This is the only surviving audio recording of Kaj Munk's voice.
The speech was published in JyllandsPosten on October 21, 1938:
At the memorial performance at Det kgl. Theater for Johannes Poulsen, Kaj Munk gave the following memorial speech:
IT WAS THE STORM we heard, and how poor life would be without the storm, the storm that whips us, and the storm that cleanses and makes us strong and victorious for the deeds of life.
When the Royal Danish Theatre has asked me to speak on this occasion, I take it to mean that it is the Royal Danish Theatre. Theater has asked me to take the floor on this occasion, I let it mean that it is the Royal Theater that lends me its mouth to say Johannes Poulsen a thank you that can be heard by its entire audience. Theater, which lends me its mouth to say a thank you to Johannes Poulsen that can be heard by its entire audience, no funeral sermon, no judgment on the dead. When the journey is made into the land from which no wanderer returns, the soul stands before it, whose judgment alone matters, and what people say, even if that person is a priest, is more indifferent than ever.
Nor do I attempt any characterization of the artist. All sorts of things have been said about Johannes Poulsen and his art in speeches and articles these days, and a great deal more. I stand here only to mention the simple words: Dear Master Johannes! How we loved him. The Danish theater, all of us who belong to the Danish theater, actors, poets, critics and audience, we say it with all our hearts: How we loved him, we say it with a little bite in our conscience that we did not say it warmly enough to him before he broke up with us.
We were good enough to let him know when we were annoyed with him or - truth be told - when he annoyed us. Not nearly so good at letting him know that deep down we knew that we had no one like him, no such fountain of health in the midst of the dust of the stage as he. We thought there would be time enough to tell him so, so fresh and strong and bold and alive he was. The foxy, foxy, foxy death has fooled us again. The merry master of parties is gone from us, but his laughter and shouts still ring in our ears, and will ring long, long in our minds.
Poul Reumert, our great stage name, once said to me: For a whole series of years Johannes Poulsen was the greatest artist in the North, and on the fingers of more than one hand he recited the number of years of his brilliant achievements. Johannes Poulsen fulfilled the extraordinary promises of his pure youth, and when the promises are fulfilled, what then? But who can deny that he was still a king of the stage and still wore the crown princely?
He had the misfortune that his father was Emil Poulsen and especially that his uncle was Olaf Poulsen. He could fall into the temptation of wanting to over-Poulsenize the Poulsens. In limitation the master shows himself, Goethe says in an otherwise legally secretive word. The master sometimes shows himself in breaking the limitation, but then he must be a very great master.
Johannes Poulsen.
Master John was sometimes so great, sometimes not. Therefore he spoke most powerfully to us when he was silent. Abel in Oehlenschläger's "Erik and Abel", beautiful, penetratingly beautiful, and both in his staging and in his playing in the piece that will now be performed, he reached the sublime in silence. They called him Aladdin. These titles! By intense labor for five minutes, one subconscious mind can do the work that the healthy mind of another must toil and fuss with for twenty-four hours. And sure enough, his mind was open. That wonderful warmth in his eyes when a new idea seized him. His voice clear. He never spoke ill of others. I never knew him to harbor a grudge. His imagination was not eruptive, not hectic, but the lush harvest of a clay soil born in the rich soil of Zealand. He was certainly a large piece of nature's cheerful son, but he would never have been the artist he became if he had not also known how to be anxious, by shuddering under the breath of the abysses of existence.
Do you remember how, as you sat talking to him, his eyes would pass over you in a tense, eerie search, as if a dark third party had suddenly appeared in the room. Who was this third person? Was it the evil one himself, or was it just death? That disease of the brain. Who knows when it started, what part it has in the fact that memorization could slip and the tension of the role fizzle out like a waste of steam? In any case, we were all clearly enough amused that he, the grand bourgeoisly vigilant one, overslept his way to a performance. Death has iced the laughter from our faces. And now the tears burn in our throats.
Comrade Johannes! Master Johannes! Come back to us once more. Show yourself just once more here on this stage of yours. As radiant as when you were at your best. As majesty of England or as a simple sailor at the accordion. Come, you brilliant master of masquerade, in whatever mask you like, just one more time. Oh, then we will clap. Then we will cheer.
Then we will jump up on our chairs and shout at you: John! We love you! Don't you want to? Yes, you want to, but the strict boss who has now let you onto his cramped stage doesn't lend out his artists.
We'll just have to say it to Ulla and to each other: How we loved him. How we will miss him. How he impressed upon our minds that the theater is an indispensable part of the soul of humanity. Let our hearts give him their thanks. Let us all rise with a silent: Thank you, Johannes!