For those who want to understand the modern-day Crusaders obsession with the re-installment of a Kingdom of Jerusalem
By Cynthia Chung
The following is Chapter 2 of my book The Empire on Which the Black Sun Never Set.
A Crusade for Pan-Europe
Count Richard von Coundenhove-Kalergi (1894-1972) was an Austrian-Japanese politician and philosopher who served as the founding president of the Pan-European Union (1923-present) and is the spiritual father to the European Union, which was founded in November 1993.
As the previous chapter should have made evident, Kalergi’s role in Pan-Europeanism overlapped with the period in which fascist quarters were also toying with the same idea both before and after the Second World War. Since Kalergi is the spiritual father of the European Union, it will be worth our while to further explore how these two seemingly opposing groupings interacted during this period. This exercise will also help us appreciate how Kalergi viewed his life’s mission to unite Europe, to which he would refer to in his own words as his “Crusade for Pan-Europe.”[1]
Kalergi’s father was Heinrich von Coundenhove-Kalergi (1859-1906), a Jesuit trained[2] Austro-Hungarian diplomat who spoke eighteen languages including Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew and Japanese. His diplomatic postings included Athens, Rio de Janeiro, Constantinople and Buenos Aires. He was the Deputy Minister of Austria-Hungary to Japan for four years, where he studied Buddhism. While stationed in Japan, he married Mitsuko Aoyama, from a large landowning Samurai family, against her father’s approval, for which she was disinherited and banned from her father’s house.[3]
Richard, the second child to the family, was born in Tokyo, Japan under the name Eijiro Aoyama. Ironically, when Richard would later propose to the famous Austrian Jewish actress Ida Roland, Mitsuko forbade the marriage and disinherited Richard in 1916.[4]
Richard’s father Heinrich would move the entire family to Austria while Richard and his older brother were still young. In stark contrast to their upbringing in Japan, Heinrich would focus their education purely on European Christian values. Heinrich would have seven children with Mitsuko. Upon the family’s arrival to Austria, Mitsuko was forbidden from speaking her native language, and she never revisited Japan.[5]
Heinrich, who grew up as an antisemite, began a treatise on antisemitism which, as the story goes, he expected would reconfirm and solidify his views. Instead, he had a sort of epiphany which led him to become a supporter of Zionism and the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people. His work Das Wesen des Antisemitismus (The Essence of Antisemitism) published in 1901 had a great deal of influence on Richard’s thinking, who released an edited version with his additions in 1935 (which will be discussed in further detail shortly). When Heinrich passed away in 1906, he ordered his loyal servant Babik, to burn all forty volumes of his diary “covering forty years of action and thought.”[6] Babik had dedicated his life to serving his master after Heinrich, as per Richard, saved Babik’s life from the Armenian massacres of Sultan Abdul Hamid. No one had ever seen Heinrich’s diaries, including his wife. He kept it in a safe “with his most treasured papers.”[7]
Richard would be sent to the Theresianum Academy in Vienna which he described in the following remarks: “The Theresianum was to the old Austrian empire what Eton is to Britain…it had only one aim: to perpetuate within its pupils the traditional ideals of the Austrian monarchy. Many leading statesmen had been trained here; in my time, nearly all students were members of the titled nobility…”[8]
The Theresianum Academy was founded by the Jesuits in 1746. Empress Maria Theresa of Austria had sold the palace to the Jesuits for the purpose of transforming it into an educational institution, preparing talented young men for civil service. In 1773, the Empress’s son Joseph II dissolved the religious order of the Society of Jesus, temporarily closing Theresianum. However, in 1797, Francis II, the last Holy Roman Emperor, reopened Theresianum under the direction of the Piarists.[9]
Richard writes describing the history of his Coudenhove family line in his 1943 autobiography:[10]
“The Coudenhove line reaches back to the eleventh century, when two brothers Coudenhove joined the first Crusade in 1099, when Jerusalem was conquered for the first time by the united armies of the Christian knights of Europe. They had belonged to the oldest nobility of Northern Brabant, now a part of the Netherlands. At the end of the eighteenth century the Coudenhoves had been made counts of the Holy Roman Empire.”
The theme of the Crusaders would be central to Kalergi’s idea for a Pan-Europe, to which he even incorporated the symbol of the Crusaders within his flag for the Pan-European cause.
In his 1954 autobiography titled An Idea Conquers the World, Kalergi further emphasized the importance of the Crusader theme for a Pan-Europe:[11]
“I discovered to my surprise that the feeling of European consciousness had first shown itself during the Crusades. After the fall of the Roman Empire the Crusades represented the most vigorous display of European solidarity. For a time, feuds between kings, princes and cities were submerged in a common cause.
The first programme for Pan-Europe came from the pen of Pierre Dubois, a court lawyer of King Philip the Fair of France (1303). Under the heading ‘Reconquest of the Holy Land’, it advocates the setting up of a European League, under the presidency of the King of France. This League would have two objectives: first, to ensure permanent peace within the Christian world, and, secondly, to rally the armed strength of Europe for the reconquest of the Holy Land and the Mediterranean…
From that time onwards many writers and statesmen began to support the idea of Pan-Europe. Its greatest protagonist in the eighteenth century was the Abbé de St Pierre. He had two great philosophers as his disciples: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. In the nineteenth century it was Napoleon who first endeavoured to unite Europe by force of arms; after his fall, the Holy Alliance created a Pan-Europe of Sovereigns for the prevention of wars and revolutions. Finally, in 1834, Mazzini founded Young Europe, a movement designed to coordinate all existing revolutionary movements with a view to building up a new and united Europe on a basis of nationalism and democracy.”
Thus, as Kalergi acknowledges, part of the Pan-European ideology is the reconquest of the Holy Land…
Interestingly Kalergi would write that Giuseppe Mazzini who he considered the most modern organizer towards a “united Europe on a basis of nationalism and democracy” was as also considered the forerunner of fascism in Italy. Kalergi writes:[12]
“Fascism at that time [in Italy] had not yet broken with parliamentarism and democracy. The new Italian government was a government of coalition; it respected the principle of constitutional monarchy, pretending only to give it new vigor and authority. It appealed to the heroic instincts of youth, to the spirit of sacrifice and of idealism. It tried to restore the respect for religious values and the glorious traditions of ancient Rome. It hailed the memory of Mazzini as a forerunner of Fascism.”
Kalergi would select for the first Congress of Europe for the Pan-European movement (1926) a number of portraits that were hung behind the delegates; among these were the Abbé de St. Pierre, Kant, Napoleon, Mazzini and Nietzsche.[13] Kalergi would have several meetings with Mussolini on the subject of a Pan-Europe (which will be discussed in greater detail shortly).
