Dr. Heerfordt: Interwar Plans for Nordic and European Unity

The outbreak of the First World War prompted the Danish ophthalmologist Dr. C.F. Heerfordt to completely reprioritise his life. From 1914 onwards his medical career was placed on the back burner and the new supreme goal in his life became to ensure lasting peace and stability in Europe. Firstly by keeping the neutral Nordic countries out of the ongoing First World War by means of federal integration of defense and foreign policy and later by preventing interwar Europe from entering into yet another war by suggesting the formulation of the strongly federal United States of the European Nations. The three guiding themes for this study are: Heerfordt as a person and private political entrepreneur: what drove him? What was the nature of Heerfordt’s general style of working and how did he try to realise his project as a private political entrepreneur? Finally what was the relationship between the progress of Heerfordt’s life project and his personality?