Dr. Otto von Habsburg
Otto von Habsburg, born November 20, 1912, is the current head of the Habsburg family, Archduke of Austria, and the eldest son of Karl, the last Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, and Empress/Queen Zita. Forced into exile in 1918 to Switzerland and Madeira, Dr. von Habsburg graduated from the University of Leuven, Belgium, having studied social and political science, with his doctoral dissertation in 1935. Already in these dark times of Europe, he was an early promoter of European unity, joining the Paneuropa-Union in 1936 and had to spent most of the war years in Washington, D.C. (1940-1944), after escaping from Austria to Portugal with a visa issued by the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux Aristides Sousa Mendes. A fervent patriot, he had opposed the Nazi "Anschluss" of Austria of 1938 and also fought Hitler's regime from America. After the war, he lived in exile in France and Spain before settling in Bavaria in 1954.
An avid author in several languages writing on issues of history and contemporary politics, the efforts for a peacefully united Europe in diversity were the continuous thread in Dr. von Habsburg's public efforts. From 1957 to 1973 he served as vice-president and from 1973 to 2004 as president of the Paneuropa-Union, succeeding its founder, his friend Richard Nikolaus Graf von Coudenhove-Kalergi. From 1979 on, Otto von Habsburg entered the European parliamentary sphere, shaping the future of Europe as a member of the European Parliament in Strasbourg for twenty years, serving twice as its Senior President. For the Europan People's Party he was chairman of the Parliament's Committee Foreign Affairs, Security and Defense Policy from 1981 to 1999.
He wrote history when undertaking the first Pan-European picnic on August 19, 1989 at Sopron on the Austro-Hungarian border, an occasion for which the Iron Curtain was opened for the first time. This hole in the border fence permitted hundreds of East Germans to slip through, and was the crack that finally brought down the Berlin Wall.
Despite his retirement from parliament in 1999, Dr. von Habsburg continues to be an incessant traveler and promoter of the idea and reality of a united Europe and its role in the world.
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