Kai Dige Bach

Kai Meinert Dige Bach was a Danish Conservative politician, serial entrepreneur and Herlev civic figure whose career ran from coal and heating oil to white goods, local newspapers, charter travel and property, and who sat in the Folketing for eleven years. He died on 19 September 2026 at the age of 90. His son John Gerhard Dige Bach told Ekstra Bladet that "the time had run out" and that his father had lived a fine life, even if he would gladly have had a little longer.

Born on 1 January 1936 on Nørrebro in Copenhagen, Bach took an apprenticeship with Skandinavisk Motor Co. in 1953 and completed a commercial diploma at Niels Brock Copenhagen Business College in 1959. In 1958 he already founded Kai Dige Bach A/S, first as a fuel dealer. The firm later sold white goods under the Snehvide name, published magazines including Den Grimme Ælling and Idé-nyt, and ran the local paper Lokal-Posten covering Lyngby-Tårnby, Søllerød and Bagsværd. He also owned a petrol station and, by the end of his life, concentrated on residential and commercial letting in Herlev.

Travel became a major chapter. He registered Kai Dige Bach Rejser in 1978; in 1992 that business became Gate Eleven (Gate 11), a scheduled-flight holiday agency with roughly 40 staff, about 40,000 passengers a year and turnover near 150 million kroner when he sold it in 2000 to Scandinavian Leisure Group, then owner of Spies, Tjæreborg and Premiair. Gate Eleven's brand was wound down by SLG in 2002.

Politically he moved far from a brief teenage membership of Danmarks Kommunistiske Ungdom. For the Conservative People's Party he sat on Herlev municipal council from 1966 to 1974, the last four years as second deputy mayor, and chaired Herlev Handelsforening from 1970 to 1980. Elected to the Folketing for Copenhagen County (standing in Rødovre) on 8 September 1987, he served until he chose not to stand again on 10 March 1998. From 1993 he sat on the Conservative parliamentary group board and was vice-chair of the Folketing's Business Committee. In 1996 he was made a Knight of the Order of the Dannebrog.

In later years he opened a free Herlev "flagship" workspace for entrepreneurs (2015) and, in memory of his wife Eva, founded Eva og Kai Dige Bachs Lille Fond in 2019 to support quiet local causes, culture and entrepreneurship around Hjortespring. Danish obituaries in DR, Ekstra Bladet, Altinget and Standby remembered an unusually restless Conservative businessman who never stopped inventing projects in his home town.