B A S TA R D C O S M O P O L I T A N H I T L E R ’ S Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and His Vision of Europe B A S TA R D C O S M O P O L I TA N H I T L E R ’ S M A R T Y N B O N D M C G I L L - Q U E E N ’ S U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S Montreal & Kingston | London | Chicago © Martyn Bond 2021 ISBN 978-0-2280-0545-2 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-2280-0701-2 (ePDF) ISBN 978-0-2280-0702-9 (ePDF) Legal deposit first quarter 2021 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Title: Hitler’s cosmopolitan bastard : Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi and his vision of Europe / Martyn Bond. Names: Bond, Martyn, author. Description: Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200384228 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200384295 | ISBN 9780228005452 (cloth) | ISBN 9780228007012 (ePDF) | ISBN 9780228007029 (ePUB) Subjects: LCSH: Coudenhove-Kalergi, Richard Nicolaus, Graf von, 1894-1972. | LCSH: Internationalists—Austria—Biography. | LCSH: European federation. | LCSH: Europe—Politics and government—1918-1945. | LCSH: Europe— History—1918-1945. | LCGFT: Biographies. Classification: LCC D1075.C68 B66 2021 | DDC 320.54092—DC23 Set in 10.5/13 Adobe Caslon with Rama Gothic E and New Century Schoolbook Book design and typesetting by Lara Minja, Lime Design I dedicate this book to my wife, Dinah, whose inf inite patience and generous welcome into our lives of my growing fascination with the stor y of Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi made this work possible. C O N T E N T S Illustrations i x Acknowledgement s x i i i Hitler’s Cosmopolit an Bast ard: Why T his T itle? x v i i Introduction 3 1 European Father, Asian Mother 1 0 2 Siblings, School, Love, and Marriage 2 7 3 Thinking in Continents, Not Countries 3 9 4 Europe Answers His Question 5 6 5 Between Hitler and Mussolini 7 0 6 Pacifist and Freemason 7 8 7 Pan-Europa: Utopia or Reality? 9 0 8 Taking Europe to the Capitals 1 0 0 9 New Friends, New Enemies 1 1 5 1 0 European Patriots All 1 2 6 1 1 Triumph in France 1 3 7 12 Defeat in Germany 1 4 9 v i i i | C o n t e n t s 13 Last Stand on the Old Continent 1 6 7 1 4 Escape from Europe 1 8 8 15 Bringing America Onside 2 0 5 1 6 The United States of Europe? 2 2 8 1 7 Pushing Parliaments towards Power 24 2 18 An Open Conspiracy 2 5 8 19 Behind Churchill 2 74 2 0 Bringing Germany in from the Cold 2 8 4 2 1 Money Matters 3 0 0 2 2 The British Dilemma 3 0 8 2 3 ‘Mon cher ami, mon Président’ 3 2 0 2 4 Europe’s Father, Europe’s Grandfather 3 3 8 2 5 Reaping Rewards in the Twilight Years 3 5 2 2 6 A Patron Saint for Europe 3 6 3 Postscript 3 7 3 T he Coudenhove-Kalergi Family 3 7 7 Notes 3 8 1 Sources and Fur ther Reading 4 1 5 Index 4 2 3 F r o n t i s p i e c e Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi. Courtesy of Marco Pons. i i His parents, Mitsu in Japanese dress and Heinrich as a young diplomat. Cantonal Archives of Vaud, Lausanne, File P.1000. 1 3 Sketch of Ronsperg Castle, his childhood home, remembered by Dicky as ‘paradise’. Cantonal Archives of Vaud, Lausanne, File P.1000. 1 9 Mitsu with her three eldest sons – Hansi, Dicky, and Rolfi. Cantonal Archives of Vaud, Lausanne, File P.1000. 3 0 Ida Roland as Catherine the Great, the role in which Dicky first saw her. Cantonal Archives of Vaud, Lausanne, File P.1000. 4 2 Bertha von Suttner and Hermann Fried, leaders of the peace movement in Austria and Germany. Wikimedia Commons. 4 7 Lloyd George, Orlando, Clemenceau, and Wilson, the Big Four at the Paris Peace Conference. US Signal Corps, Wikimedia Commons. 5 7 Mussolini led the March on Rome in 1922; Hitler led the Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923. Wikimedia Commons. 7 3 RCK published Pan-Europa in 1923, listing the five Pan regions of the world. Author’s collection. 9 2 RCK and Idel’s apartment in Heiligenkreuzerhof, Vienna, the Embassy of Pan-Europa. Author’s collection. 1 0 3 I l l u s t r a t i o n s x | I l l u s t r a t i o n s Leo Amery introduced RCK to Churchill; Nicholas Murray Butler financed RCK in America. Photo of Butler by W.M. Hollinger. Wikimedia Commons. 1 1 8 Europe’s political and cultural elite attended Pan-Europa’s first Congress in Vienna in 1926. Cantonal Archives of Vaud, Lausanne, File P.1000. 1 2 9 Aristide Briand for France and Gustav Stresemann for Germany at the League of Nations in 1929. Dutch National Archives anefo . Wikimedia Commons. 