreis
(Charlemagne Award), given by the German city of Aachen
to people who contributed to the European idea and European peace.
In 1955 he proposed the Beethoven's Ode to Joy as the music for the European Anthem, a suggestion that the Council of Europe
took up 16 years later.
In the 1960s Coudenhove-Kalergi urged Austria to pursue "an active policy of peace", as a "fight against the Cold War
and its continuation, the atomic war". He advocated Austrian involvement in world politics in order to keep the peace, as "active neutrality". He continued his advocacy of European unification in memoranda circulated to the governments of the Federal Republic of Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy. He recommended negotiations between the European Community and the European Free Trade Association
towards forming a "European customs union" that would be free of political and military connections, but would eventually adopt a monetary union.
with no Jewish blood. In his youth, he was an antisemite. He had expected to confirm his antipathy towards the Jews when he started working on his treatise Das Wesen des Antisemitismus (The Essence of Antisemitism). But he came to a different conclusion by the time he published his book in 1901. Following an ironic
critique of the new racial theories, he declared that the essence of antisemitism amounted to nothing more credible than fanatical religious hatred. He traced that fanaticism to religious bigotry that originated in the promulgation of Torah
under Ezra
. According to the elder Coudenhove-Kalergi, Jewish religious bigotry provoked opposition from the relatively tolerant Greco-Roman polytheists
, eliciting their anti-Judaic reaction. Antisemitism came into existence when Christianity
and Islam
took over the intolerant fanaticism of Judaism, and turned it against the Jews. Thus Heinrich Coudenhove-Kalergi credited the Jews with originating religious intolerance, and condemned it as a violation of genuine religious principles. He branded every sort of anti-Judaism unchristian. He further urged liberal Christians and Jews to ally in protecting both of their religions, and religion as such, against the emerging menace of secularism
.
In spite of his opposition to simplistic racial theory, Heinrich Coudenhove-Kalergi agreed that Jews are racially distinct. Although he pointed out that there is no Semitic race, because Semitic is a language family, he equivocated by also remarking that the charges that Semites were uncreative were belied by civilizations formed by the Assyrians
and Babylonians, who spoke Semitic languages. He further sought to defend the Jews against bigoted charges of parasitic greed and cowardice with anecdotal counterexamples of Jewish industriousness and martial courage.
In 1932 Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi composed a preface for a new edition of his father's condemnation of antisemitism, reissued by his own publishing house. In 1933 he responded to the ascendance of National Socialism by collaborating with Heinrich Mann
, Arthur Holitscher
, Lion Feuchtwanger
, and Max Brod
in writing and publishing the pamphlet Gegen die Phrase vom jüdischen Schädling (Against the Phrase 'Jewish Parasite').
Coudenhove-Kalergi complemented his liberal views of the political role of the Jews
with distinctive advocacy of race mixing. In his book Praktischer Idealismus (Practical Idealism) he wrote:
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: Richard Nikolaus Eijiro Graf Coudenhove-Kalergi; Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
: Rihiyăruto-Nikorausu 栄次郎 (= Eijiro) Kūdenhōfu-Karerugī; November 16, 1894 – July 27, 1972) was an Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
, geopolitician
Geopolitics
Geopolitics, from Greek Γη and Πολιτική in broad terms, is a theory that describes the relation between politics and territory whether on local or international scale....
, philosopher and count
Count
A count or countess is an aristocratic nobleman in European countries. The word count came into English from the French comte, itself from Latin comes—in its accusative comitem—meaning "companion", and later "companion of the emperor, delegate of the emperor". The adjective form of the word is...
of Coudenhove-Kalergi
Coudenhove-Kalergi
Coudenhove-Kalergi is a noble Bohemian family of mixed European descent formed when Franz Karl Coudenhove married Maria Kalergi . The Coudenhoves had been Reichsgrafs since 1790 and rose to great estate in The Netherlands and Belgium. After the upheaval of the French Revolution they followed...
. His parents were Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi
Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi
Heinrich Johann Maria von Coudenhove-Kalergi , also known as Heinrich Coudenhove-Kalergi and until 1903 Graf von Coudenhove, was an Austrian traveller and diplomat of the Coudenhove-Kalergi family. He was born in Vienna and died in Poběžovice...
