Mogens Glistrup

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mogens Glistrup (May 28, 1926 -) was born on the Baltic island of Bornholm as the son of a highschool teacher.

Cand. Jur. 1950. lawyer with the right to appear before the state court (landsretssagfører) 1955.

Glistrup founded the Progress Party (Fremskridtspartiet) on August 23, 1972 in the restaurant "Grøften" in Tivoli gardens, Copenhagen. Glistrup has been a staunch opponent of Muslim immigration to Denmark, and Europe in general for more than 25 years. Glistrup was incarcerated from August 31, 1983 to March 11, 1985 on the charge of taxation fraud. He represented the Progress Party in parliament from 1973-1983 and 1987-1990.

During the Cold War, he gained notoriety for suggesting to replace the Danish defence force with an answering machine saying "We surrender" in Russian. The thought behind it being the final step in the spirit of '64, which stated that as a small country, Denmark was in no position to influence the outside world and should therefore not try. It was at that time effectively countered by the Ellemann-Jensen doctrine, which stated that small countries like Denmark can affect the world, if they manage to successfully build strong alliances to promote their goals.

Mogens Glistrup was undoubtedly a brilliant legal mind and achieved in his exam the second highest grade average ever achieved in Denmark. As a point of interest (in no relation to his scoring) the exam rating system was simplified 2 years after his graduation making his numerical score impossible to achieve again, so his record still stands today. However, his arrogant style provoked many public reactions, as for instance his claim on national TV that owing to easy utilization of tax loopholes made possible by an overtly complex tax code he did of course not pay income tax. This ultimately led to his conviction for tax fraud in 1983. Interestingly, the point which he sought to bring attention to -- that an overtly complex tax code is very much open to fraud by smart lawyers -- was largely ignored.

Following his release from prison, he presided over the Progress Party in an ever more erratic and strange manner, which ultimately led to his ouster as chairman, hi expulsion from the party he founded, and the eventual demise of the Progress Party itself at the hands of the Danish People's Party, which had begun as a better organised splinter movement of the Progress Party. After his removal from the Progress Party, Mogens Glistrup seemed to decline into an ever more hate-filled obsession with Muslim immigration and eventual obscurity in Denmark.