Gabriel Grundtvig

Gabriel Emil Grundtvig (b. 19 November 1900 in Copenhagen; d. 20 August 1977 in Christiansby, aged 76) was a Danish lawyer and politician who was the longest-serving Chief Justice of Denmark, in office from 1950 to 1959.

During the late 1920s and early 1930s, Grundtvig worked as a lawyer for several trade unions as well as some leftist political parties, including the social democrats. In the late 1930s, his legal career took a hiatus while he focused full-time on his work for the Social Democratic Party, which he had joined in 1933. In 1937, Grundtvig authored several legal arguments for the labour unionist cause as well as against repression of unions as undemocratic.

Grundtvig and his family left Denmark in March 1940, less than a month before the country was invaded by Nazi Germany, as Grundtvig's wife was Jewish as was his own maternal grandmother, as were therfore their three children. During the Second World War, the Grundtvig family lived with Gabriel's cousins in New York City, only returning to Denmark following the end of the war in May 1945.

Back in Denmark, Grundtvig resumed his legal career, first becoming a district judge in 1946 in 1947 a junior justice on the High Court of Denmark. For the rest of the 1940s, Grundtvig served on the Supreme Court as a puisne justice, presiding over many cases. In 1950, Grundtvig's party formed government following a general election, and Grundtvig was offered the position of Chief Justice. He held the position longer than most and was popular, retiring in 1959 only due to ailing health.

In 1964, Grundtvig and his wife retired, and moved to Christiansby in the Danish Antilles, where they bought a small beach house. Grundtvig died in 1977, about three months before he would have turned 77.