, Austrian diplomat, and Mitsuko Aoyama
Mitsuko Aoyama
Mitsuko, Countess of Coudenhove-Kalergi , formerly known as , was one of the first Japanese people to emigrate to Europe, after becoming the wife of an Austrian diplomat, Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi, in Tokyo...
, the daughter of an antiques-dealer and oil tycoon in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
.
His first book, titled Pan-Europa was published in 1923, contained a membership form for the Pan-Europa movement. Coudenhove-Kalergi's movement held its first Congress in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
in 1926. In 1927 Aristide Briand
Aristide Briand
Aristide Briand was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic and received the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize.- Early life :...
was elected honorary president. Personalities attending included: Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
, Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
and Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
.
Family roots
Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi was the second son of Heinrich Coudenhove-Kalergi (1859–1906), an Austro-HungarianAustria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
count and diplomat of mixed European origin, and Mitsuko Aoyama
Mitsuko Aoyama
Mitsuko, Countess of Coudenhove-Kalergi , formerly known as , was one of the first Japanese people to emigrate to Europe, after becoming the wife of an Austrian diplomat, Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi, in Tokyo...
(1874–1941). His father, who spoke sixteen languages and embraced travel as the only means of prolonging life, had prematurely abandoned a career in the Austrian diplomatic service that took him to Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
, Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
, Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...
, and Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, to devote himself to study and writing. His parents met when the future countess helped the Austro-Hungarian diplomat stationed in Japan after he fell off a horse. In commenting on their union, Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers
Whittaker Chambers was born Jay Vivian Chambers and also known as David Whittaker Chambers , was an American writer and editor. After being a Communist Party USA member and Soviet spy, he later renounced communism and became an outspoken opponent later testifying in the perjury and espionage trial...
described the future originator of Pan-Europe as "practically a Pan-European organization himself". He elaborated: "The Coudenhoves were a wealthy Flemish
Flemish people
The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...
family that fled to Austria during the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. The Kalergis
Kallergis family
The Kallergis family is a Cretan family said to be descended from Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas , and were at one stage rulers of Crete....
were a wealthy Cretan
Crete
Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...
family. The line has been further crossed with Poles, Norwegians, Balts, French and Germans, but since the families were selective as well as cosmopolite, the hybridization has been consistently successful." The Kalergis family
Kallergis family
The Kallergis family is a Cretan family said to be descended from Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros II Phokas , and were at one stage rulers of Crete....
roots trace to the Byzantine
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...
royalty via Venetian
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
aristocracy, connecting with the Phokas
Phokas (Byzantine family)
Phokas or Phocas , feminine form Phokaina , was the name of a Byzantine aristocratic clan from Cappadocia, which in the 9th and 10th centuries provided a series of high-ranking generals and an emperor, Nikephoros II Phokas...
imperial dynasty. In 1300, Coudenhove-Kalergi's ancestor Alexios Phokas-Kalergis signed the treaty that made Crete a dominion of Venice.
Youth and education
Coudenhove-Kalergi passed his adolescence on BohemianBohemian
A Bohemian is a resident of the former Kingdom of Bohemia, either in a narrow sense as the region of Bohemia proper or in a wider meaning as the whole country, now known as the Czech Republic. The word "Bohemian" was used to denote the Czech people as well as the Czech language before the word...
family estates in Ronsperg, known today as Poběžovice
Pobežovice
Poběžovice is a town in the Czech Republic.-External links:*...
. His father personally taught his two sons Russian and Hungarian and toughened them both physically and morally. He took them on long walks in all weathers, made them sleep on straw mattresses and take cold showers, and taught them to shoot and fence so well that no one would ever dare challenge them. He also took them to Mass
Mass (liturgy)
"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...
every Sunday. On every Good Friday
Good Friday
Good Friday , is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of...
, as the liturgy
Roman Rite
The Roman Rite is the liturgical rite used in the Diocese of Rome in the Catholic Church. It is by far the most widespread of the Latin liturgical rites used within the Western or Latin autonomous particular Church, the particular Church that itself is also called the Latin Rite, and that is one of...
came to the exhortation "oremus et pro perfidis Judaeis" ("Let us also pray for the faithless Jews"), the old count allegedly rose and walked out of the church in a protest against this supposed expression of antisemitism. (See Whittaker Chambers, loc. cit.)
