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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 February 2016
The professor of theology Hal Koch played a role of considerable prominence and influence in Denmark during the years of the German occupation. His famous lectures on N. F. S. Grundtvig in the autumn of 1940 immediately made the young professor a public person of great influence, not only as a professor of church history but also as an opinion-former with close connection to the political circles. As chairman of Dansk Ungdomssamvirke (an umbrella body for Danish youth organizations), he played an important role in the intellectual formation of the younger generation and in formulating conceptions of secularization and democracy in Denmark.
1 Sandbæk, Harald and Raid, N.J., Den danske kirke under besættelsen (Copenhagen, 1945Google Scholar); Jacobsen, Erik Thostrup, Som om intet var hœndt. Den danske folkekirke under besættelsen (Odense, 1991);Google Scholar Andersen, Niels Knud and Lindhardt, P. G., Den danske kirkes Historie (Copenhagen, 1966);Google Scholar Lindhardt, P. G., ‘In memoriam Hal Koch’, Kirkehistoriske Samlinger 7 (1964), 209–36;Google Scholar Balling, Jakob, ‘Hal Koch som dansk historiker under bessettelsen’, in idem, Historisk Kristendom. Artikler og afhandlinger i udvalg (Copenhagen, 2003), 293–304;Google Scholar Møller, Jes Fabricius, Crundtvigianisme i del 20. ärhundrede (Copenhagen, 2005); idem, Hal Koch. En biografi (Copenhagen, 2009).Google Scholar For more literature (e.g. on Kaj Munk), see Christensen, Torben, Kirkehistorisk bibliografi (Copenhagen, 1979);Google Scholar Lauridsen, John T., Samarbejde og modstand. Danmark under den tyske besœttelse 1940–45 En bibliografi (Copenhagen, 2002).Google Scholar Important exceptions to an exclusively national perspective are Schjorring, Jens Holger, Theohgische Gewissenethik und politisene Wirklichkeit, das Beispiel Eduard Geismars und Emanuel Hirschs (Göttingen, 1979CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Schwarz Lausten, Martin, Jødesympati og jødehad i folkekirken, forholdet mellem kristne og jøder i Danmark fra begyndelsen af det 20. århundrede til 1948 (Copenhagen, 2007).Google Scholar
2 This essay is dependent on the 35 letters he wrote from abroad to his professor, Jens Skouboe Nørregaard, in Copenhagen, during the period 1927–31 Copenhagen, Rigsarkivet, Privatarkiver no. 6073.
3 The church fathers had his attention, but some of his first experiences in Paris were a series of lectures on Plato at the Sorbonne:Koch to Nørregaard, 28 November 1927.
4 Koch to Nørregaard, 29 December 1927.
5 Bodil Koch (1903–72, MA in Theology, member of the Danish Parliament from 1947, the first woman to serve as Minister of Ecclesiastical Affairs (1950; 1953–66, Minister of Cultural Affairs (1966–8: Ryman, Björn et al., Nordic Folk Churches: A Contemporary Church History (Grand Rapids, MI, 2005), 151–3.Google Scholar
6 ‘Det er sandt, til Belysning af moderne italiensk Aandsliv skal de have folgende: Vi kom tilfældigvis til at kigge ind I en stor official Bygning, et Ministerialkontor ell. lign. Der stod paa Væggen med store Bogstaver: Mussolini ha sempre ragione. Nemt og praktisk ikke’: Koch to Nørregaard, 14 May 1930.
7 Koch, Hal, ‘Geistlighedens Forrædderi’, Kirke og Kultur 38 (1931), 93–9.Google Scholar The tide is a reference to the most influential work of Benda, Julien, La Trahison des clercs (1927), published in translation as The Great Betrayal and recently republished as The Treason of the Intellectuals (New Brunswick, NJ, 2006Google Scholar).
8 Koch used the transliteration ‘Berdjajef when referring to the Russian thinker Nikolai Aleksandrovich Berdyaev (1874–1948). On several occasions Koch referred to his works. Being one of the best-known Russian emigrants and living in Paris at the time Koch was there, he came to be part of Koch’s conception of the events and intellectual environment associated with the rise of communism in Russia.
