The International Paneuropean Union, also referred to as the Pan-European Movement and the Pan-Europa Movement, is an international organisation and the oldest European unification movement. It began with the publishing of Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi's manifesto Paneuropa (1923), which presented the idea of a unified European State. The Union's General Secretariat is located in Munich, but maintains branches across Europe.
The Austrian-Hungarian border crossing where the Pan-European Picnic took place in 1989
Image: Graf Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove Kalergi (1894–1972) ~1930
Image: Otto von Habsburg Belvedere 1998 c
Image: Alain Terrenoire
Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi
Richard Nikolaus Eijiro, Count of Coudenhove-Kalergi, was a politician, philosopher, and count of Coudenhove-Kalergi. A pioneer of European integration, he served as the founding president of the Paneuropean Union for 49 years. His parents were Heinrich von Coudenhove-Kalergi, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat, and Mitsuko Aoyama, the daughter of an oil merchant, antiques-dealer and major landowner in Tokyo. His childhood name in Japan was Eijiro Aoyama. Being a native Austrian-Hungarian citizen, he became a Czechoslovak citizen in 1919 and then took French citizenship from 1939 until his death.
von Coudenhove-Kalergi in 1930
Europa-Platz – Coudenhove-Kalergi in Klosterneuburg, Austria
The Ronsperg castle, his childhood home. Damaged during the Second World War, the repairs were overseen by a German from Japan Masumi Schmidt-Muraki.
Ida Roland-Coudenhove-Kalergi and Thomas Mann in the second Pan-European Congress in Sing-Akademie zu Berlin on 17 May 1930