Practical Idealism
What Did Count Coudenhove-Kalergi Actually Say?
Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi was, by any measure, an important and influential figure in the 20th century. A nobleman by birth, with an Austro-Hungarian father and Japanese mother, he became the world’s foremost proponent of European unification.1
A Free Mason, pacifist, and aristocrat, Coudenhove-Kalergi co-founded the Pan-European Union in 1922 with his friend Archduke Otto von Habsburg and remained its president until his death in 1972. He was loathed by Hitler and the National Socialists, who considered him a “rootless, cosmopolitan, and elitist half-breed,” but found enormous support among the Americans, British, and French.
The Rothschild family supported Coudenhove-Kalergi’s work and ideas financially and provided him with contacts and access to influential figures in European and American politics and society. During World War II, he taught at New York University alongside Ludwig von Mises, who worked with him on European currency problems. After World War II, his proposed Pan-European Union was adopted as official policy by the United States under Harry S. Truman and by the United Kingdom under Winston Churchill. The existence of the European Union today is an obvious testament to the success of Count Coudenhove-Kalergi.
If I could accomplish as much in furtherance of my own goals, I would think my life well-lived. It is hard to fault the man for his tireless dedication to a cause greater than himself.
But within dissident right-wing circles, Coudenhove-Kalergi is considered a sinister figure, due to his authorship of a so-called “Kalergi Plan,” which Wikipedia describes as “a far-right antisemitic white genocide conspiracy theory.” The Kalergi Plan was supposedly revealed in his seminal book Practical Idealism. I decided to see what all the fuss was about. I decided to read Practical Idealism.
What does Count Coudenhove-Kalergi actually say?