In his 1943 autobiography, Kalergi further expands on his theme of the Crusader of Pan-Europe:[14]
“I chose the sign of the red cross superimposed on a golden sun as the emblem of our movement. The red cross, which had been the flag of the medieval crusaders, seemed the oldest known symbol of supra-national European brotherhood. In more recent times it has also gained recognition as a symbol of international relief work. The sun was chosen to represent the achievements of European culture in helping to illuminate the world. Thus, Hellenism and Christianity – the cross of Christ and the sun of Apollo[15] – figured side by side as the twin enduring pillars of European civilization.”
Richard goes through his first introduction to the idea of a Pan-movement. When Richard was still a child, Abdullah Mahmun Suhraworthy (now spelled Suhrawardy) stayed at their home for six months. Richard writes in his Crusade for Pan-Europe, that shortly after Suhrawardy left their home he founded the Pan-Islamic Society in London and became its first secretary. Clearly inferring that it was through conversations with his father Heinrich that spurred Abdullah’s shaping of a Pan-Islamic movement. Returning to Calcutta, India, after receiving an M.A. degree from the London University, Suhrawardy was elected to reform the Bengal Legislative Council. He would later receive a knighthood.
The Suhrawardy family were one of British Bengal’s most prominent Muslim families. Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan from 1956-1957 and was the Prime Minister of Bengal from 1946-1947 in British Raj. In Pakistan, Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy is revered as one of the country’s founding statesmen. Pakistan had split from India in August 1947 over a religious war between Muslims and Hindus. In India, Huseyn is seen as a controversial figure; some hold him responsible for the 1946 Calcutta Killings,[16] for which he is often referred to as the “Butcher of Bengal” among West Bengalis. He is also remembered in India for his performance as the Minister for Civil Supply during the Bengal famine of 1943.[17] The Bengal famine of 1943, with recent weather studies, have shown that the famine was not due to weather conditions but rather the Churchill-led British policies of that period.[18]
It is interesting that Abdullah Mahmun Suhrawardy’s concept for Pan-Islam is what Richard Kalergi credits for his inspiration for a Pan-European movement, writing:[19]
“Soon after having left Ronsperg [the Kalergi home], Suhraworthy founded in London the Pan-Islamic Society and became its first secretary. Its aim was to establish a closer cultural and political union between the three hundred millions of Mohammedans, from the Dutch East Indies to Morocco, if possible under a single caliph…
Thus, listening to Suhraworthy when developed his favorite idea of Pan-Islam, I learned for the first time the conception of a Pan-movement, of a group of divergent countries and people banding together in common cause to defeat the barriers the world had placed around their existence. From then on I saw the problems of the world through different eyes.”
Kalergi wrote in his 1954 autobiography An Idea Conquers the World:[20]
“I thought of Mazzini’s Young Italy, of Theodor Herzl’s Zionist Movement[21]. I also thought of my childhood days when my father’s friend Suhraworthy, then totally unknown, started the Pan-Islamic movement from scratch. I now set out to establish contact with all organizations of Pan-European character…”
A New Holy Alliance: The League of Nations
After the First World War, Europe found itself transformed from a region governed for centuries by empire, to that of republics. Kalergi writes:[22]
“In the morning, news had come of the impending armistice; later in the day an imperial manifesto told us that the Austrian emperor had resigned his rights in the conduct of the state and had dissolved the imperial government. Thus the Austrian republic was born, under the presidency of the popular labor leader Karl Seitz.
The preceding days had seen world-shaking events: The German Kaiser had fled to Holland; General Ludendorff, the idol and symbol of German militarism, to Sweden. Germany had been transformed into a democratic republic with Fritz Ebert, a Socialist, as its president. Czechoslovakia and Hungary too had been transformed into democratic republics, while Turkey and Bulgaria had surrendered to the victorious Allies. Austria had been dismembered and some days earlier had concluded its armistice with Italy.
…The Austro-Hungarian empire was dead – the war was over…The three European empires of the Romanovs, the Habsburgs, and the Hohenzollerns had crumbled and were now replaced by republics…Within the last week two dozen European thrones, some of them reaching back a thousand years, had collapsed.
…It was commonly understood that since the end of the religious wars dynastic rivalry and national oppression had provoked most wars of the last centuries. These two main sources of wars now seemed definitely eliminated by the fall of the dynasties and the liberation of the nations. A long period of European peace, security, and collaboration seemed at last possible. A new Holy Alliance was to be created. But this new Holy Alliance against wars was to be a league of nations and not of kings; a league for progress and democracy and not for oppression and reaction. The prophet of this League of Nations was the great President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson.”
Kalergi continues:[23] “When, on December 13, [1918] President Wilson arrived on the battleship George Washington at the French port of Brest, Europe hailed him as the man of destiny, who had come from the New World to bring the American ideals of liberty to the oppressed people of Europe. His Fourteen Points had been accepted by victors and vanquished as the basis for the coming peace and world order.”
As already mentioned in the previous chapter, the League of Nations was responsible for the Balfour Declaration calling for a national home for the Jews. It was also demonstrated that British Union of Fascists leader, Oswald Mosley, was also a prominent representative of the League of Nations. Mosley would also promote in the post-WWII era the concept of a Pan-Europe, a united Europe. Within this conception of a united Europe, a united Europe-Africa was essential, with the latter being more akin to a very large slave plantation for the purpose of servicing Europe’s needs. In addition, segregation played a central role in this vision. Although specifications were never made clear in terms of how this would be achieved, the apartheid of South Africa was an obvious case study. It should not be lost on the reader, that an idea of a Jewish national home does fit into this view of a segregated world. As will be discussed further on, there were acceptable forms of ‘mixing’ and there were unacceptable forms of ‘mixing’ that could be solved with the ‘humane’ solution of segregation, voluntary and involuntary.
Woodrow Wilson was no exception to this view of segregation. The Atlantic writes in an article titled “The Racist Legacy of Woodrow Wilson”:[24]
“As president, Wilson oversaw unprecedented segregation in federal offices. It’s a shameful side to his legacy that came to a head one fall afternoon in 1914 when he threw the civil-rights leader William Monroe Trotter out of the Oval Office… In the fall of 1913, he and other civil-rights leaders, including Ida B. Wells, met with Wilson to express dismay over Jim Crow… In the next year, segregation did not improve; it worsened. By this time, numerous instances of workplace separation became well publicized. Among them, separate toilets in the U.S. Treasury and the Interior Department, a practice that Wilson’s Treasury secretary, William G. McAdoo, defended: ‘I am not going to argue the justification of the separate toilets orders, beyond saying that it is difficult to disregard certain feelings and sentiments of white people in a matter of this sort.’
