The Thought of Count Coudenhove-Kalergi
Count Coudenhove-Kalergi was a visionary and his erratic worldview is of great value for all advocates of European unity.
“He was for some the apostle of European unity, but for others he was a cosmopolitan bastard”, so reads the introduction of Martyn Bond’s 2021 biography of Count Richard Nikolaus Eijiro von Coudenhove-Kalergi. The Count was born in Tokyo to an Austro-Hungarian father of the Coudenhove-Kalergi family, nobles of Flemish and Cretan descent, and a Japanese mother, Mitsuko Aoyama. His father, Heinrich, arrived in Japan in 1892 and married Mitsuko just a month later. The circumstances that brought about the marriage are unclear. Japanese sources document the existence of unsubstantiated rumours that she was bought as a wife and that she was disowned by her family. The Coudenhove-Kalergis maintain that the young Mitsuko, just seventeen at the time, ran to help Heinrich after he fell off of his horse, the two falling in love at that moment.
In any case, there was a genuine love between the two and their marriage was personally approved of by the Emperor of Japan and the Pope. Richard would be the sickly, second child of the couple and his upbringing in a multicultural family would contribute to the worldview that he later developed.
Many of Richard’s views would be shaped by those of his father, a well-travelled and intelligent diplomat. Concerned with the racialist theories of the day, Heinrich was a critic of anti-semitism, a position that Kalergi inherited. It would be the First World War, however, that ultimately led to Kalergi's belief in European federalism, which he is most known for today, and was something reaffirmed by the rise of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, and the advent of a second World War.
Pan-Europeanism
Richard was greatly influenced by his father, whose vast library allowed the young boy to access great works of philosophy, political theory, and other genres of literature from a young age. His worldview would, thanks to the connections of his wife Ida, mature during the years of the First World War. Averse to nationalism and extremism, Kalergi embraced Wilsonian politics with the hope that it would usher in a democratic and peaceful world. Despite his support for Wilson, his rejection of nationalism meant that he was not particularly committed to republicanism and the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Nevertheless, Kalergi tacitly accepted the new reality and became a Czechoslovak citizen due to his residency in the Sudetenland.
Almost immediately frustrated with the post-war settlement and the state of the League of Nations, Kalergi reached out to President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia to advise that he leads a new Pan-European organisation. Rebuked by the president, he would establish it himself and publish an article "The European Question" articulating the basic principles which would later comprise the "Pan-Europa" manifesto, a book which would be well received by public figures of both conservative and progressive tendencies. This organisation would find itself headquartered in the Hofburg, supported by the Austrian government.
The ambition of the International Paneuropean Union, as articulated in Kalergi’s book Pan-Europe, was quite straightforward: the political unification of the European continent. Beyond this, Kalergi advocated for a global restructuring of the world along geographic-civilisational lines. It was his belief that the European civilisation was too large and too diverse to be unified as one polity, and that the British Empire and a Pan-American polity would represent the other two organs of European civilisation.
It should be noted in light of Kalergi’s anti-nationalism that he did not dislike nations themselves, and that he never sought the dissolution of national identity. To the contrary, Kalergi believed that national patriotism and pan-European identity went hand in hand.
"The Pan-European sense of solidarity, the European sense of patriotism must establish itself as the crown and compliment of the national sentiment."
Indeed, while hostile to the chauvinistic and divisive nationalism of his time, Kalergi had time for the unifying nationalisms of the 19th century that he viewed as the first steps in the process of reaching Europe's destiny. First the unification of the region, then the unification of the nation, and finally the unification of the continent. In this regard, unification was not just a philosophical pursuit but something Kalergi believed would happen as a result of intrinsic geopolitical realities. The geopolitics and strategy of Pan-Europeanism are too deep to investigate in this essay, which serves only to be an introduction to Kalergi’s vision, but should be investigated elsewhere because of their great importance.
Men build families, families communes, communes cantons, cantons states, states continents, continents the planets, the planets the solar system, solar systems the universe... The federalist system corresponds to this natural world order.
Totaler Staat — Totaler Mensch (1951)
Despite his belief in this “scaling up” of politics, he did not believe that Italian or German style nationalism was necessary everywhere. As an Austro-Hungarian, it should be no surprise that he placed great value in Austria, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia as the cradles of European unity. When the honorary president of the Pan-European Union, Engelbert Dollfuss, was assassinated, Kalergi remarked that the dictator was a Pan-European in part because he was a “genuine Austrian” as well as a Catholic.