9 The following statement of Mussolini is cited as an example: ‘From top to bottom discipline ought to be the essential, and of a religious nature’: Koch, ‘Geisdighedens’, 94.
10 Koch, Hal, Pronoia und Paideusis: Studien über Orígenes und sein Verhältnis zum Platonismus (Berlin and Leipzig, 1932CrossRefGoogle Scholar).
11 Grane, Cf. Leif, Kobenhavns Universitet 1479–1979 5: Det teologiske Fakultet (Copenhagen, 1980), 511.Google Scholar
12 Koch, Hal, ‘Stat, Tolerance og Kirke’, Berlingske Tidende, 9 May 1934.Google Scholar
13 ‘Eller sagt mere tydeligt: Fortiden laegges til Rette som Bevismateriale for den Idé, man nu engang vil propagandere for’: Hal Koch, ‘Forholdet mellem Stat og Kirke’, Nationaltidende, 8 May 1938.
14 ‘Og den, der føler Ansvar for sin Omgang med Fortiden, vil vel vogte sig for at spænde denne for sine private Meningers Triumfvogn’: ibid.
15 The words derive from a letter of Pope Paschal II (1099–1118 to King Niels of Denmark, in which he stated that all public authority is given by God and the king is admonished to honour the church and the clergy and, furthermore, to be a fellow worker and assistant to the bishops.
16 Koch, Hal, ‘Foran en ny Middelalder?’, Nationaltidende, 18 May 1938.Google Scholar
17 ‘… dér, hvor Staten er blevet “det hojeste Ord, som Folket har til Tydning af sin givne historiske Situation”, dér maa Spørgsmaalet om at give Kejseren, hvad Kejserens er, og Gud, hvad Guds er, tilspidse sig paa en helt ny Maade. Hvor Staten bliver total-itaer, gør Krav paa helt at bestemme sine Undersaaters Liv, er der kun een Mulighed for Fred med Kirken, nemlig Middelalderens, d.v.s. den Udvej, at Kirken bliver det religiøse Udtryk for det, som Staten vil, og Staten til Gengæld staar solidarisk med Kirken, at Kristus og Kejseren vil det samme’: ibid.
18 Berdyaev wrote this book in Russian in Berlin during 1924, but it was his first book to be translated into other European languages. Koch knew the French edition of 1927; the English edition, The End of Our Time; together with an Essay on the General Line of Soviet Philosophy, appeared in 1933, and a Danish edition had just been published in 1937.
19 ‘Men Historien kan dog endnu eet: den kan være os en Hjælp til at tyde Tidens Tegn, til at forstaa noget af det, der sker uden om os. Det vil ikke sige, at den kan give os Svar paa vore Problemer eller færdige Løsninger, som vi kan være sikre paa vil føre den rette Vej. Men den kan bidrage til at holde os aarvaagne over for Spørgsmaalet. Den endelige Afgørelse maa vi selv traerle, naar og hvor den kræves – og ingen ved, hvornaar den kræves ogsaa af den danske Kirke – men denne Afgørelse er vor og kun vor, og Ansvaret for den kan derfor heller ikke skydes over paa Fortiden ved den ene eller den anden Tydning af den, men Ansvaret hviler der, hvor Afgørelsen træffes, den hviler hos den Kirke, der stilles over for Spørgsmaalet om at give Gud, hvad Guds er, og Kejseren hvad Kejseren, hvad Kejserens er’: Koch,‘Foran Middelalder’.
20 Koch wrote in a memorandum to the chief manager of the Danish central bank, who was to part-finance the venture: ‘It has been strongly stressed, that D.U. [Damile Ungdomssamvirke] is an unpolitical [non-party] organization. In my opinion that is a dangerous thought. If D.U. contributes to weakening the political interest of young people and at the same time adds to national feeling and stimulates the appreciation of sport, D.U. will contribute to straight Nazification of Danish Youth’: Copenhagen, Rigsarkivet, Hal Kochs arkiv, Privatarkiv no. 7280.
21 One of the most recent attacks on Koch’s work is Moller, Jes Fabricius, ‘Hai Koch og Grundtvig’, Historisk Tidsskrift 104 (2004), 391–405Google Scholar, with English summary.