… The president [Woodrow Wilson] told Trotter what he previously admitted in private—that he viewed segregation in his federal agencies as a benefit to blacks. Wilson said that his cabinet officers ‘were seeking, not to put the Negro employees at a disadvantage but … to make arrangements which would prevent any kind of friction between the white employees and the Negro employees…‘My question would be this: If you think that you gentlemen, as an organization, and all other Negro citizens of this country, that you are being humiliated, you will believe it. If you take it as a humiliation, which it is not intended as, and sow the seed of that impression all over the country, why the consequence will be very serious,’ he [Woodrow Wilson] said.
… In his comments, Trotter had accused the president of lying by saying that race prejudice was the sole motivation for Jim Crow and that to assert otherwise, to claim his administration sought to protect blacks from ‘friction,’ was ridiculous… Wilson interrupted Trotter: ‘Your tone, sir, offends me.’ To the entire delegation, he said, ‘I want to say that if this association comes again, it must have another spokesman,’ declaring no one had ever come into his office and insulted him as Trotter had. ‘You have spoiled the whole cause for which you came,’ he told The Guardian editor dismissively.”
In the next chapter, we will see how the League of Nations was in fact an imperialist vision, which would seat an Anglo-America at the helm of this new world order.
As we will see in Kalergi’s strange defense of the Jews, he agreed with sending the ‘problematic Jews’ to a homeland far removed from Europe, since in this way they could be ‘protected’ from further hatred and violence. This is not so different from the idea that all blacks should be sent back to Africa (Kalergi’s views on this will be discussed in detail shortly).
Kalergi would write:[25] “I was grateful to my destiny for having been born in the era of the League, in the era of Woodrow Wilson, in the era of the rebirth of the world under the impulse of new and generous ideals…Many had hoped that, while Geneva was to remain the seat of the League of Nations, Vienna might become one day the Washington of the United States of Europe.”
Kalergi goes on to say in his Crusade for Pan-Europe, that his greatest wish is to see one day the United States of Europe become a reality and that the League of Nations is the first rough draft towards this goal. Kalergi viewed his Pan-Europe as also a step towards achieving the League of Nations. Kalergi wrote up a memorandum to the League of Nations, suggesting its reorganization “in a spirit of regionalism, as an inevitable step toward universalism.”[26] Kalergi drafted a plan for the recognition of six regional and autonomous units within the League: the British Commonwealth, the Soviet Union, the Pan-American Union, a Pan-European Union, China and Japan.[27] Notice that Arabia and Africa are not mentioned among these autonomous regions.
Kalergi goes on to write:[28] “Had wishful thinking influenced my program, I should certainly have suggested as a European Union under British leadership, the king of England acting as hereditary president of the United States of Europe. But, alas, the problem was much more complicated than it seemed. In fact, the British question was the most difficult and delicate problem of all the complicated problems confronting Pan-Europe. This difficulty lay in the fact that, although Britain was a European power, the British Empire was by no means European, but intercontinental.”
I hope it is becoming evident to the reader that this so-called world of independent democracies and the supposed end to imperialism, are not quite what was being envisioned by Kalergi and the League of Nations vision for a New World Order, and that indeed, empire and monarchy would continue to play a dominant role.
Kalergi continues:[29] “England was looking toward a new organization of its imperial unity, that it could not and would not imperil by any European entanglements. After all, Canada was American, South Africa African, Australia Australian, and India Asiatic. And together they formed, with Britain, the greatest empire of all history. This fact I had to recognize when I wished to face realities and not dreams.
…but also with regard to the Continental feeling that Europe without Britain was but a torso – a feeling that I personally shared. Many Germans and many French did not wish to live in a continental federation, facing each other, without British mediation and even leadership.”
As we will later see, this ‘dilemma’ of a Pan-Europe with British leadership would be solved by Leo Amery and Winston Churchill.
Pan-Europe’s Dalliance with Mussolini
Mussolini was considered by Kalergi crucial for the success of a Pan-Europe, as a neutral mediator between Germany and France.
Kalergi writes:[30] “Mussolini had an entirely free hand in foreign policy. He had no part in the Treaty of Versailles, nor was he compromised by the negotiations of the peace conference. He might well have renewed the traditional rôle of Rome as center of Western civilization, by restoring peace in Europe and binding the Continent by a federation fighting revolution and anarchy…It was evident that, with Italy back of him, Mussolini could never dream of establishing his hegemony over Europe. To raise the prestige of his nation and his own, he had to achieve diplomatic rather than military victories. What greater triumph could there be for him than to bring about European federation and to make of Rome the Washington of the Old World?
I hoped that Mussolini’s vision and ambition might be tempted by this unique chance. On February 22, 1923, I sent him an open letter which I published in Vienna’s leading liberal paper, the Neue Freie Presse.
‘In the name of Europe’s youth, I appeal to you: save Europe!
…Whoever now loves his nation is bound to love Europe: as a good Italian you must be a good European, just as the best Italian of the last century was also its best European – Giuseppe Mazzini.
…Greece perished because it awoke too late to Pan-Hellenism. Save Europe from its fate! Interfere boldly into its chaos to lay the foundations for the United States of Europe!’”
Shortly after, Mussolini invaded Corfu, Greece and murdered the Italian socialist politician Giacomo Matteotti, who accused the Fascists of having committed fraud in the recently held elections in 1924. Despite this, Kalergi was not deterred that Mussolini was the right man to lead the union of Europe.
As things began to move ahead with the ‘Briand Initiative’ (i.e. the plan for a European federation), Briand announced before the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva on September 5th, 1929 that he was in favour of a European Union within The League of Nations. It was Kalergi who had organised Aristide Briand, a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France between the period of 1909 and 1929, towards this.
With Briand now publicly backing a European Union, Mussolini began to show some interest and declared himself in favor of Briand’s plan provided that joint administration of all African colonies were considered.[31] Again, it is made evident that Africa is not to have any autonomy in this League of Nations New World Order of so-called ‘democracies.’
Briand’s Initiative did not rally enough support to its cause and a year later was considered a failure. Once again, Kalergi was eyeing Mussolini to lead the Pan-European movement.
Kalergi writes:[32] “A Franco-Italian alliance would include automatically Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Balkan bloc, and Belgium. Backed by Britain and eventually by Russia, it might evolve into a European federation, leaving no chance open for Hitler to conquer isolated and weaker neighbors.
