Uniting Europe After WWII

Dan Snow's History Hit

History Hit

History

4.7 • 12.9K Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Count Coudenhove-Kalergi was one of the most influential 20th Century European thinkers that you've never heard of. He was a pioneer of European integration, advocating for the free movement of people across European borders, a common currency and a single passport. Unsurprisingly, his ideas attracted the ire of right-wing thinkers across the continent; Hitler angrily denounced him in Mein Kampf, and even today he is the subject of a right-wing antisemitic conspiracy theory called 'The Kalergi Plan'. But how influential was his vision for Europe? In what ways did he help to shape the modern European Union? Dan is joined by the journalist Martyn Bond, author of Hitler's Cosmopolitan Bastard, to discuss his life and legacy.

Produced by James Hickmann and edited by Dougal Patmore.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. I'm talking about someone on the podcast
0:04.4	today who may well turn out to be, we don't know yet, but you may well turn out to be one of the
0:08.4	most important people you've never heard of. So let's put that right, let's make sure we all know
0:12.9	exactly who this man is. Richard von Kudenov-Kalege, the Count of Kudenov-Kalege, born at the end of the 19th
0:21.7	century. He was half Austrian, half Japanese, he was a politician, he was a historian, he would be
0:27.6	glad to know. He was a philosopher and he was a pioneer of European integration. He wrote a
0:33.5	best-selling book called Panyuropa. He founded a movement called the Panyuropa movement. Alba
0:38.8	Einstein, Seagman Freud attended a Congress of his, Winston Churchill praised him. Various
0:44.7	important states people, most recently Emanuel Macron, president of France, have cited him
0:49.7	as a powerful influence. He believed in one Europe. One European state stretching from well,
0:58.4	the borders of Russia, right the way the English Channel, he never quite thought the Brits would
1:02.6	get into it, although he did suggest in order to get the Brits in that the Windsor family, the
1:07.7	kings and queens of the United Kingdom, could be made hereditary presidents of Europe,
1:14.2	should have taken up that offer. He proposed Beethoven's ode to joy is the anthem of Europe in 1929,
1:21.4	and it is, in fact, the anthem today. Anyone the ultimate accolade?
1:25.9	Hitler called him a bastard. He called him a rootless, cosmopolitan, half-breed bastard. Think
1:32.9	about that next time someone's talking about the globalists on social media. Think about the
1:37.8	history of where that kind of language comes from. Tell us all about this remarkable man, I've got
1:41.9	Martin Bond on the podcast. He was like, there he taught European politics, he was European
1:48.3	civil servant, he was in the press office of the Council of Ministers in Brussels, and he ended
1:53.7	up running the European Parliament office in London. He was also, briefly, a BBC correspondent in 1980s,
1:59.4	so many of you will recognize his voice from that era. He's just written a book, Hitler's cosmopolitan
	...

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