Hitler's cosmopolitan bastard : Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and his vision of Europe / Martyn Bond.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bond, Martyn, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Internationalists--Austria--Biography.

Internationalists.

European federation.

Politics and government.

Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard Nicolaus, Graf von, 1894-1972.

Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard Nicolaus.

Europe--Politics and government--1918-1945.

Europe.

Europe--History--1918-1945.

History.

Austria.

Genre:

Biographies.

History.

Physical Description:

xvi, 433 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Montreal ; Kingston ; London ; Chicago : McGill-Queen's University Press, [2021]

Summary:

"In the turbulent period following the First World War the young Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi founded the Pan-European Union, offering a vision of peaceful, democratic unity for Europe, with no borders, a common currency, and a single passport. His political congresses in Vienna, Berlin, and Basel attracted thousands from the intelligentsia and the cultural elite, including Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, and Sigmund Freud, who wanted a United States of Europe brought together by consent. The Count's commitment to this cooperative ideal infuriated Hitler, who referred to him as a "cosmopolitan bastard" in Mein Kampf. Communists and nationalists, xenophobes and populists alike hated the Count and his political mission. When the Nazis annexed Austria, the Count and his wife, the famous actress Ida Roland, narrowly escaped the Gestapo. He fled to the United States, where he helped shape American policy for postwar Europe. Coudenhove-Kalergi's profile was such that he served as the basis for the fictional resistance hero Victor Laszlo in the film Casablanca. A brilliant networker, the Count guided many European leaders, notably advising Winston Churchill before his 1946 Zürich speech on Europe. A friend to both Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and President Charles de Gaulle, Coudenhove-Kalergi was personally invited to the High Mass in Rheims Cathedral in 1961 to celebrate Franco-German reconciliation. A provocative visionary for Europe, Coudenhove-Kalergi thought and acted in terms of continents, not countries. For the Count, the United States of Europe was the answer to the challenges of communist Russia and capitalist America. Indeed, he launched his Pan-European Union thirty years before Jean Monnet set up the European Coal and Steel Community, the precursor to the European Union. Timely and capitivating, Martyn Bond's biography offers an opportunity to explore a remarkable life and revisit the impetus and origins of a unified Europe."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. European Father, Asian Mother

2. Siblings, School, Love, and Marriage

3. Thinking in Continents, Not Countries

4. Europe Answers His Question

5. Between Hitler and Mussolini

6. Pacifist and Freemason

7. Pan-Europa: Utopia or Reality?

8. Taking Europe to the Capitals

9. New Friends, New Enemies

10. European Patriots All

11. Triumph in France

12. Defeat in Germany

13. Last Stand on the Old Continent

14. Escape from Europe

15. Bringing America Onside

16. The United States of Europe?

17. Pushing Parliaments towards Power

18. An Open Conspiracy

19. Behind Churchill

26. Bringing Germany in from the Cold

21. Money Matters

22. The British Dilemma

23. `Mon cher ami, mon President'

24. Europe's Father, Europe's Grandfather

25. Reaping Rewards in the Twilight Years

26. A Patron Saint for Europe.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Bond, Martyn. Hitler's cosmopolitan bastard.

ISBN:

0228005450

9780228005452

OCLC:

1201655379

Publisher Number:

99986846223