…To a certain degree the fate of Europe at that period lay in the hands of one man – Benito Mussolini…To imagine Mussolini as Briand’s successor may seem paradoxical – but not altogether inconceivable. Since he had made peace with the Vatican in 1929[33], he seemed to incline toward a broader European policy.
…He [Mussolini] tried to start his own Pan-European movement by encouraging and subsidizing a review named Anti-Europa, which combined fascist and Pan-European ideas. This review, edited by a young Fascist, Asvero Gravelli, attacked Briand and me [Kalergi] in every issue, and instead promoted the idea of European union under Mussolini’s moral lead. The practical effect of this review was to prepare Fascist Italy for Pan-European ideas, in opposition to Russia and outside the pale of the League of Nations.”
Asvero Gravelli was one of the most significant figures of the fascist ‘second-wave’ in Italy. Interestingly, in Kalergi’s 1954 autobiography An Idea Conquers the World, Kalergi admits Gravelli is a disciple of his, “Before leaving Rome I paid a visit to the editorial offices of Anti-Europa and met its youthful editor-in-chief, Asvero Gravelli. This protégé of Mussolini’s turned out to be a staunch supporter of Pan-Europe, who had read every line of my writings and was in fact a secret disciple of mine. He had made it his aim to win over public opinion in Italy to my ideas and to organize with Mussolini’s approval an Italian Branch of our Union.”[34]
Kalergi would have his first meeting with Mussolini in the spring of 1933 in Rome, at his Palazzo Venezia. Part of their discussion would cover philosophical issues and Nietzsche. Kalergi writes, “Before parting I asked him to read the latest issue of my review Pan-Europa, which I had brought…[the] issue contained a comment on his Four-Power Pact, an article quoting everything Nietzsche[35] had written in favor of a united Europe, and an article, The Rights of Man, as codified by the French Revolution.”[36]
Interestingly, it appears Kalergi would not meet with the current pope at that time Pope Pius XI, but rather Cardinal Nuncio Pacelli (who would become Pope Pius XII on March 2nd, 1939). The likely reason for Kalergi’s avoidance of Pope Pius XI was that he had already begun criticizing Fascist Italy in his 1931 encyclical Non abbiamo bisogno (We Do Not Need to Acquaint You).[37]
On the same day as his visit with Mussolini, Kalergi met with Cardinal Pacelli. Kalergi described the future Pope as “a genuine saint”.[38] Interestingly, Kalergi responded to those who criticized Pope Pius XII for not denouncing fascism in favor of democracy but excused him for this failure since they considered him a virtual prisoner of Fascist Italy, stating in 1943:
“These critics start from the wrong premise. There is no reason for a basically anti-Fascist attitude on the part of Catholicism. Catholicism is the fascist form of Christianity of which Calvinism represents its democratic wing. The Catholic hierarchy rests fully and securely on the leadership principle with the infallible pope in supreme command for a lifetime. Leadership is, of course, open to all classes of the Catholic society and so is leadership within the fascist state. But, like the Fascist party, its priesthood becomes a medium for an undemocratic minority rule by a hierarchy.
This constitutional – not moral – analogy between fascism and Catholicism offers the key to the fact that in Europe, as well as in, America, Catholic nations follow fascist doctrines more willingly than Protestant nations, which are the main strongholds of democracy. Even in Germany the fascist movement did not come from the Protestant North but from the Catholic South, not from Berlin, but from Munich. Like Hitler himself, most other leaders of Nazism have a Catholic and not a Protestant background.
It is obvious that the Catholic Church will prefer the democratic system in states where she forms a minority, because she depends on tolerance there. For a Catholic nation, she seems to prefer a system of moderate fascism like that of Salazar Portugal or of Dollfuss in Austria, based on authoritarian government, corporative representation, and Christian ethics – uninfected, of course, by the paganism and anti-humanism of Hitler’s racial doctrines.
This is important to remember when the time for European reconstruction comes. The basic political conceptions of Protestant nations are different from those of Catholic nations. Democracy lays its stress on personal conscience; fascism on authority and obedience. This may explain why democracy was a success among most Protestant and a failure among most Catholic nations, in Europe as well as in America.”
This viewpoint of Kalergi’s that Catholicism is inherently pro-fascist might have been shared by Pope Pius XII (March 2, 1939 – 1958), who indeed never denounced or criticized Fascist Italy, however, this was certainly not a viewpoint shared by Pope Pius XI (1922 – February 10, 1939).
As already mentioned Pope Pius XI was in fact publicly critical of Fascist Italy as early as 1931. From 1933 to 1937 Pope Pius XI wrote several protests against the Nazi regime. By 1938, Pope Pius XI would also denounce Fascist Italy after it had adopted the Nazi racial policies.[39] Pope Pius XI watched the rise of totalitarianism with alarm and delivered three papal encyclicals challenging the new creeds: against Italian Fascism Non abbiamo bisogno (1931; We Do Not Need [to Acquaint You); against Nazism Mit brennender Sorge (1937; With Deep Concern), and against atheist Communism Divini redemptoris (1937; Divine Redeemer).[40]
In 1926, Pope Pius XI condemned Charles Maurras’ Catholic pro-monarchist pro-fascist movement Action Française. This was strongly criticized by Cardinal Billot who believed that the political activities of Catholic pro-monarchists should not be censured by Rome.[41] He later resigned from his position as Cardinal, the only man to do so in the 20th century, which was believed by many to have been the result of Pope Pius XI’s condemnation.[42] The succeeding Pope Pius XII repealed the papal ban on Action Française in 1939, in his first year as pope, which allowed Catholics to associate themselves with the movement.[43] However, despite Pope Pius XII’s actions to rehabilitate the group, Action Française ultimately never recovered to their former status.
Though Pope Pius XI was eighty-two years of age at his passing, it is still somewhat suspect the timing of his death and the fact that Kalergi chose to meet and maintain a dialogue with Cardinal Pacelli (the future Pope Pius XII) during the period of 1933 till his coronation as Pope. The selection of the Pope is done through the College of Cardinals, yet it appears that Kalergi knew in advance that Cardinal Pacelli would be on the ascendancy. One thing is for certain, once Cardinal Pacelli was coroneted Pope, he did everything to support the initiatives of Kalergi and Mussolini and did nothing to oppose their endeavours.
Kalergi’s description of the Catholic religion being inherently fascist was not meant as a criticism, as will become evident. Kalergi, who was raised in the Roman Catholic faith with likely the tinge of the Jesuit Order, considered fascism more suitable for achieving the goals of Pan-Europeanism, with democracy being ultimately too weak of an organising structure to succeed in this endeavour.
