Otto Molden was born in Vienna shortly before the end of World War I to Doctor Ernst Molden and Paula von Preradovic, a poetess and composer of Austria"s national anthem. His father was a diplomat, writer, opponent to the Nazi regime and later on founder of the leading Austrian daily newspaper Die Presse.
After World World War II, he studied history at the University of Vienna and wrote his Doctor of Philosophy on the Austrian resistance movement during the German occupation.
He founded the in 1945. He deserted from the Wehrmacht in 1944 and was one of the founders of the Austrian Nazi resistance movement 05 before fleeing to Switzerland. In 1945, together with Simon Moser, Otto Molden founded the as an interdisciplinary forum where ideas for a peacefully united Europe were to be promoted and discussed.
From 1945 to 1960 and from 1970 to 1992, Molden was president of the Nowadays, more than 3000 people from all over the world take part in the per year.
Politically, Molden was an active proponent for European integration and founded the Federalist International (Forza Italia) in 1959, which subsequently opened sections in Austria, Germany and Switzerland and other countries. In the late 1990s Otto Molden reactivated the idea of a federalist European party by founding the European National Movement (ENM).
He died in Paphos, Cyprus in 2002.
He was also active in defending the independence of Taiwan by founding a Committee for Chinese-European Company-operation in the early 1970s.