The symbolism that Count Coudenhove-Kalergi chose to represent the Paneuropean movement is of great significance, and relates to this admiration for Catholicism.
The Solar Cross connects the two primordial symbols of European culture; Christian ethics and pagan beauty; international humanitarianism and modern education; heart and mind; Man and cosmos.
Die Pan-Europäische Bewegung, Paneuropa 1.2 (1924)
The emblem under which the Pan-Europeans of all states will unite, is the Solar Cross: the red cross on a golden sun, the symbols of Humanity and of Reason. This banner of love and of the spirit will wave one day, from Poland to Portugal, above a united World Empire of Peace and Freedom.
Pan-Europa (1923)
The adoption of this symbol represents the entirety of Kalergi’s Paneuropean philosophy. In the 1948 congress, Kalergi would declare that the goal of the IPEU was to restore Europe to its former glory, and in doing so it would require a rediscovery of Europe's "noble foundations", those being "Greek individualism and Christian socialism". It is worth noting that “Christian socialism” in this context does not refer to the synthesis of Christianity with socialist economic thought, that is the collective ownership of the economy, but rather “Christian social teaching”, primarily its principles of solidarity and human dignity.
At earlier congresses we see a different flag in which there are lines emanating from the solar cross. This is evocative of the Oriflamme, the legendary standard of Charlemagne who Kalergi loved so deeply. Charlemagne stood as a representative of Franco-German reconciliation as well as universal empire. The Count believed that a Franco-German state in the vein of the Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy would be an ideal resolution to the centuries of animosity between the two.
Charlemagne would be praised by Kalergi along with a number of other influential Europeans. Napoleon, Nietzsche, and Kant were at the centre of his historical Pan-Europeanism. Nietzsche in particular is of note, as he was the basis of much of Kalergi’s personal philosophy. Kalergi praises Nietzsche as the "high priest of modern paganism", and identifies him as the sole "pagan ethicist" of Europe. This is not to say that Kalergi resented Christianity, because he was not an antisemite and did not object to the "choice" of other great Europeans, naming Kant and Augustine among others, to become "spiritual Jews".
The organisation would quickly garner the support of influential figures. The foreign ministers of Germany and Czechoslovakia would encourage Kalergi, while politicians and thinkers across the continent would join it. Most notably he welcomed Aristide Briand, Hjalmar Schacht, Leo Amery, and Albert Einstein.
Important to the growth of the movement was Kalergi’s character. The League of Nations delegate, H. R. Cummings, described him as "vain and extremely ambitious", but stated that the success of the IPEU was largely a result of his personality. Thomas Mann recorded him as an "exceedingly fascinating" man who would truly represent the European aristocrat, and Leo Amery compared him to the Buddha. Notable for the time was the high proportion of female members in the organisation. Close to a third of the German chapter was female in 1927, and his wife played a significant role in the organisation. Joan of Arc was worthy of his praise, in spite of his pacifism.
With Dollfuss, Kalergi would outline some plans for economic and security integration, but they do not look like the federalist plans we are familiar with today. While a customs union with a shared currency & development plan were included, talk of political integration was limited to a Pan-European court, and security integration was limited to a military alliance. It would not be until the Second World War that Kalergi became fully committed to federalism as we understand it.
To J. F. Dulles, the future US Secretary of State under President Eisenhower, Kalergi would pitch a six point plan for a post-war European order. This is documented in Michael Gehler’s “A Visionary proved Himself to be a Realist”.
Full support for the UK in the war against Germany.
The political unification of English-speaking countries as a means of unifying western civilization, achieved through a Paneuropa and a Panamerica.
World peace and security guaranteed by American military might.
An end to all artificial trade barriers.
The formal adoption of English as a global lingua franca.
Emphasising western values of “idealism, heroism, and individual liberty” globally as a means of facilitating struggle against materialism and totalitarianism.
Kalergi would pitch the idea of a European Federation organised along parliamentary-democratic lines while teaching at New York University, and would go on to establish the European Parliamentary Union with the aim of promoting this federation. It entered into collaboration with the European Movement and with them would lay the groundwork for what would become the Council of Europe, later integrating with the European Movement.
