For the second time, the World Security Network (WSN) has been granted an exclusive WSN TV interview with His Imperial Highness, Archduke Dr. Otto von Habsburg, a man at the forefront of European integration for the last half-century. Accompanied by a WSN TV team, Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann (President and Founder of WSN), Brigadier General (ret.) Dieter Farwick (Global Editor in Chief), Benedikt Franke (Vice-President for International Forums), Benedikt Wahler, and Ian Walker had the opportunity to ask Dr. von Habsburg about issues as varied as the 50^th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome and the role of God in European politics.

Dr. von Habsburg shared some important insights with WSN Academy, a new internet-based learning platform on international relations, established and operated by WSN in order to increase young people’s understanding through the wisdom of the global policy elite.

His Imperial Highness, Archduke Dr. Otto von Habsburg: "Europe can be the continent of Freedom" - an exclusive WSN TV Interview

Otto von Habsburg, born November 20, 1912, is the current head of the Habsburg family and Archduke of Austria. He is 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, in social and political science, with his doctoral dissertation in 1935. During these dark times for Europe, he was already an early promoter of European unity. He joined the Paneuropa-Union in 1936 and had to spend 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 continued to fight Hitler's regime from America. After the war, he lived in exile in France and Spain before settling in Bavaria in 1954.

His Imperial Highness Otto von Habsburg as young boy in his Hungarian uniform.

An avid author, writing in several languages on issues of history and contemporary politics, the efforts for a peacefully united Europe in diversity were the common theme throughout 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 European People's Party he was chairman of the Parliament's Committee Foreign Affairs, Security, and Defense Policy from 1981 to 1999.

Dr. von Habsburg with his Holiness Pope John Paul II. “An open dialogue between the religions is crucial to the future of Europe”

He made history when he undertook the first Pan-European picnic on August 19, 1989 at Sopron on the Austro-Hungarian border, the occasion on which the Iron Curtain was lifted for the first time. This hole in the border fence permitted hundreds of East Germans to slip through, and has often been considered the crack that finally brought down the Berlin Wall.

Despite his retirement from parliament in 1999, Dr. von Habsburg continues to be an incessant traveller and promoter of the idea and reality of a united Europe and its role in the world.

Dr. Hubertus Hoffmann, President and Founder

Dieter Farwick, Brigadier General (ret), Global Editor-in-Chief

Benedikt Franke, Vice President for International Forums

Ian Walker, Editor United Kingdom

Benedikt Wahler

World Security Network Foundation