THE GREATEST DANGER

DEN INDERSTE FARE – THE GREATEST DANGER

By Birgithe Kosovic

IN THE SUMMER of 1940, in a Denmark that has been helplessly occupied by Nazi Germany, the King and the Prime Minister turn to the man they believe can lead the country most safely through the war: Erik Scavenius. On several occasions, he refuses to head the collaborationist government. But he eventually agrees and hands Denmark over to the Germans. Few heads of state have faced such a clear-cut and difficult task as he did. Few have steered their country through a world war with such minimal damage. Few have been so reviled.

THE GREATEST DANGER is a political and personal portrait of Erik Scavenius, the renegade son of the nobility, the impetuous head of government and the womaniser.

WHAT DO YOU do when you stand defenceless before an enemy? How far must you bow to a totalitarian power? Where does the line between submission and integrity lie? These questions haunt him, not only in relation to the Germans, but also in his marriage, where his decision to lead the country reawakens old conflicts.

EVERYTHING COMES TO a head when he falls in love with a woman 27 years his junior. But it is only when Hitler sends a new Reich Plenipotentiary, the high-ranking Nazi Werner Best, to terrorise Denmark into surrendering its last vestiges of independence, that Scavenius is forced to confront his own conscience. The two men hold the fate of the Danish Jews in their hands. But their meeting ends up being a matter of life and death – for themselves as well.