Kalergi would continue to commit himself to Pan-Europeanism for the remainder of his life, returning to Austria in 1962 for the Fortieth Anniversary Congress of the IPEU in which he promoted an “active neutrality” for Austria: economic, but not political integration, as a means of prospering while fighting against the cold war. He would go on to promote European cultural unity on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Nietzsche and Christianity
Earlier on it was mentioned that Kalergi had an affinity for Nietzsche, and this can best be seen in his praise for "heroic religion and ethics", namely that exemplified in the Poetic Edda, in European chivalry, and the Japanese bushido. For Kalergi, these were wonderful things and Nietzsche was the architect of their resurrection. With this in mind, it should come as less of a surprise that Kalergi had a working relationship with Julius Evola, the radical thinker who also believed in reviving the "heroic ethics" of ancient Europe.
With all this talk of heroic ethics, I regret to note that I was unable to uncover any connection between the great Japanese novelist Mishima Yukio and Count Coudenhove-Kalergi.
While I write that Kalergi did not dislike Christianity, it must be noted that he considered Christianity a force which bound Europe to an "Asian ideal". Indeed, he referred to Catholicism as the "oriental Christianity of the south" (contrasting it with northern Protestantism) and likened it to Buddhism, which he disliked. With the Renaissance began a chain of events which would revive the European spirit, ultimately culminating with Nietzsche. This is a high praise to bestow upon him.
Only with Europe's emancipation from Christianity, which started in the Renaissance and the Reformation, continued in the Enlightenment, and culminated in Nietzsche, did Europe come back to himself and separate spiritually from Asia.
Praktischer Idealismus (1925)
His Nietzschean philosophy certainly informs his views towards race, along with his conception of geopolitics which is rather typical of his time. In 1931, Kalergi authored a chapter titled "Biopolitik" in Los vom Materialismus in which he discusses race and eugenics.
From Nietzsche he adopted a worldview which valued scientific progress, and biology was intrinsic to this. At this point, Kalergi valued eugenics as a means of "perfecting" the "noble race" of the Europeans, who at this point "were almost always failed, almost always malformed and distorted". He specifically cites Nietzsche as a source for this biopolitics. His conception of Nietzschean ethics was that it rested upon three crucial pillars: the heroic, the aesthetic, and the biological. The Count valued, but did not explicitly endorse, America's racial and immigration laws as steps to perfect humanity, specifically the white peoples of European descent. He saw them merely as an attempt at fighting this Nietzschean struggle of perfecting man by way of overcoming "degeneration".
It is Kalergi’s relationship with Nietzsche that places a great strain on interpreting his philosophy. When referring to Christianity in isolation, he seemingly has a great deal of positive things to say about it. Once the Nietzschean rhetoric comes out, however, he seems to be cold towards it.
In Totaler Staat — Totaler Mensch, Kalergi praises Christianity as a "liberating" force that revived the European conception of freedom against the “totalitarian” Caesarism that infringed upon it. And yet, in Praktischer Idealismus there is an argument that Christianity domesticates man. Perhaps Kalergi believed the domestication of man was not a necessarily bad thing, but this is unlikely. As a critic of totalitarianism, Kalergi also noted the intrinsic role that opposition to Christianity played in the totalitarian movements of his age.
By 1951, Kalergi identified Christianity as one of the two pillars of chivalry, along with the "heathen values" (i.e. paganism) that he revered.
The belief that honour ranks higher than life, not only one's own honour but the honour of an honoured lady, lends to chivalry a superhuman gleam which still to-day casts its rays upon us.
Totaler Staat — Totaler Mensch (1951)
My reading of Kalergi is limited by my poor knowledge of German, thankfully a friend has provided translations of many useful excerpts for me. Many will have a greater knowledge of him than I, and perhaps my own biases cloud my already limited ability to judge him, but my reading of numerous of his works has allowed me to make some observations
Firstly, Kalergi was a convinced Nietzschean and valued the three aforementioned pillars of Nietzschean ethics: heroism, aesthetics, and biology. Secondly, he had great praise for Christianity as a necessary bulwark against totalitarianism. At the same time, he had reservations with Christian morality as he viewed it as a slave morality, or at least a force which contributed to slave morality. Nevertheless, he seems to tolerate this to some extent. Finally it should be noted that both Christianity and Nietzsche inform his beliefs about the “European cultural task”, something which will be discussed later.
Overall, it is perhaps suitable to say that Kalergi considered Nietzschean thought and Christianity to be the two lungs of Europe.