143 RCK and Idel outside and inside their converted farmhouse in Gruben, near Gstaad. Cantonal Archives of Vaud, Lausanne, File P.1000. 145 Austrian Chancellors Dollfuss and Schuschnigg provided Pan-Europa offices next to their own in the Hof burg. M. Fenichel (left) and Encyclopaedia Britannica (right). 176 Churchill in his country residence at Chartwell in Kent. Hillsdale College Churchill Project. 186 Duff Cooper, political ally of Churchill. Wikimedia Commons. 195 In 1940, the Yankee Clipper flew RCK, Idel, and Erika from Lisbon to an unknown future in America. Library of Congress Prints/Photos cph 3b37576. Wikimedia Commons. 203 William (Bill) Donovan, Roosevelt’s co-ordinator of secret information, initially backed RCK in America. US National Archives 6851006. Wikimedia Commons. 207 In August 1941, off Newfoundland, Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to the Atlantic Charter. Imperial War Museum A4816: Lt L. Priest. Wikimedia Commons. 215 In Casablanca, Paul Henreid played Victor Laszlo, a character based on RCK. Poster by Bill Gold. Wikimedia Commons. 225 RCK and Idel sailed back to Europe with Erika on the SS Oregon in 1946. Cantonal Archives of Vaud, Lausanne, File P.1000. 245 Winston Churchill, quoting RCK, spoke on Europe at the University of Zürich in September 1946. House of European History, Brussels. 251 I l l u s t r a t i o n s | x i Duncan Sandys, Churchill’s son-in-law and RCK’s nemesis. National Portrait Gallery, London. 253 The Gstaad Palace Hotel, deluxe venue for the first congress of the European Parliamentary Union in September 1947. Courtesy of the Palace Hotel in Gstaad, Switzerland. 264 RCK met both Secretary of State George Marshall and President Harry Truman in April 1948. US National Archives 7865583 (Truman) and Department of State (Marshall). 270 Churchill addressing the Congress of Europe in May 1948. RCK is seated in the row directly behind him. Photo by Snikkers. Dutch National Archives anefo . Wikimedia Commons. 2 7 5 RCK was the first recipient of the Charlemagne Prize, May 1950 in Aachen. Cantonal Archives of Vaud, Lausanne, File P.1000. 2 9 5 Telegram of condolence from Pope Pius XII on the death of Idel. Cantonal Archives of Vaud, Lausanne, File P.1000. 2 9 9 Churchill’s December 1949 letter to RCK, asserting a European union without Britain would not be a success. Cantonal Archives of Vaud, Lausanne, File P.1000. 3 0 9 President de Gaulle, the incarnation of France, hosted lunch at the Elysée Palace, with RCK placed opposite, next to Mme de Gaulle. Cantonal Archives of Vaud, Lausanne, File P.1000. 3 2 5 Jean Monnet, who shared with RCK the goal of a united Europe. Jean Monnet Foundation for Europe, Lausanne. 3 4 2 RCK’s second wife, Countess Alix, in a wheelchair, visiting Japan; Melanie Benatsky, RCK’s third wife. Cantonal Archies of Vaud, Lausanne, File P.1000 for Countess Alix. Photo of Melanie Benatsky courtesy of Hanne Dézsy. 3 5 9 A Zen garden at Gruben encloses RCK’s grave, alongside those of his first two wives. Courtesy of Masumi Schmidt-Muraki. 3 7 0 Posthumous fame: a road sign in Paris 16ème and an Austrian postage stamp. Courtesy of Claudia Hamill and Author’s collection. 3 74 x i i | I l l u s t r a t i o n s Vittorio Pons with Otto von Hapsburg present the RCK Prize to Helmut Kohl in 1991. Cantonal Archives of Vaud, Lausanne, File P.1000. 3 7 6 Every reasonable effort has been made to trace copyright holders of mate- rial reproduced, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked, the author would like to hear from them for correction in subsequent editions. I N T H E F I V E Y E A R S that this book has been in preparation, I have been helped by over eighty people in half a dozen countries who either knew Richard Count Coudenhove-Kalergi personally, knew others who knew him, or came across him professionally. They gave of their time freely, and I thank them all, not only for the insights they gave me, but in several cases also for illustrative material they made available. On consulting my notes, I realize that they fall into three groups. First, members of the Coudenhove-Kalergi family and close friends. Barbara, the Count’s niece (daughter of his brother Gerolf ), told me much about her uncle, whom she remembered well from her childhood. Over breakfast meetings in her favourite café near the Hof burg, she explained several details which she had not included in the chapter on the Coudenhove