By 1935, Mussolini looked like he was going to be a shoo-in for the Crusade for Pan-Europe. Kalergi writes:[44]
“At our next Pan-European conference in Vienna Italy was duly represented. Among its delegates was Gravelli, whose review Anti-Europa had turned into a veritable mouthpiece of Pan-Europe. The conference at Stresa in the spring of 1935 was the turning point on this Pan-European path of Mussolini’s. For the last time Mussolini tried to get western European nations to take collective action on behalf of Austria against Hitler.”
The way Kalergi saw it, the solution for Europe was clear. Mussolini was needed to lead a Franco-Italian alliance against Hitler’s Germany. One didn’t need a crystal ball to know that Austria would be the first region Hitler would annex on the road to his envisioned German Empire. Mussolini was the only one that made a firm public stance against such a move, when he made it known that Fascist Italy would see Germany’s annexation of Austria as a casus belli and would militarily intervene. Thus, to Kalergi, outside of the British Empire who had made it clear that they wished no direct involvement in this European power struggle, there was only Mussolini who was powerful and courageous enough to defeat the rising Hitler.
As should be clear to the reader, what this meant for Europe was that whoever would win the standoff between Mussolini and Hitler, one thing was certain, fascism would be the new governing structure for Europe.
This was actually in alignment with Austria’s then-dominant system of governance, and there was a great deal of support for fascism among the populace. The question was more directed to what sort of ‘brand’ of fascism would they want for their country, that of Hitler or Mussolini?
Recall that Kalergi was born in Austria and that his Pan-European movement originated in Austria in 1923. Kalergi acknowledged the antisemitism of the Christian Socialist party of Austria, remarking:[45]
“My father saw clearly the dangers of anti-Semitic demagogy, for at that very moment two large political parties in Austria were using anti-Semitic slogans – the Christian Socialists and the Pan-Germanists. As Hitler confesses in Mein Kampf, the leaders of these two parties inspired him to his future anti-Semitic campaign. So my father fought the very roots of future National Socialism, and thus brought me as a child in radical opposition to the ideas Hitler now stands for.”
Knowing this, it is extremely odd that Kalergi would form a close relationship to Dr. Ignaz Seipel, Chancellor of the Austrian Republic and leader of the Christian Socialist party and select him, whose political party Kalergi acknowledges as having inspired Hitler’s anti-Semitic campaign, as the president of the Austrian branch of his Pan-European movement! Kalergi writes glowingly of Seipel:[46]
“In 1923 Seipel was the undisputed leader of Austria. Priest and dignitary of the Roman Church…leader of the Christian Socialist party and, since 1922, chancellor of the republic, Seipel carried a moral and political authority far beyond the limits of his state…[Seipel] was, after the Pope, the most interesting and remarkable priest in Europe. As head of Austria’s Catholic party, he ruled Austria almost as a proconsul of the Church. He was a fervent Austrian patriot, but his loyalty toward the Church was greater…His struggle, which was to have grave consequences after his death, was carried on with the conviction of a crusader…
Seipel was one of the most impressive men of his era. His head was shaped[47] like that of a Roman emperor…had he lived centuries ago he might well have been a great pope or grand inquisitor, implacable toward the enemies of the Church.”
It should not be lost on the reader how much Mussolini and Seipel shared in common – both were Catholic fascists. Kalergi continues:[48]
“Dr. Seipel was astonishingly well-informed about my plan for European union and was convinced of its need even before we met…When I asked him to back Pan-Europe publicly, he promised to do so. I offered him the presidency of the Austrian branch of the Pan-European Union, and he accepted without hesitation. He also gave me an office in the former imperial palace of Vienna, the Hofburg. This palace remained the headquarters of our movement up to March 11, 1938, the day Hitler invaded Austria.
With Seipel I had at last found the head of a European government who dared publicly to subscribe to my movement.”
Wanting to ensure that the Austrian socialists would not be opposed to this Pan-European movement, Kalergi approached the socialist triumvirate: Karl Seitz, first president of the Austrian republic and later mayor of Vienna; Dr. Karl Renner, first chancellor of the Austrian republic and main leader of the Austrian peace delegation; and Dr. Otto Bauer, Austria’s first republican foreign minister. Of the three, it is Dr. Renner who resonated with Kalergi’s plan for a Pan-Europe.
“Renner was respected for much scholarly knowledge and rare integrity, but he had strong sentiment leanings toward Pan-Germanism…I did not expect to find him more sympathetic than his colleagues, recalling his nostalgic attachment to the idea of Pan-Germany, but to my great surprise he agreed to join the Union. I think I convinced him with the formula that Pan-Europe meant for Austria ‘Anschluss all round,’ not only with the German republics, but also with the Danubian states.”
Thus, Kalergi had recruited the leader of the Christian Socialist party and a leading member of the Social Democratic party that was for Pan-Germanism, the two ideologies that Kalergi had acknowledged several pages earlier in the same book to have inspired Hitler’s anti-Semitic campaign. Curious, is it not?Subscribe
The reader should also be aware that Anschluss is the German word for ‘connection’ or ‘joining’ and referred to Austria’s joining of Germany. There were many people in Austria who were supportive of this right after the First World War, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed. This was what Hitler was promising, to unite the German and Austrian people under one common empire. Austrian and German relations are close since they have shared a common history, culture and language for centuries. German is the official language in both countries. In fact, the entire leadership of the Social Democratic party of Austria was for the ‘Anschluss with Germany,’ since they were all Pan-Germanists and agreed with Hitler’s ‘National Socialism.’
Thus, when Kalergi told Renner “that Pan-Europe meant for Austria ‘Anschluss all round,’ not only with the German republics, but also with the Danubian states” this was understood by Renner as the union of all these regions, most of Eastern Europe, under a common empire. It should not be assumed that Kalergi himself did not see it in this very light, which would be the rebirth of an even greater empire than that of the Habsburg Empire, which ruled Eastern Europe for centuries.
