Kaj (Harald Leininger) Munk

Playwright, priest, and patriot, born in Maribo, S Denmark. He studied theology at Copenhagen University, and as priest of a small parish in Jutland wrote heroic and religious plays that led the Danish dramatic revival in the 1930s. His first play was En Idealist (1928), followed by Cant (1931), Henrik VIII (1931), Ordet (1932, The Word), and Han sidder ved smeltedigien (1938, He Sits by the Melting-Pot). During World War 2 he became one of the spiritual leaders of the Danish Resistance. In 1943 he wrote a patriotic drama, Niels Ebbeson. His sermons attracted many to the Resistance, and he was killed by the Nazis in 1944.

Kaj Harald Leininger Munk (commonly called Kaj Munk) (January 13, 1898 - January 4, 1944) was a Danish playwright and Lutheran pastor, known for his cultural engagement and his martyrdom during World War II.

He was born Kaj Harald Leininger Petersen at Lolland, Denmark, and raised by a family called Munk after the death of his parents.

The dramas of Munk were mostly performed and made public during the 1930s but although many were written in the 1920s.

In his dramas Munk often displays a fascination for "strong characters" and integrated people who fight whole-heartedly for their ideals (whether good or bad).

I Brændingen is a camouflaged portrait of Munk's antagonist, the anti-religious Georg Brandes whose atheist attitude also impressed him.

His 1925 play Ordet (The Word) is often said to have been his best work;

On one occasion, in the early 1930s, in a comment that would come 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) quickly turned to outspoken disgust, as he witnessed Hitler's persecution of the Germany Jewish community, and Mussolini's conduct of the war in Ethiopia. Right from the start, Munk was a strong opponent of the German Occupation of Denmark (1940-1945) (although he continually opposed the idea of democracy as such, preferring the idea of a "Nordic dictator" who should unite the Nordic countries and keep them neutral during periods of international crisis). His plays Han sidder ved Smeltediglen ("He sits by the melting pot") and Niels Ebbesen were direct attacks on Nazism.

In 1938 the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published on its front page an open letter to Benito Mussolini written by Kaj Munk criticising the persecutions against Jews.

The reputation of Munk is one of the most paradoxical in modern Danish literature.

His plays, many of which have been performed at the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen, and elsewhere, include:

Pilatus (1917. The Word) (1925), Kaerlighed (1926), En Idealist (1928), I Brændingen (1929), Kardinalen og Kongen (1929), Cant (1931), De Udvalgte (1933), Sejren (1936), Han sidder ved Smeltediglen (1938), Egelykke (1940), Niels Ebbesen (1942), Før Cannae (1943).

The play Ordet was filmed in black and white by Carl Theodor Dreyer.