Coudenhove-Kalergi studied at the Ecole épiscopale de Brixen
Brixen
Brixen is the name of two cities in the Alps:*Brixen, South Tyrol, Italy*Brixen im Thale, Tyrol, AustriaBrixen may also refer to:*Bishopric of Brixen, the former north-Italian state....
(Brixen) before attending the Theresianische Akademie in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
from 1908 till 1913. He obtained his doctorate in philosophy with a thesis on Die Objectivität als Grundprinzip der Moral (The Objectivity as Fundamental Principle of Morals) in 1917 from the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
. While still in his student years, he married the famous Viennese actress Ida Roland
Ida Roland
Ida Roland , born Ida Klausner, was an Austrian and German actress.Her acting career began at the city theatre in Innsbruck. From 1924 to 1927 she took part in an ensemble at the Viennese Burgtheater...
in April 1915. His marriage to a divorcée
Divorcee
Divorcee, refers to a person whose marriage has ended in divorce, a legal dissolution of marriage before death by either spouse. The feminine form is "divorcée", and the masculine "divorcé". At one time the term had negative cultural and religious associations...
thirteen years his senior and a commoner
Commoner
In British law, a commoner is someone who is neither the Sovereign nor a peer. Therefore, any member of the Royal Family who is not a peer, such as Prince Harry of Wales or Anne, Princess Royal, is a commoner, as is any member of a peer's family, including someone who holds only a courtesy title,...
, caused a temporary split with his family.
Personal philosophy
Aristocratic in his origins and elitist in his ideas, Coudenhove-Kalergi identified and collaborated with such politicians as Engelbert DollfussEngelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuss was an Austrian Christian Social and Patriotic Front statesman. Serving previously as Minister for Forest and Agriculture, he ascended to Federal Chancellor in 1932 in the midst of a crisis for the conservative government...
, Kurt Schuschnigg
Kurt Schuschnigg
Kurt Alois Josef Johann Schuschnigg was Chancellor of the First Austrian Republic, following the assassination of his predecessor, Dr. Engelbert Dollfuss, in July 1934, until Germany’s invasion of Austria, , in March 1938...
, Otto von Habsburg
Otto von Habsburg
Otto von Habsburg , also known by his royal name as Archduke Otto of Austria, was the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary from 1916 until the dissolution of the empire in 1918, a realm which comprised modern-day Austria, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia,...
, Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, and Charles de Gaulle
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French general and statesman who led the Free French Forces during World War II. He later founded the French Fifth Republic in 1958 and served as its first President from 1959 to 1969....
. His ideal political constituent was a gentleman
Gentleman
The term gentleman , in its original and strict signification, denoted a well-educated man of good family and distinction, analogous to the Latin generosus...
, a person adhering to honesty
Honesty
Honesty refers to a facet of moral character and denotes positive, virtuous attributes such as integrity, truthfulness, and straightforwardness along with the absence of lying, cheating, or theft....
, fair play, courtesy
Etiquette
Etiquette is a code of behavior that delineates expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group...
, and rational discourse. He strove to replace the nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
German ideal of racial community with the goal of an ethnically heterogeneous and inclusive European nation based on a communality of culture, a nation whose geniuses were the "great Europeans" such as abbé de Saint-Pierre, Kant
KANT
KANT is a computer algebra system for mathematicians interested in algebraic number theory, performing sophisticated computations in algebraic number fields, in global function fields, and in local fields. KASH is the associated command line interface...
, Napoleon, Giuseppe Mazzini
Giuseppe Mazzini
Giuseppe Mazzini , nicknamed Soul of Italy, was an Italian politician, journalist and activist for the unification of Italy. His efforts helped bring about the independent and unified Italy in place of the several separate states, many dominated by foreign powers, that existed until the 19th century...
, Victor Hugo
Victor Hugo
Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....
, and Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
.
