Kalergi Plan

Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, supposed creator of the plan, pictured c. 1930

The Kalergi Plan, sometimes called the Coudenhove-Kalergi Conspiracy,[1] is a debunked far-right, antisemitic, white genocide conspiracy theory.[2][3] The theory claims that Austrian-Japanese politician Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, creator of the Paneuropean Union, concocted a plot to mix and replace white Europeans with other races via immigration.[4] The conspiracy theory is most often associated with European groups and parties, but it has also spread to North American politics.[5]

Origins

The conspiracy theory stems from a section of Kalergi's 1925 book Praktischer Idealismus ("Practical Idealism"), in which he predicted that a mixed race of the future would arise: "The man of the future will be of mixed race. Today's races and classes[a] will gradually disappear owing to the vanishing of space, time, and prejudice. The Eurasian-Negroid race of the future, similar in its appearance to the Ancient Egyptians, will replace the diversity of peoples with a diversity of individuals."[1][6] Modern far-right individuals seek to draw relationships between contemporary European policy-making and this quote.[1]

Austrian neo-Nazi writer Gerd Honsik wrote about the subject in his book Kalergi Plan (2005).[7]

The conspiracy theory

The independent Italian newspaper Linkiesta investigated the conspiracy theory and described it as a hoax which is comparable to the fabricated antisemitic document The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[8] The Southern Poverty Law Center describes the Kalergi plan as a distinctly European way of pushing the white genocide conspiracy theory on the continent, with white nationalists quoting Coudenhove-Kalergi's writings out of context in order to assert that the European Union's immigration policies were insidious plots that were hatched decades ago in order to destroy white people.[9] Hope Not Hate, an anti-racism advocacy group, has described it as a racist conspiracy theory which alleges that Coudenhove-Kalergi intended to influence Europe's policies on immigration in order to create a "populace devoid of identity" which would then supposedly be ruled by a Jewish elite.[10]

Recent history

In 2019, the right-wing nonprofit organization Turning Point USA posted a photograph on Twitter in which a person was holding a beach ball that featured text promoting this conspiracy theory. The tweet was deleted soon after.[11][12]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ Kalergi uses the German word Kasten, which means "castes" and not "social classes".

References

  1. ^ a b c Gaston, Sophia (November 2018). "Out of the Shadows: Conspiracy Thinking on Immigration" (PDF). Henry Jackson Society.
  2. ^ "EXPOSED: For Britain and the "White Genocide" Conspiracy Theory". Hope not hate. 29 August 2022. Archived from the original on 29 March 2020. Retrieved 14 June 2019. large groups of people being radicalised daily and hourly, by far-right and neo-Nazi propaganda and a ubiquitous belief in wild conspiracy theories such as the Kalergi Plan.
  3. ^ "TPUSA Shares Photo with Visual Nod to 'White Genocide' Conspiracy Theory which revolves around the philosophy and political organizing of Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, an early 1900s Austrian politician who founded and presided over the Paneuropean Union. Some credit Kalergi for inspiring the later formation of the European Union". 12 April 2019.
  4. ^ "Organization Candace Owens Represents Shares, Then Deletes, Photo Promoting White Genocide Conspiracy Days After Her Testimony". Newsweek. 12 April 2019. Believers in the Kalergi plan think that Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, an Austrian politician in the early 1900s, constructed a plan to destroy white people in Europe by encouraging immigration
  5. ^ "Qué es el "plan de Kalergi", la teoría conspirativa que usan los partidos de ultraderecha contra la Unión Europea" [What is the "Kalergi plan", the conspiracy theory used by the extreme right parties against the European Union] (in Spanish). BBC Mundo. October 22, 2018. It is the conspiracy theory known as "Kalergi's plan", which, for just over a decade, has been circulated among the members of several European nationalist and far-right parties
  6. ^ Coudenhove-Kalergi, R. N. (1925). Praktischer Idealismus (in German). Vienna-Leipzig: Paneuropa-Verlag. pp. 22–23. Der Mensch der fernen Zukunft wird Mischling sein. Die heutigen Rassen und Kasten werden der zunehmenden Überwindung von Raum, Zeit und Vorurteil zum Opfer fallen. Die eurasisch-negroide Zukunftsrasse, äusserlich dem altägyptischen ähnlich, wird die Vielfalt der Völker durch eine Vielfalt der Persönlichkeiten ersetzen
  7. ^ "Che cos'è – o sarebbe – il "Piano Kalergi"" [What is - or would be - the "Kalergi Plan"] (in Italian). Il Post. January 16, 2018.
  8. ^ "Cos'è il piano Kalergi, la bufala dei migranti che uccideranno gli europei" [What is the Kalergi plan, the hoax about migrants killing Europeans] (in Italian). Linkiesta. September 28, 2015.
  9. ^ "Day of the trope: White nationalist memes thrive on Reddit's r/The_Donald". Southern Poverty Law Center. 19 April 2019. With respect to Europe, the mythology of the "Kalergi plan" plays a similar role in constructing the "white genocide" narrative. Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi was an Austrian noble and early advocate of European integration. White nationalists mine his writings for evidence that the European Union is the culmination of a nefarious "plan" for white genocide put into motion decades ago.
  10. ^ "EXPOSED: For Britain and the "White Genocide" Conspiracy Theory". Hope Not Hate. 18 April 2019. racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories have since developed that allege that Coudenhove-Kalergi devised a long-term scheme to undermine the white race by encouraging immigration into Europe, creating a populous devoid of identity who would supposedly be easily ruled by Jewish overlords.
  11. ^ "Group Candace Owens represents shares post inadvertently promoting white genocide conspiracy days after her congressional testimony". Newsweek. 2019-04-12. Retrieved 2020-12-05.
  12. ^ "Turning Point USA plug anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on Twitter". Spectator USA. 2019-04-12. Archived from the original on 2020-07-26. Retrieved 2020-12-05.

Further reading

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