Joseph Retinger

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Joseph Retinger (1888-1960) (original name Józef Hieronim Retinger) was a Polish political advisor and founder of the European Movement. Joseph Retinger was born in Kraków Poland (then Austria-Hungary)

Retinger attended the Sorbonne in 1906, before his move to England in 1911, where his closest friend was fellow Pole, Joseph Conrad. He would later write about Conrad in his book, Conrad and His Contemporaries (1943).

In 1917, Retinger travelled to Mexico, where he became an unofficial political advisor to union organizer Luis Morones and President Calles. Later, during World War II, he advised Prime Minister of the Polish Government in Exile, General Sikorski. In one famous incident, he was parachuted into occupied Poland carrying millions of dollars in cash to fund the resistance movement there.^{[citation needed]}

After the war, he became a leading advocate of European Unification and helped to found both the European Movement and the Council of Europe. Retinger was later to become Honorary Secretary General of the European Movement.

Retinger initiated the original Bilderberg conference in 1954.

[edit] References

• Synopsis of Memoirs of An Eminence Grise by John Pomian, at the European Atlantic Group site.