The ideal man of this new era is one who combines philanthropy with heroism, consummate form with deepest sensibility, love for beauty with love for justice: the true man of honour who would rather die than act beastly and ignobly. In this ideal ethics and hyper-ethics meet, martyr and hero, Christ and Nietzsche.
The Kalergi Plan and Race
Unfortunately for Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, his legacy is besmirched by allegations that he played a role in a nefarious conspiracy to eradicate the existence of the white man by the mixing of humanity into a single “Negroid-Eurasian” race which would resemble the ancient Egyptians. This myth was popularised by the Austrian neo-Nazi Gerd Honsik, who bastardised Kalergi’s book Praktischer Idealismus.
The myth of the Kalergi plan is one of the most pervasive in right-wing circles online, and is a proof that the populist right-wing is obsessed with being contrarian rather than "free thinking". After all, had they read Kalergi — as many will often profess to have done — they would recognise that he was not advocating the mixing of the races, but rather predicting it. Those of us who are lucky to not be cognitively deficient can recognise these as two different things. In the original German, Kalergi writes “Der Mensch der fernen Zukunft wird Mischling sein”. In English, this means “The man of the distant future will be mixed race”. It is a prediction, nothing else.
Often, critics of Kalergi will respond with silly retorts. From my own experience, I have been told that he must have meant it in a positive light because he did not contain a paragraph saying it was a bad thing. Alternatively, you get people saying that it does not matter whether or not Kalergi said it, because the “Kalergi Plan” to replace the European peoples is a real thing regardless. Why not rename it then? Why continue to refer to it as Kalergi’s plan when there is no evidence he advocated for such a thing?
Further, we find many other excerpts in Praktischer Idealismus and in other works that suggests Kalergi did not have a disdain towards white people. It was his belief that the white man had uniquely evolved due to geographic circumstances and was positioned to "break the tyranny of nature" and liberate mankind. Prior to this section, Los vom Materialismus was looked at. Delving into this and his works on Africa, we reveal a racialist worldview that those who echo the "Kalergi plan" myth are either unaware of, or maliciously omit.
Race and Colonialism
In Los vom Materialismus, we see that Kalergi asserts the existence of inherent differences in "the performance of the various races" and cites the overperformance of "peoples small in number" as proof of this, giving reference to (among others) the Jews, Greeks, and Normans. When discussing America’s racial politics, it can be inferred that he saw black Americans as inferior.
Eugenics is the doctrine of the elevating breeding of men. Of the elimination of the inferior from procreation. Of the new selection.
In America one is dealing with the creation of a new race... The negro question has stirred public opinion in the United States: the question whether black blood should be allowed to mix with white blood, as in South America, or if the races should be organized and bred in separate casts. The question was extended to the dark-haired races of Southern and Eastern Europe, whose increasing immigration threatens the Nordic bedrock of the U.S.
The American immigration laws are result of this sorrow. By them, a further darkening of the blood is to be prevented. Another consequence of this mindset is the social position of the negro. The question of race put aside, eugenics is also put into practice through the prohibition of marriage for those with hereditary handicaps and the sterilization of criminals, which is becoming more widespread. By this measure the criminal instincts shall slowly be sentenced to extinction.
Europe should not sneer at American eugenics, but apprehend it as an attempt to solve mankind’s biggest task: the cure of humankind from degeneration, that has taken place in the past millennia. The race question plays a central role. On it depends the future character of humanity. In America, Siberia and Africa, new races are being created, which will shape the coming millennium. Will these races foster or arrest the degeneration?
Biopolitik, Los vom Materialismus (1931)
I infer this due to Kalergi’s warning that Europeans should not have “sneered” at it and instead valued it as an “attempt” at dealing with “degeneration”. Nevertheless, it is impossible to infer — even with more reading into his views — as to whether the perceived inferiority is something inherent to Africans, or a product of circumstances.
Kalergi saw race and colonialism as two issues tied up with one another, and by investigating his thought on colonialism we can begin to see his thought on European geopolitics unravel, as well as more of his thought on race. Firstly, Kalergi viewed Africa as a land which was ripe for European settlement. It was his belief that Europeans had a right to settle Africa and improve this land. At the time of writing, there was great concern about overpopulation in Europe and so Kalergi posited that settlement of Africa would allow for a Europeanisation of the continent and a resolution to the overpopulation issue, one which would not involve intra-European conflict.