Pan-European political activist
Coudenhove-Kalergi is recognized as the founder of the first popular movement for a united Europe. His intellectual influences ranged from Rudolf KjellénRudolf Kjellén
Johan Rudolf Kjellén was a Swedish political scientist and politician who first coined the term "geopolitics". His work was influenced by Friedrich Ratzel...
and Oswald Spengler
Oswald Spengler
Oswald Manuel Arnold Gottfried Spengler was a German historian and philosopher whose interests also included mathematics, science, and art. He is best known for his book The Decline of the West , published in 1918, which puts forth a cyclical theory of the rise and decline of civilizations...
to Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
and Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
. In politics, he was an enthusiastic supporter of "fourteen points
Fourteen Points
The Fourteen Points was a speech given by United States President Woodrow Wilson to a joint session of Congress on January 8, 1918. The address was intended to assure the country that the Great War was being fought for a moral cause and for postwar peace in Europe...
" made by Woodrow Wilson
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President of the United States, from 1913 to 1921. A leader of the Progressive Movement, he served as President of Princeton University from 1902 to 1910, and then as the Governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913...
on 8 January 1918 and pacifist
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
initiatives of Kurt Hiller
Kurt Hiller
Kurt Hiller also known as Keith Lurr and Klirr was a German essayist of high stylistic originality and a political journalist from a Jewish family. A socialist, he was deeply influenced by Immanuel Kant and Arthur Schopenhauer, despising the philosophy of G. W. F...
. In the early 1920s he joined a Masonic lodge
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
at Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, where he would reach several degrees. In 1922 he co-founded the Pan-European Union (PEU) with Archduke Otto von Habsburg
Otto von Habsburg
Otto von Habsburg , also known by his royal name as Archduke Otto of Austria, was the last Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary from 1916 until the dissolution of the empire in 1918, a realm which comprised modern-day Austria, Hungary, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia,...
, as "the only way of guarding against an eventual world hegemony by Russia". In the following year he published a manifesto entitled Pan-Europa, each copy containing a membership form which invited the reader to become a member of the Pan-Europa movement
International Paneuropean Union
The International Paneuropean Union claims to be the oldest European unification movement and is also referred to as the Paneuropean Movement and the Pan-Europa Movement...
. He favored social democracy as an improvement on "the feudal aristocracy of the sword" But his ambition was to create a conservative society that superseded democracy with "the social aristocracy of the spirit".
From April 1924 to March 1938, Coudenhove-Kalergi worked as an editor and principal author of the journal Paneuropa. He published his main work, the three volumes of Kampf um Paneuropa (The fight for Paneuropa) between 1925 and 1928. In 1926, the first Congress of the Pan-European Union met in Vienna, and the 2,000 delegates elected Coudenhove-Kalergi president of the Central Council. His original plan was to divide the world into five groups of states: a United States of Europe that would link continental countries with French possessions in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
; a Pan-American Union encompassing North and South Americas; the British Commonwealth circling the globe; the USSR spanning Eurasia; and a Pan-Asian Union whereby Japan and China would control most of the Pacific. The only hope for a Europe devastated by war was to federate along lines that the Hungarian-born Romanian Aurel Popovici
Aurel Popovici
Aurel C. Popovici was an ethnic Romanian Austro-Hungarian lawyer and politician of Serb origin...
and others had proposed for Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
. According to Coudenhove-Kalergi, Pan-Europe would encompass and extend a more flexible and more competitive Austria-Hungary, with English serving as world language, spoken by everyone in addition to his native tongue. He predicted that individualism and socialism would learn to cooperate instead of compete, and urged that capitalism and communism cross-fertilize each other just as the Protestant Reformation had spurred the Catholic Church to regenerate itself.
Coudenhove-Kalergi attempted to enlist prominent European politicians in his pan-European cause. He offered the presidency of the Austrian branch of the Pan-European Union to Ignaz Seipel
Ignaz Seipel
Ignaz Seipel was an Austrian prelate and politician who served as Chancellor during the 1920s.-Career:Seipel studied theology at the University of Vienna and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1899...
, who accepted the offer unhesitatingly and rewarded his beneficiary with an office in the old Imperial palace in Vienna. Coudenhove-Kalergi had less success with Tomáš Masaryk
Tomáš Masaryk
Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk , sometimes called Thomas Masaryk in English, was an Austro-Hungarian and Czechoslovak politician, sociologist and philosopher, who as an eager advocate of Czechoslovak independence during World War I became the founder and first President of Czechoslovakia, also was...
, who referred him to his uncooperative Prime Minister
Prime minister
A prime minister is the most senior minister of cabinet in the executive branch of government in a parliamentary system. In many systems, the prime minister selects and may dismiss other members of the cabinet, and allocates posts to members within the government. In most systems, the prime...
Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš
Edvard Beneš was a leader of the Czechoslovak independence movement, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second President of Czechoslovakia. He was known to be a skilled diplomat.- Youth :...
. The idea of pan-Europe elicited support from politicians as diverse in their orientation as Carlo Sforza
Carlo Sforza
Conte Carlo Sforza was an Italian diplomat and anti-Fascist politician.-Biography:Sforza was born at Montignoso ....
and Hjalmar Schacht
Hjalmar Schacht
Dr. Hjalmar Horace Greeley Schacht was a German economist, banker, liberal politician, and co-founder of the German Democratic Party. He served as the Currency Commissioner and President of the Reichsbank under the Weimar Republic...
. Although Coudenhove-Kalergi found himself unable to sway Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
, his ideas influenced Aristide Briand
Aristide Briand
Aristide Briand was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic and received the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize.- Early life :...
and his inspired speech in favor of a European Union in the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
on 8 September 1929, as well as his famous 1930 "Memorandum on the Organization of a Regime of European Federal Union". Meanwhile, his Pan-Europeanism earned vivid loathing from Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, who excoriated its pacifism and mechanical economism and belittled its founder as "everybody's bastard".
After the annexation of Austria
Anschluss
The Anschluss , also known as the ', was the occupation and annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany in 1938....
by the Third Reich in 1938, Coudenhove-Kalergi fled to Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, and thence to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. As France fell to Germany in 1940, he escaped to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
by way of Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
and Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
. During the war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, he continued his call for the unification of Europe along the Paris-London axis. His wartime politics and peripeties served as the real life basis for fictional Resistance hero Victor Laszlo, the Paul Henreid character in Casablanca
Casablanca (film)
Casablanca is a 1942 American romantic drama film directed by Michael Curtiz, starring Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman and Paul Henreid, and featuring Claude Rains, Conrad Veidt, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Dooley Wilson. Set during World War II, it focuses on a man torn between, in...
. He published his work Crusade for Paneurope in 1944. His appeal for the unification of Europe enjoyed some support from Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, Allen Dulles, and "Wild Bill" Donovan
William Joseph Donovan
William Joseph Donovan was a United States soldier, lawyer and intelligence officer, best remembered as the wartime head of the Office of Strategic Services...
. After the announcement of the Atlantic Charter
Atlantic Charter
The Atlantic Charter was a pivotal policy statement first issued in August 1941 that early in World War II defined the Allied goals for the post-war world. It was drafted by Britain and the United States, and later agreed to by all the Allies...
on 14 August 1941, he composed a memorandum entitled "Austria's Independence in the light of the Atlantic Charter" and sent it to Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In his position statement, Coudenhove-Kalergi took up the goals of the charter and recommended himself as head of government in exile. Both Churchill and FDR distanced themselves from this document. From 1942 until his return to France in 1945, he taught at the New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, which appointed him professor of history in 1944.
The end of war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
inaugurated a revival of pan-European hopes. Winston Churchill's celebrated speech of 19 September 1946 to the Academic Youth in Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
commended "the exertions of the Pan-European Union which owes so much to Count Coudenhove-Kalergi and which commanded the services of the famous French patriot and statesman Aristide Briand." In November 1946 and the spring of 1947, Coudenhove-Kalergi circulated an enquiry addressed to members of European parliaments. This enquiry resulted in the founding of the European Parliamentary Union
European Parliamentary Union
The European Parliamentary Union was a private organization set up by Count Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi, who was also its Secretary General....
(EPU), a nominally private organization that held its preliminary conference on 4–5 July at Gstaad, Switzerland, and followed it with its first full conference from 8 to 12 September. Speaking at the first EPU conference, Coudenhove-Kalergi argued that the constitution of a wide market with a stable currency was the vehicle for Europe to reconstruct its potential and take the place it deserves within the concert of Nations. On less guarded occasions he was heard to advocate a revival of Charlemagne's
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
empire. In 1950 he received the first annual Karlspreis
Karlspreis
- See also :*Charlemagne*European integration*Leipzig Human Rights Award, originally called the "Alternative Charlemagne Award", formed in opposition to Clinton's recognition with the award- External links :* http://www.karlspreis.de/ *...
