Kaj Munk

Kaj Munk (13 January 1898 – 4 January 1944) was a Danish playwright and Lutheran priest. The dramas of Munk were mostly performed and made public during the 1930s, although many were written in the 1920s. Much of his work is a contribution to the "philosophy-on-life debate." On one occasion, in the early 1930s, in a comment that came back to haunt him in later years, Munk expressed admiration for Hitler (for uniting Germans) and wished that the same kind of unifying figure could be found for Danes. However, Munk's attitude towards Hitler and Mussolini turned to disgust, as he witnessed Hitler's persecution of the German Jewish community, and Mussolini's conduct of the war in Ethiopia. In 1938 the Danish newspaper Jullands-Posten published on its front page an open letter to Mussolini, written by Munk, criticising the persecutions against Jews. Munk was a strong opponent of the German Occupation of Denmark (1940-1945). His plays Han sidder ved Smeltediglen ("He sits by the melting pot") and Niels Ebbesen were direct attacks on Nazism. The latter, centering on the figure of Niels Ebbesen, a medieval Danish squire considered a national hero for having assassinated an earlier German occupier of Denmark, Count Gerhard III was a contemporary analogue to World War II-era Denmark. He was arrested and subsequently assassinated by the Gestapo on January 4, 1944 at Hørbylunde, near Silkeborg.

This was a lot of information, but what could I have left out? If anything I should have said more. This picture was taken as he was exiting the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen after one of his shows. I have to assume it was somewhere in the 1930's. One of those amazing people I have loved learning so much about.