family in her very readable memoir, Zuhause ist überall ( Home Is Everywhere ), which was published in Vienna in 2013. Then his nephew Jakub (Gerolf ’s son) and his wife, Monica, kindly received me in 2017, not long before Jakub died, and their wide-ranging reminiscences over tea in their villa in Vienna considerably enlarged my view of Richard Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, especially his later years. Katharina, the daughter of Jakub’s brother Michael, the Count’s great-niece, was also generous with her memories when we met on two occasions, also in Vienna. Alongside his family, I also include Karl Schwarzenberg, for whom Katharina worked as a personal assistant. He knew Dicky well enough to call him by this familiar name, and much admired him, and I had the pleasure of hearing his reminiscences when I sat beside him at a dinner in Prague in 2017, which had been arranged by the English College there, of which he is a patron. A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s x i v | A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s Second, there were others who either knew Count Richard personally or knew of him and were associated in some way with his life and his work. Stephan Jaggi, architect in Gstaad, was the first to give me back- ground information about the family grave and showed me press cuttings about his funeral. Adrian Frischknecht in Frutigen confirmed details from the Grundbuch about Idel’s purchase of the house and adjoining land in Gruben in the 1930s. Vivienne Perreten of the Anzeiger von Saanen opened the local newspaper’s archives to reveal not only articles by the Count himself, but also reports on the progress of the Second World War that he read in 1939 and 1940. Werner Genahl, registrar of births and deaths in Schruns, kindly pointed to the anomaly in his death certificate of 1972, confirming that it was signed by the undertaker, not the doctor, Ernst Albrich, who was the specialist in charge of the clinic. Subsequently, Dr Albrich’s son kindly allowed me to inspect the notes his father made about the Count’s several visits to the Kurhotel. Marco Pons, son of Vittorio Pons, his literary executor, was most help- ful in illuminating his father’s work with the Count, and in providing a number of excellent photos of their time together. With André Poulin, former co-president of the Pan-Europa Union in Switzerland, he provided excellent company at convivial evenings at restaurants in Lausanne and Geneva. Dr Heinz Wimpissinger of the European Society Coudenhove- Kalergi offered his continuing encouragement, and Hanne Dézsy, RCK’s former secretary and author of an insightful 2001 memoir, Gentleman Europas ( Gentleman of Europe ), contributed illustrative details about RCK’s character when we met in Vienna. Adolf and Christine Zottl wel- comed me into their house in the suburb of Mödling, in which Mitsu, Richard’s mother, spent her final years, cared for by her daughter Olga. Lacy Milkovics, the former secretary-general of the Pan-Europa Union in Austria, who knew both the Count and Otto von Hapsburg well from the 1960s, also filled out the picture of his later years. Third, as any biographer knows, the god of helpfulness has poured out his blessings generously on the world of libraries and archives. In those I have visited I have always been made welcome by professional staff whose lives are devoted to maintaining the record of the past. The Count’s papers and those of his literary executor, Vittorio Pons, are housed in the Regional Archive of the Canton of Vaud, where Gilbert Coutaz, Christian Gilliéron, and Claudia Margueron were unstinting in offer- ing their professional assistance, preparing dossiers on my numerous vis- its to Lausanne. Lubor Jilek, academic adviser to the European Society Coudenhove-Kalergi, has been generous with his wide-ranging advice, A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s | x v especially his interpretation of the Czech dimension to the Count’s life and of academic research on Pan-Europa in that language. Matthias Walter, Philippe Klein, and Régis Clave of the Jean Monnet archives at the Ferme de Dorigny in Lausanne kindly prepared for me a meticulous dossier of correspondence between Jean Monnet and the Count. Jana Jankovcová went out of her way to arrange a visit to the family castle at Ronsperg. Masumi Schmidt-Muraki, who has done so much to nurture the Japanese links with the story of the Count, generously