Rabbi Max Grunwald, among others, spoke at the 4th Pan-European Congress in support of such a scheme. Guernier went further and wrote in the Paneuropa magazine that over the course of thirty to fifty years, Europe may send fifteen to twenty million Europeans to Africa and establish a federal Euro-African government. Kalergi rarely discussed the specifics for this, though he endorsed the concept of Africa as a lebensraum and suggested in Afrika that a "common colonisation programme" should be undertook in a British-led conference for Africa.
With regards to Britain, I came across an excerpt some time in 2020 or 2021 in which Kalergi referred to the British as the “vanguard of the white man” in Africa, and that he praised them for civilising the continent. I have struggled to find this excerpt since then, but I am confident that it is not something I have imagined as it sparked the beginning of my fascination with Kalergi, having only known him beforehand for “the Kalergi Plan”.
The concept of European imperialism in Africa itself was not justified by talks of economic or demographic policy, but in racialist and civilisational language. Pan-Europeanists would discuss the "European cultural task", the duty of Europeans to civilise and care for Africans who, in their words, were inferior.
The possession of Africa unfurls for Europe the question of race, which it has otherwise been spared, since Eurafrica combines the most civilised people of the white race with the most primitive peoples of the black.
Afrika, Paneuropa 5.2 (1929)
At this same time, we see Kalergi note that European arrival in Africa was despotic and oppressive, rather than paternal. Nevertheless, this did not prevent him from believing that Europe could “liberate” Africa from the state it was in and “civilise” the continent.
Moving back to the treatment of race, we can see that Kalergi identifies the black Africans as the “most primitive peoples” while identifying “the white race” as the most civilised. At this same time he was raising concern about multiracialism in America and implying that white colonial administration was a precondition for Africa's development. To top it all off, Kalergi was of the opinion that:
[Europe's] relationship to black Africa... cannot be built on equality, but on dominion, education, and guidance. This requirement, which contradicts the principle of self-determination, corresponds to the fact of the inequality of human races.
Afrika, Paneuropa 5.2 (1929)
For those who first hear of Kalergi as a believer in the mixing of Africans and Europeans, this is quite a shocking statement. Indeed, his belief that "the solidarity of race precedes the solidarity of citizenship" and his employment of the term "race" (in his 1920s and early 1930s works) only when contrasting Europeans with non-Europeans reveals Kalergi to be very concerned with racialism, just not intra-European racialism. Indeed, Kalergi’s only writings on intra-European racialism can be seen in Totaler Staat — Totaler Mensch and other writings which deal with Nazi racialism, which he vehemently rejected. The Nazi concept of the Aryan was something that he considered a “biological legend” and an ersatzreligion.
It is evident from Kalergi’s own writings that he was not an advocate for the elimination of Europeans by breeding them out of existence, though he did advocate for eugenics to improve the human race (mainly the “white race”). Further, it is evident that Kalergi looked down upon black Africans and believed in white racial superiority. This does not appear in later writings, at least not that I have come across, suggesting this may well have just been a product of his times. Nevertheless, it is present in his work and worth noting that he does not rebuke himself at a later date. His attitude towards race & colonialism was informed by Nietzsche and Christianity, but also by geopolitics as we can see with his talk of Eurafrica and lebensraum. A fuller treatment of Pan-European geopolitics and strategy is needed, as Kalergi’s contributions to it at are quite limited.
His vision for Eurafrica would obviously not be implemented, but it gained a degree of traction from intellectuals across Europe at the time. It was a colonial endeavour, naturally, but also contained aspects of self-determination which conservative colonisers were averse too. As a result, neither colonisers nor their critics could find themselves on board with the project.
To Conclude
I hope that this article provides a greater insight into an intelligent, erratic, and unique thinker of the twentieth century. Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi made great contributions to a number of fields. He contributed to European studies, geopolitics, political philosophy, ethical philosophy, international relations, and more. His contribution to the noble idea of European unity is one that it is matched by very few people, and his ideas remain of relevance today.
By outlining his thought in English, it is hoped that people will critically evaluate the Count rather than regurgitating the lazy falsehoods about him. Whether one agrees with him or not, his contributions are worthwhile and should be acknowledged in the struggle for European unity.
Great piece
What about the native Europeans that are Muslim in countries like Albania and Bosnia? Most are very secular, but I still see people in this sphere try to exclude them from things like this.