Kalergi writes: “Renner…was to sponsor my program and this, together with the moral support lent by Dr. Seipel, gave the movement an excellent start. I have no doubt that Renner’s and Seipel’s initial backing accounted much for the movement’s strong repercussion all over Europe and helped toward its rapid rise in the next few years.[49]
…The official support which the movement had thus received from two internationally recognized leaders, one of political Catholicism, the other of Socialism, was of decisive importance. In the first place, the idea of Pan-Europe began to be taken seriously. Both Seipel and Renner had the reputation of being political realists. Through Seipel’s support, the movement soon acquired a firm footing in the Catholic world; through Renner’s support, it spread likewise throughout the world of international Socialism. The mere mention of Seipel’s name often sufficed to persuade a vacillating Catholic leader to join a national committee; similarly, it as only necessary to point to Renner’s support in order to prove convincingly that the aims of the movement were not in conflict with those of the Second International.”[50]
Thus, Kalergi credits Seipel and Renner for giving his Pan-European movement its rise all over Europe. These figures were the leaders of the Christian Socialist party and the Pan-Germanists, the ones who, as per Hitler, inspired his anti-Semitic campaign, where the trumpeters of Kalergi’s Pan-European movement.
On May 20th, 1932, Engelbert Dollfuss was elected Chancellor of Austria. In 1933, he dissolved the parliament and assumed dictatorial powers. Suppressing the Socialist movement in February 1934 during the Austrian Civil War and later banning the Austrian Nazi Party, he cemented the rule of ‘Austrofascism’ through the authoritarian ‘First of May Constitution’. Dollfuss would pledge his allegiance to Mussolini. It appeared Austria’s fate would be similar to that of Europe’s in the eyes of Kalergi, no matter the victor, Mussolini vs. Hitler, the outcome would be a fascist rule.
During Dollfuss’s rule in Austria, he regularly met with Kalergi and was supportive of the plan for a Pan-Europe. Kalergi writes:[51]
“I met Dollfuss for the very last time in June 1934…In the course of our conversation he told me that he planned to take his family to Italy during his vacation and that he would spend some time in Riccione with Mussolini. He expected personally to take up the Pan-European question with Mussolini and hoped to get him to take action.
…July 25…Dollfuss had been assassinated by a group of Austrian Nazis…They had wounded Dollfuss with two shots. While he lay dying they told him that the country had risen in revolt against him and demanded a National Socialist government. To put an end to the civil war they asked that he resign from power. Dollfuss, surrounded only by his murderers alone, wounded, and dying, resisted…
The news was a frightful shock to us; Dollfuss was a very dear friend…In the great battle for Austria and Europe Dollfuss died as a hero at the head of his army…His spirit triumphed in the days that followed his assassination. The Nazi revolt was drowned in an outburst of public indignation and a new wave of patriotism.
Hitler at that time did not dare to back the Nazi revolt in Austria with German troops. Mussolini stood ready to cross the Brenner and to assist the Austrian nation at a moment’s notice. Not France, nor Britain, nor Russia, nor Czechoslovakia – Italy alone saved, during these critical days, the independence of Austria. This was the fruit of Dollfuss’s foreign policy, which might have altered the fate of Europe, had he lived.”
Through Kalergi’s eyes, Pan-Germanism was not a problem in his ultimate mission for Pan-Europeanism, as was so clearly shown by his close partnership with Renner and other Pan-Germanists. What caused Kalergi to create some distance between himself and Nazi Germany, was not because of his disapproval of fascism (as has been clearly shown thus far) nor even anti-Semitism more generally. All three key groups Kalergi worked with to launch his Pan-European movement, Fascist Italy, the Christian Socialist party and Austria’s Social Democratic party’s Pan-Germanists were all pro-fascists and shared varying degrees of anti-Semitism.
Kalergi saw no reason why there could not be a peaceful union of fascist led states. However, there could be no peaceful union with a fanatical Hitler in the mix. This is why in the year 1933, Kalergi changes his strategy from a Franco-German alliance to lead a Pan-European movement, to that of a Franco-Italian alliance. Most countries in Europe had a strong support base for fascism. As the previous chapter has shown, even Britain and France were not willing to go to war to stop the spread of fascism.[52] There was a genuine desire toward a union of states under a fascist pro-imperialist governance. But Hitler’s fanaticism wanted the entire pie and set back this plan for decades, forcing it to go underground.
Kurt Schuschnigg would succeed Dollfuss as Chancellor of Austria in July 1934 until the Nazi invasion of Austria on March 11th, 1938. It would result in the severing of Austria’s support from Mussolini. Kalergi writes:[53]
“The personal relations between Mussolini and Schuschnigg had never been cordial. Schuschnigg was a Tyrolese and could not forget that his countrymen were oppressed by Fascist Italy. Sentimentally he would have preferred to collaborate with Berlin rather than with Rome. Mussolini did not like Schuschnigg either. He was fond of Starhemberg as he had been of Dollfuss. After Schuschnigg had sacrificed the leader of the Heimwehren, the last personal link between Rome and Vienna vanished. Schuschnigg stood alone and Austria was isolated and doomed.”
On March 11th, 1938, Schuschnigg yielded to a Nazi ultimatum and renounced his office. His successor was Seyss-Inquart, leader of the Austrian Nazi party. Already German troops were crossing the border into Austria. The annexation of Austria was the first piece on Hitler’s chessboard, and he now had the full backing of a Rome-Berlin Axis.
Kalergi had visited Mussolini on May 11th, 1936. July 1936 would be their last meeting together, six months before Mussolini’s announcement of the Rome-Berlin Axis. Kalergi writes:[54]
“He greeted me like an old friend and started to discuss the latest developments in Europe. I warned him that Hitler was on the way to win European hegemony unless thwarted by force. I told him that neither Italy nor France could venture to tackle Hitler alone…I urged him to settle all differences with the French government at the earliest possible moment to create a strong Latin union as a first step toward European union.
Mussolini listened closely…He spoke of France in a conciliatory tone giving the impression that his sympathies were wholly with the French. There is no doubt that the idea of a close French-Italian union was attractive to him. His secret dream was not Pan-Europe but a great Mediterranean federation of all Latin states, controlling the major part of Africa and being linked to the Latin republics across the Atlantic. Rome, of course, was to be the center of this new regional arrangement.
…He fixed the hour of our next interview at two days from then…When we met again it was he who had the first word.
‘Your policy is geometrically correct, but impossible to execute. Look here.’ And he showed me one of the last issues of the French newspaper Le Populaire with an article by Léon Blum. ‘Léon Blum says he regrets that the League of Nations failed to strangle me. Do you really expect me to have confidence in such a man?’
Léon Blum had won the French election some days before and prepared to head a government of the ‘Popular Front’ backed by a combined liberal, socialist, and communist majority. It was true that such a government could hardly be expected to collaborate with Fascist Italy; besides, and I am quoting Mussolini’s words, ‘England will neve tolerate a Franco-Italian union.’ The only consolation he had to offer was that ‘he had no further territorial claims.’