(Charlemagne Award), given by the German city of Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...
to people who contributed to the European idea and European peace.
In 1955 he proposed the Beethoven's Ode to Joy as the music for the European Anthem, a suggestion that the Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
took up 16 years later.
In the 1960s Coudenhove-Kalergi urged Austria to pursue "an active policy of peace", as a "fight against the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
and its continuation, the atomic war". He advocated Austrian involvement in world politics in order to keep the peace, as "active neutrality". He continued his advocacy of European unification in memoranda circulated to the governments of the Federal Republic of Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy. He recommended negotiations between the European Community and the European Free Trade Association
European Free Trade Association
The European Free Trade Association or EFTA is a free trade organisation between four European countries that operates parallel to, and is linked to, the European Union . EFTA was established on 3 May 1960 as a trade bloc-alternative for European states who were either unable to, or chose not to,...
towards forming a "European customs union" that would be free of political and military connections, but would eventually adopt a monetary union.
Views on race and religion
In his attitudes towards race and religion, Coudenhove-Kalergi continued the work of his father. Heinrich Coudenhove-Kalergi was a Roman CatholicRoman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
with no Jewish blood. In his youth, he was an antisemite. He had expected to confirm his antipathy towards the Jews when he started working on his treatise Das Wesen des Antisemitismus (The Essence of Antisemitism). But he came to a different conclusion by the time he published his book in 1901. Following an ironic
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
critique of the new racial theories, he declared that the essence of antisemitism amounted to nothing more credible than fanatical religious hatred. He traced that fanaticism to religious bigotry that originated in the promulgation of Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...
under Ezra
Ezra
Ezra , also called Ezra the Scribe and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible he returned from the Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem...
. According to the elder Coudenhove-Kalergi, Jewish religious bigotry provoked opposition from the relatively tolerant Greco-Roman polytheists
Polytheism
Polytheism is the belief of multiple deities also usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, along with their own mythologies and rituals....
, eliciting their anti-Judaic reaction. Antisemitism came into existence when Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
and Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
took over the intolerant fanaticism of Judaism, and turned it against the Jews. Thus Heinrich Coudenhove-Kalergi credited the Jews with originating religious intolerance, and condemned it as a violation of genuine religious principles. He branded every sort of anti-Judaism unchristian. He further urged liberal Christians and Jews to ally in protecting both of their religions, and religion as such, against the emerging menace of secularism
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
.
In spite of his opposition to simplistic racial theory, Heinrich Coudenhove-Kalergi agreed that Jews are racially distinct. Although he pointed out that there is no Semitic race, because Semitic is a language family, he equivocated by also remarking that the charges that Semites were uncreative were belied by civilizations formed by the Assyrians
Assyrian people
The Assyrian people are a distinct ethnic group whose origins lie in ancient Mesopotamia...
and Babylonians, who spoke Semitic languages. He further sought to defend the Jews against bigoted charges of parasitic greed and cowardice with anecdotal counterexamples of Jewish industriousness and martial courage.
In 1932 Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi composed a preface for a new edition of his father's condemnation of antisemitism, reissued by his own publishing house. In 1933 he responded to the ascendance of National Socialism by collaborating with Heinrich Mann
Heinrich Mann
Luiz Heinrich Mann was a German novelist who wrote works with strong social themes. His attacks on the authoritarian and increasingly militaristic nature of pre-World War II German society led to his exile in 1933.-Life and work:Born in Lübeck as the oldest child of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann...
, Arthur Holitscher
Arthur Holitscher
Arthur Holitscher was a Hungarian playwright, novelist, essayist and writer on traveling. Born into an upper middle-class Jewish merchant family in Pest, Hungary, he began his career working for a bank for six years. His career as a writer began in Germany in the mid 1890s. He died in Geneva....
, Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger was a German-Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht....
, and Max Brod
Max Brod
Max Brod was a German-speaking Czech Jewish, later Israeli, author, composer, and journalist. Although he was a prolific writer in his own right, he is most famous as the friend and biographer of Franz Kafka...
in writing and publishing the pamphlet Gegen die Phrase vom jüdischen Schädling (Against the Phrase 'Jewish Parasite').