shared her insights, both when I visited her in Munich and in subsequent corre- spondence. Dr Christian Matzner, director of the museum of Mödling, which houses a small exhibition of material relating to the Count’s mother, Mitsu, was enthusiastic about him, and Anton Hubauer kindly guided me though the vast collection of the Austrian Mediathek to the key record- ings involving him, in particular the dramatic speech he delivered at the funeral of the assassinated Chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss. Allen Packwood and Sophie Bridges at the Churchill College Archives also guided me to the key files that reveal much about the Count’s relation- ship not only with Winston Churchill but also with his son-in-law Duncan Sandys. Jean-Pierre Humm, retired archivist from Nyon, went out of his way to research the history of the hotel at Prangins on Lake Geneva where Idel died in 1951. Marie Gentilhomme, in charge of the parish archives of St Pierre de Chaillot in Paris, researched the marriage register for details of his second marriage there in 1952, and Dom Maurizio at the Monastery of Saint Benedict Sacro Speco di Subiaco kindly directed me to the archive that housed the records of the ceremony at which, in 1970, he lit a votive lamp in the name of Pan-Europa at the shrine of St Benedict. Alun Drake of the Council of Europe Secretariat has on several occa- sions brought extra details to light about the Count’s reception in the European institution where he was seen as one of the founding fathers. Dr Ruth Meyer and Nastos Pandelis at the European University Institute in Fiesole, Florence, made my brief visit most productive by their judicious preparation of key material from the historical archives there. John Fell and Kieron Goron have both kindly ensured the quality of the photos that illustrate this biography. The sheer volume of research for this book is more than one person could manage alone, and, in this work, I have been helped more than I can say by Claudia Hamill. She alone knows how difficult it has been to steer a reasonable course between the partial image of the man as he presented himself in his published writings and the full picture that emerges from this extensive research. She shared my enthusiasm about the importance of x v i | A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s this charismatic Count, discussed the results of many of the meetings we attended together, and researched and helped assemble much of the mate- rial on which I have relied. I am indebted especially to her organizational skills and editorial acumen, which have materially contributed to the final shape of this, the first English biography of the Count. While I take full responsibility for any errors or omissions, I trust that this biography will prove a useful contribution to understanding the life and times of this passionate and controversial character, as well as the enduring cause that he promoted. I N 1 9 2 8 H I T L E R W R O T E a third volume to Mein Kampf , in which he damned Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi as a ‘cosmopolitan bastard’ ( Allerweltbastard ). As an insult, ‘cosmopolitan’ implied both international and Jewish, and the Count, who was half-Japanese and half-Austrian, had a Jewish wife. And ‘bastard’ was equally true. His diplomat father married his geisha mother after he was born in order to secure a family inheritance. Why was Hitler so concerned? Because the Count offered thousands of Europeans who flocked to his rallies a peaceful pan-European alternative to the Nazi creed of Deutschland über alles . This charismatic, cultivated, and intellectual young man knew all the anti-Nazi leaders across the continent, was the model for Victor Laszlo in Casablanca , and – for a while – was a rival for Hitler. As Hitler wrote: ‘At first sight, the Pan-European Movement might really appear to have a lot in its favour. Indeed, if you could judge world history from an economic angle, it could well be right... But in the life of nations, what is decisive is not numbers, but values.’ After the destruction of the Second World War, when Europeans were starting to get their act together again, it was to Richard Coudenhove- Kalergi’s ideas that they turned. Today, we are a long way down the road to translating his utopia into reality. H i t l e r ’ s ‘ C o s m o p o l i t a n B a s t a r d ’ W h y T h i s T i t l e ? B A S TA R D C O S M O P O L I T A N H I T L E R ’ S