Although his pronouncements sounded pretty decisive that day, he asked me in the end to go to Paris and find out whether any chance existed that the two nations might get together…”
Kalergi writes further on his 1943 autobiography:[55]
“The Anti-Fascists hated Hitler…yet they…paved the way to his successes. For these anti-Fascists succeeded in transforming Mussolini, Hitler’s strongest enemy during the years of 1933 and 1934, into Hitler’s strongest ally.
I don’t blame the Italian and Spanish anti-Fascists for their brave and very natural fight against their ruthless political enemies. But I blame the democratic politicians, especially in France…they treated Mussolini as an ally of Hitler till he became one.
In these days Mussolini saw more clearly than his democratic colleagues the threat Hitler represented for all of Europe. He would have much preferred to join the Western democracies in a united front against Hitlerism than, by joining Hitler, to become the vassal of this man whom he despised, envied, and hated.
Some farseeing Allied statesmen, like Churchill, Amery, Barthou, and De Jouvenel, saw this issue and tried their best to renew the alliance…Mussolini was one the way to join the West in order to protect Austria against Hitler and to check the threat of German domination over Europe.
But the Anti-Fascists did everything they could to prevent such a policy. In France the idea of anti-Fascism was decisive for the alliance between democrats, socialists, and communists, the so-called ‘Front Populair.’ The mere name of anti-Fascism instead of anti-Nazism indicates that they considered Mussolini their enemy number one and Hitler their enemy number two. Instead of backing Austria’s defense against Hitler by all possible means, they sneered at Dollfuss, Schuschnigg, and Starhemberg [all fascists]…Nothing was more welcome to Hitler than this anti-Austrian and anti-Italian sentiment among the democrats of France and of Britain, because it prevented what he feared most – a European alliance…”
Kalergi is leaving one very important detail out of his criticism of the anti-Fascists in France. The Popular Front (Front Populair) was a coalition of left-wing parties that was formed in reaction to the riots on February 6th, 1934 that occurred in defiance to the ‘fascist danger’ and the attempt of the extreme-right-wing to establish in France a dictatorial regime equivalent to Fascist Italy.[56] Thus, what Kalergi was essentially criticizing was France’s resistance to becoming a fascist state, equivalent to Fascist Italy, and that it was this resistance from France which had sabotaged the alliance with Fascist Italy against Hitler.
Therefore, once again, we see through Kalergi’s perspective the inevitability of a fascist Pan-European rule, and his clear disdain for anti-fascist and democratic resistance to this ‘inevitability’. Because of the anti-fascist and democratic resistance to a more ‘peaceful’ transference to fascism, they created a situation where fascism would be imposed on them with violent force. It was a tragedy in the eyes of Kalergi that could have been avoided if these countries had simply accepted fascism on ‘democratic’ terms. And Kalergi was not shy to emphasise that Churchill and Amery were on the same page in the belief that Mussolini’s fascism was a model for the future of Pan-Europeanism. France would eventually form a fascist French State, the Vichy government July 10th, 1940 headed by Marshal Philippe Pétain. The Vichy government adopted a policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany.
However, the distinction between Mussolini and Hitler became increasingly blurred with the formation of the Rome-Berlin Axis. The oppression of the Jews in Italy increased dramatically in 1938, when Mussolini began to back the Nazi racial policies. By June 1940, Fascist Italy had opened around fifty concentration camps.[57] After the occupation of Greece and Yugoslavia in 1941, Italy opened concentration camps in its occupation zones there, which held up to 150,000 people, mostly Slavs. Living conditions were very harsh and the mortality rates in these camps far exceeded those in Italy.[58] Although most of the camps in Italy were police and transit camps, one camp, the Risiera di San Sabba in Trieste was also an extermination camp. Once Italy surrendered to Germany on September 8, 1943, the number of Jews murdered in Italy and within the Italian occupation zones increased dramatically. In this, the Italian police and Fascist militia played an integral role as Germany’s accessories. Pope Pius XII, who was coroneted March 2, 1939, never spoke out against the deportation of the Jews of Rome during the war.
Part II to follow next week.
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Footnotes:
[1] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.
[2] Ibid, pg. 13.
[3] Tozawa, Hidenori. “ミツコ・クーデンホーフ・カレルギーの生涯 (1)” ミツコ・クーデンホーフ・カレルギー (青山光子) (in Japanese). Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi Forum (School of Law, Tohoku University). http://www.law.tohoku.ac.jp/~tozawa/RCK%20HP/mitsuko2-1.htm. Retrieved 5 January 2018.
[4] Tozawa, Hidenori. “ミツコ・クーデンホーフ・カレルギーの生涯 (3)” ミツコ・クーデンホーフ・カレルギー (青山光子) (in Japanese). Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi Forum (School of Law, Tohoku University). http://www.law.tohoku.ac.jp/~tozawa/RCK%20HP/mitsuko2-3.htm. Retrieved 7 November 2014.
[5] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.
[6] Ibid, pg. 35.
[7] Ibid, pg. 35.
[8] Ibid, pg. 41.
[9] The Piarists, also known as the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools or simply Scolopi or Escolapios, is a religious order of clerics regular of the Catholic Church founded in 1617 by Spanish priest Joseph Calasanz. It is the oldest religious order dedicated to education.
[10] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, pg. 11.
[11] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1954) An Idea Conquers the World. Purcell & Sons Ltd., Great Britain, pg. 90.
[12] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, pg. 78.
[13] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1954) An Idea Conquers the World. Purcell & Sons Ltd., Great Britain, pg. 126.
[14] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1954) An Idea Conquers the World. Purcell & Sons Ltd., Great Britain, pg. 98.
[15] For more on Apollo’s Cult of Delphi see my paper Plato’s Fight Against Apollo’s Temple of Delphi and the Cult of Democracy.
[16] The 1946 Calcutta Killings was a day of nationwide communal riots. It led to large-scale violence between Muslims and Hindus in the city of Calcutta (now known as Kolkata) in the Bengal province of British India. The day also marked the start of what is known as ‘The Week of the Long Knives’.
[17] The Bengal famine of 1943 was the only one in modern Indian history not to occur as a result of serious drought, according to a study that provides scientific backing for arguments that Churchill-era British policies were a significant factor contributing to the catastrophe. For more see The Guardian’s article titled “Churchill’s policies contributed to 1943 Bengal famine – study”. https://web.archive.org/web/20221024222427/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/29/winston-churchill-policies-contributed-to-1943-bengal-famine-study. Retrieved October 24, 2022.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, pg. 23.