Coudenhove-Kalergi complemented his liberal views of the political role of the Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
with distinctive advocacy of race mixing. In his book Praktischer Idealismus (Practical Idealism) he wrote:
- "The man of the future will be of mixed race. Today's races and classes will gradually disappear owing to the vanishing of space, time, and prejudice. The EurasianEurasian (mixed ancestry)The word Eurasian refers to people of mixed Asian and European ancestry. It was originally coined in 19th-century British India to refer to Anglo-Indians of mixed British and Indian descent....
-Negroid race of the future, similar in its appearance to the Ancient Egyptians, will replace the diversity of peoples with a diversity of individuals."
- "Instead of destroying European Jewry, Europe, against its own will, refined and educated this people into a future leader-nation through this artificial selection process. No wonder that this people, that escaped Ghetto-Prison, developed into a spiritual nobility of Europe. Therefore a gracious Providence provided Europe with a new race of nobility by the Grace of Spirit. This happened at the moment when Europe’s feudal aristocracy became dilapidated, and thanks to Jewish emancipation."
Quotes
- "We are experiencing the most dangerous revolution in the world history: the revolution of the State against the man. We are experiencing the worst idolatry of all the time: the deification of the state." (Totaler Mensch - totaler Staat)
Publications
- Adel (1922)
- Ethik und Hyperethik (1922)
- Pan-Europa (1923)
- Krise der Weltanschauung (1923)
- Pazifismus (1924)
- Deutschlands Europäische Sendung. Ein Gespräch (1924)
- Praktischer Idealismus (1925)
- Kampf um Paneuropa (3 Volumes, 1925–28)
- Held oder Heiliger (1927)
- Stalin & Co. (1931)
- Gebote des Lebens (1931)
- Las vom Materialismus! (1931)
- La lutte pour l'Europe (1931)
- Revolution durch Technik (1932)
- Gegen die Phrase vom jüdischen Schädling (1933, co-authored with Heinrich MannHeinrich MannLuiz Heinrich Mann was a German novelist who wrote works with strong social themes. His attacks on the authoritarian and increasingly militaristic nature of pre-World War II German society led to his exile in 1933.-Life and work:Born in Lübeck as the oldest child of Thomas Johann Heinrich Mann...
, Arthur HolitscherArthur HolitscherArthur Holitscher was a Hungarian playwright, novelist, essayist and writer on traveling. Born into an upper middle-class Jewish merchant family in Pest, Hungary, he began his career working for a bank for six years. His career as a writer began in Germany in the mid 1890s. He died in Geneva....
, Lion FeuchtwangerLion FeuchtwangerLion Feuchtwanger was a German-Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht....
, and Max BrodMax BrodMax Brod was a German-speaking Czech Jewish, later Israeli, author, composer, and journalist. Although he was a prolific writer in his own right, he is most famous as the friend and biographer of Franz Kafka...
) - Europa erwacht! (1934)
- Judenhaß von heute: Graf H. Coudenhofe-Kalergi. Das Wesen des Antisemitismus (1935)
- Europa ohne Elend: Ausgewählte Reden (1936)
- Judenhaß! (1937)
- Totaler Staat - totaler Mensch (1937)
- The Totalitarian State Against Man, with an introduction by Wickham Stead, translated by Sir Andrew Mc Fadyean (1939)
- Europe Must Unite, translated by Sir Andrew Mc Fadyean (1939)
- Die europäische Mission der Frau (1940)
- Kampf um Europa (1949)
- Ida Roland: In Memoriam (1951)
- Die Europäische Nation (1953)
- Der Gentleman (1953)
- An Idea Conquers the World, with a preface by Winston S. Churchill (1953)
- Vom Ewigen Krieg zum Großen Frieden (1956)
- Eine Idee erobert Europa (1958)
- From War to Peace (1959)
- Weltmacht Europa (1971)
External links
- International Paneuropean Union
- Michael Gehler, A Visionary proved Himself to be a Realist: Richard N. Coudenhove-Kalergi, Austria, and the "United States of Europe", 1923-2003
- Lubor Jilek, Pan-Europe de Coudenhove-Kalergi: l’homme, le projet et le mouvement paneuropéen
- The role of Count Coudenhove-Kalergi in east central European federalism is reexamined in The Intermarium: Wilson, Madison, & East Central European Federalism by Dr. Jonathan Levy