Rasmus Tantholdt

September 14, 2023

AI Summary

5 min read

In the early 1990s, a 13-year-old boy named Rasmus Tantholdt learned that his father had been killed by a freight train. He was relieved. The feeling horrified him. His father had been an alcoholic, and for years Rasmus had been the one hiding his wine bottles and managing the chaos. Now that responsibility was gone. The next day, he went dancing at a local disco—and felt like he was dancing on his father's grave. That guilt and confusion, he says, shaped everything that came after: the self-destructive behavior, the drive to prove himself, and eventually the career that made him one of Denmark's most recognizable war correspondents.

The father who disappeared twice

Rasmus's father was, before the drinking started, his great role model: a warm, intelligent, socially magnetic man who played chess with him and showed his love openly. But when he lost his job as an EDB programmer during the 1980s recession, he began drinking wine in the cellar. The relationship inverted. Suddenly it was Rasmus—11 or 12 years old—who had to take responsibility, who had to navigate the unpredictability of coming home from school not knowing whether his father would be drunk. "It's one of the worst things for a child," he says. "When everyday life is not in any fixed frame and it can change with a snap of a finger."

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **Opening & Prejudice** - Host Sørine Godfredsen introduces the podcast's focus on "livskraft" (life force) and presents her written prejudice about Rasmus Tantholdt: that he insists so much on chaotic intensity that he has lost the ability to be present in normal everyday life.
2 (02:48) **Childhood: Father as Role Model** - Rasmus describes his early childhood, where his father was his great role model: intelligent, social, loving, and a chess partner.
3 (04:47) **The Shift: Father's Decline & Role Reversal** - As his father's drinking worsened, the relationship shifted from father-son to something more equal, with Rasmus taking on responsibility and watching out for him.
4 (07:28) **The Day His Father Died** - Rasmus recounts the police arriving to tell his mother that his father was killed in a train accident (sucked into the side of a freight train). He emphasizes it was not a suicide.
5 (10:50) **Dancing on His Grave** - The Sunday after his father's death, 13-year-old Rasmus went to a disco and danced, feeling guilty as if he were "dancing on his grave."
6 (14:23) **Warning Signs: Self-Destructive Tendencies** - Rasmus describes a recurring dream of himself as a grown-up, standing on a bridge in a leather jacket, having become a person people looked down on—a self-destructive vision.
7 (16:59) **The Thread: Navigating Chaos** - Rasmus sees a clear link between his chaotic childhood and his career as a war correspondent: he learned to navigate unpredictability and uncertainty.

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Show Notes

I premiereafsnittet er krigskorrespondent Rasmus Tantholdt gæst. Han fortæller om en barndom, hvor hans far begyndte at drikke og senere blev dræbt i en tragisk togulykke. Opvæksten lærte ham at navigere i kaos. Den evne hjælper ham den dag i dag, når han befinder sig i krigszoner. Men hvordan finder han livskraft, når han står midt i krigens meningsløshed? Det taler Sørine med ham om i dette afsnit, hvor han også afslører det mest definerende øjeblik i hans liv.