Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard

(1894–1972)

   A pacifist and writer, Coudenhove-Kalergi laid the ideological groundwork for the modern European Union with his book Paneuropa in 1923. A periodical of the same name and with the same purpose appeared for the first time the following year. In 1926, the first meeting of the Paneuropean Movement took place in Vienna with Coudenhove-Kalergi as chairperson. The group’s periodical, also called Paneuropa, came out for the first time that year as well.

   Coudenhove-Kalergi immigrated to Switzerland in 1938, then to the United States in 1940, where he taught and lectured in New York. The University of Vienna withdrew his degree in 1942. He returned to Europe soon after World War II, where as general secretary of the European Parliamentary Union he began working toward the creation of a single Europe once again.