[20] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1954) An Idea Conquers the World. Purcell & Sons Ltd., Great Britain, pg. 89.
[21] Theodor Herzl (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904) was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish lawyer, journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was the father of modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the Zionist Organization and promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine in an effort to form a Jewish state. Although he died before Israel’s establishment, he is known in Hebrew as Chozeh HaMedinah (חוֹזֵה הַמְדִינָה), ’Visionary of the State’. Herzl is specifically mentioned in the Israeli Declaration of Independence and is officially referred to as “the spiritual father of the Jewish State”, i.e. the ‘visionary’ who gave a concrete, practicable platform and framework to political Zionism. Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Herzl. Retrieved October 2022.
[22] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, pg. 4-5.
[23] Ibid, pg. 5.
[24] Lehr, Dick. (November 27, 2015) The Racist Legacy of Woodrow Wilson. The Atlantic. https://web.archive.org/web/20221025013602/https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/11/wilson-legacy-racism/417549/.
[25] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, pg. 59, 88.
[26] Ibid, pg. 105-106.
[27] Ibid, pg. 106.
[28] Ibid, pg. 107.
[29] Ibid, pg. 107.
[30]Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, pg. 78.
[31] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, pg. 130.
[32] Ibid, pg. 169.
[33] In 1870, the Pope’s holdings were left in an uncertain situation when Rome itself was annexed by Italian forces, thus bringing to completion the Italian unification, after a nominal resistance by the papal forces. Between 1861 and 1929 the status of the Pope was referred to as the “Roman Question”. Italy made no attempt to interfere with the Holy See within the Vatican walls. However, it confiscated church property in many places. In 1871, the Quirinal Palace was confiscated by the King of Italy and became the royal palace. Thereafter, the popes resided undisturbed within the Vatican walls, and certain papal prerogatives were recognized by the Law of Guarantees, including the right to send and receive ambassadors. But the Popes did not recognize the Italian king’s right to rule in Rome, and they refused to leave the Vatican compound until the dispute was resolved in 1929; Pope Pius IX (1846–1878), the last ruler of the Papal States, was referred to as a “prisoner in the Vatican”. Forced to give up secular power, the popes focused on spiritual issues. This situation was resolved on 11 February 1929, when the Lateran Treaty between the Holy See and the Kingdom of Italy was signed by Prime Minister and Head of Government Benito Mussolini on behalf of King Victor Emmanuel III and by Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri for Pope Pius XI. The treaty, which became effective on 7 June 1929, established the independent state of Vatican City and reaffirmed the special status of Catholic Christianity in Italy. Source: Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatican_City#Italian_unification. Retrieved October 2022.
[34] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1954) An Idea Conquers the World. Purcell & Sons Ltd., Great Britain, pg. 193.
[35] Kalergi writes on pg. 190 in his An Idea Conquers the World: “Our first topic was Nietzsche, who had stood to Mussolini in much the same didactic relationship as Wagner to Hitler. Mussolini’s Fascism was based on Nietzsche’s anti-democratic philosophy, just as Hitler’s dreams were based on the romanticism of Wagner’s operas. I remembered that Nietzsche had been one of the early pioneers of a Pan-Europe and handed Mussolini a copy of our journal Pan-Europe, containing a complete collection of all Nietzsche’s sayings about European unity.”
[36] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, pg. 173.
[37] Encyclopædia Britannica Online: Pius XI; web Apr. 2013.
[38] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, pg. 173.
[39] Encyclopædia Britannica Online: Pius XI; web Apr. 2013.
[40] Ibid.
[41] TIME Magazine. Billot v. Pope October 3, 1927
[42] New York Times staff. (October 16, 1927) French Cardinal Resigns Purple to Enter Monastery. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1927/10/16/archives/french-cardinal-resigns-purple-to-enter-monastery-ludovic-billot.html.
[43] Friedländer, Saul. (1997) Nazi Germany and the Jews: The Years of Persecution. HarperCollins, New York, pg. 223.
[44] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, pg. 174.
[45] Ibid, pg. 32.
[46] Ibid, pg. 84-85.
[47] Kalergi enjoys throughout both his autobiographies describing the shape of heads and facial structures of the men he meets, clearly drawing from the pseudoscience of phrenology. Phrenology is a process that involves observing and/or feeling the skull to determine an individual’s intelligence, personality, temperament and psychological attributes. It was quite influential and prominent during the 19th century and was used in court cases up until the 20th century by both the Nazis and American eugenicists alike. See my paper The Edgar Poe You Never Knew: a Mere Writer of Horror or a Humanist Master of the Mind https://risingtidefoundation.net/2022/06/25/the-edgar-poe-you-never-knew-a-mere-writer-of-horror-or-a-humanist-master-of-the-mind/.
[48] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, pg. 85.
[49] Ibid, pg. 88.
[50] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1954) An Idea Conquers the World. Purcell & Sons Ltd., Great Britain, pg. 102.
[51] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, pg. 168.
[52] Britain and France likely thought, correctly, that Hitler would first invade Russia with its full force, and destroy Russia, which was an outcome they desired. Either way, the last country standing in such a colossal face off, Britain and France believed, would be thoroughly weakened and easy to destroy at that point if needed. Hitler was thus a useful mad dog for the imperial interests of Britain and France, who believed they would be largely untouched by the war if things had gone according to plan. Also, recall from Chapter 1 that if Britain were forced to make ‘peace’ with a Hitler, as France attempted to do and was partially successful with its Vichy government, that would give the excuse many in Britain were chomping at the bit for – Britain’s conversion to fascism. Hitler was more than willing to work for this alliance. However, for those who did not fit into this Aryan vision, and who did not live in Britain nor France, Hitler was a different beast altogether. Hitler would make it clear in his Mein Kampf that the fate of Western Europeans would be very different from that of Eastern Europeans. Mussolini appears to be the preferred ‘brand’ of fascism for the leading pro-fascists in Britain and Europe who also supported the Pan-European movement, but ultimately, they were willing to work with either camp to see their vision through.
[53] Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard. (1943) Crusade for Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York, pg. 190.
[54] Ibid, pg. 175.
[55] Ibid, pg. 180.
[56] Bernstein, Serg. (2002, 4th ed.) France in the 1930s. Paris, Armand Colin, pg. 103.
[57] Capogreco, Carlo Spartaco. (2004) I campi del duce. L’internamento civile nell’Italia fascista, 1940-1943.
[58] Megargee, Geoffrey P. (2012 ed.). Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945. Volume III: Camps and Ghettos under European Regimes Aligned with Nazi Germany. in association with United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pg. 392.