The Battle of Ryesgade took place in mid-September 1986, in the Copenhagen street Ryesgade. The reason for the battle was the upcoming eviction of a squatted building. The battle was the violent culmination of a long standing conflict, between the copenhagen city council and the city's community of squatters. For nine days the squatters barricaded the entrances to the street and defended the squat against waves of attacking police. The battle was of a magnitude never before seen in Denmark and it marked a crucial turningpoint for the Danish squatters movement. Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Copenhagen (IPA: or ; Danish: IPA: ) is the capital of Denmark and the countrys largest city. ...

Rather die standing up, then living life on your knees! (Motto of the squatters in Ryesgade) Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

Copenhag.jpg Map showing the location of the house and sorrounding lines of barricades

Introduction

Up trough the 1980's a series of battles had been fought between the Copenhagen city council and the copenhagen squatters movement. The squatters movement in Denmark had since the beginning of the 80s become an active and weelfounded social movement. The movement started in Copenhagen were a group of young people started to take over empty buildings, using them for free housing and as alternative cultural and community centers. The youngsters were made up from a mixture of punks, leftwing activists and unemployed teenagers who had their basis, in the working-class area of Nørrebro. The situation i Denmark at the time, was one of high unemployment and poor housing, especially in Copenhagen. The Copenhagen City Council, lead by the social democratic mayor Egon Widekamp, had in the 1970s begun a process of rehousing for people living in the poor areas of Copenhagen. The process involved the demolition of large parts of the old boroughs sorounding the city center. Although the plan was to raise the living standard for working class people, the consequence often was that the new houses became to expensive for these people to live in. Many found themselves "temporarily" relocated to elsewhere in the city, and when they wanted to return to their old homes, they found the rent to be to high for them to pay. This gave rise to a growing anger towards the city council and a felling amongst the poor people of Copenhagen that decisions concerning their lives were being made without them having anything to say about it. The City's plans also left many old and worn, but still useful, buildings empty. At the same time a lot of young people were unemployed and without homes. All these factors would in time lay the foundation for the rise of the squatters movement.

Squatter wearing helmet for protection during the battle Image File history File links Size of this preview: 436 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (500 × 687 pixel, file size: 54 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) I, the creator of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. ...

Squatters resting on barricade Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

Barricade in Ryesgade Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

The Copenhagen Squatters Movement

The Copenhagen Squatters Movement first saw the light of day when a group of young people moved in and took over an abandoned bread factory in Nørrebro. Their demands where simple. They wanted the city council to give them a house where the young people of Copenhagen could gather. Further more the house had to be completely selforganised and under the control of the youths, without the city council having any influence on the day to day running of the house. The action lasted only two hours before the police moved in and cleared the factory, but the action started a chain of events that over the next ten years was going to shake the city of Copenhagen to its very core.

Over the next year or so the squatters movement grew, and so did the number of squats. At the same time the tensions between the squatters and the authorities started escalate. On the march 6 1982 the first real violent confrontation between squatters and police took place. An old building had earlier in the day been squatted by about 90 people. When the police moved in the squatters bombarded them with bricks and other building materials. Several of the squatters were also wearing bandannas and ski masks to hide thier faces The police tried to break down the door but where forced to give up because of the squatters attack. Only when they brought in an armored car and an industrial saw, did they manage to get inside the building. Several of the people inside was the severely beaten by the police. This event marked a turning point in the conflict. Where the evictions of other squats had been relatively peaceful, this were the first time that the squatters had actually attacked the police when defending a squat. During the first attack a toilet was thrown at the police. This act later became famous as a symbol of the end of the squatters peaceful resistance against evictions.

Toilet being thrown at the police Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

The famous squat Allotria in Nørrebro Image File history File linksMetadata No higher resolution available. ...

After the confrontation in march, the movement gained significant advances. In the spring and summer of 1982 a bunch of new squats were established. The squats was mostly located in Nørrebro and, unlike before, the police didnt move in and evict the squatters right away. This allowed the squatters to establish the first collectives were they could experiment with living and organizing them selfs.The houses, who soon grew in to a solid squatters-community, included such now-famous houses as Allotria,Bazooka, Den Lille Fjer(The Little Feather), Garternergade 14(Gardener street 14), Snehvide(Snowwhite), Safari and many more. The houses became flourishing centers for alternative culture and housing. Especially Allotria became a place where the alternative music scene could evolve. In Bazooka the squatters even set up a "squatters housing-service". Here they kept a record over empty houses and flats in the area. If you were in need of a place to live you could come to Bazooka. You were then shown an empty house and fitted with a crowbar to break down the door.As the activities around the houses grew so did the number of people getting ivolved with squatting. The squatters experienced great support from the people in the local community, many of which saw the squatters as fighting for a noble cause. All in all the squatters experienced a time of growth and a sense of victory. At the same time the squatters became more hard line in their attitudes towards the authorities. In the fall of 1982 a series of confrontations took place. Most famous of these was Endagskrigen(The oneday-war) where the squatters fought a street battle with the police, when they tried to evict one of the squatted houses. The confrontation was the most violent battle yet fought. The squatters set up improvised barricades in the streets and bombarded police with stones and building materials taken from nearby construction sites. Molotov-cocktails was also used by some of the squatters.

Ungdomshuset.Jagtvej 69. 1982/2007 Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ...

The problems with the squatters soon proved to big a problem for the citycouncil to handle and in October 1982 they caved in to the squatters original demands and handed over an old building for them to use. The building was named Ungdomshuset(litterally meaning The Youth House) and was located on Jagtvej 69 in Nørrebro.(The house was evicted on march 1 2007, after the city council sold the building to a christian sect) With this gesture the city council hoped that the squatters would abandond the squatted houses and settle for the new building on Jagtvej 69. This didnt happen. The squatters made it clear that they were not going to give up their homes and under the slogan "Squat Your Flat" they once more took up the fight. This time against the housing policies of the city council. As a result the city council and the Mayor launched a wave of evictions against the squatters. In January 1983 the police moved in and evicted Allotria. A huge police force of about 1500 police had been mobilised for the eviction. The squatters realized that they stood no chance against such a big policeforce. When the police moved in to evict the house, the squatters had escaped into a neighboring house, through a tunnel dug under the street. The tunnel was seen by the media and the public as a creative stroke of genius. The police was rediculed in the papers and the general public saw it as victory for the squatters. The squatters didnt see it that way. They felt that they had failed in not defending their homes and to them the "victory" that everybody was talking about, was at the very best bittersweet. Over the next couple of days the massive police force evicted the rest of the squats in Nørrebro. Bulldozers then moved in and demolished the houses. The squatters made a pact with themselfs, never aqain to give up a squat without a fight. A promise they would make good on three years later in Ryesgade.

The squatting of Ryesgade 58

In 1983 a group of squatters moved in and took control over an empty house in Ryesgade 58. The squatters moved in slowly and in small groups, to avoid detection from the police. The plan succeeded, and after a couple of months a well organized squat had been established. The squat was organized so that every floor was an independent collective in its own right. Each of these collectives was then charged with organizing and maintaining their part of the house. Weekly meetings were also held for everybody living in the house and here the collectives played a vital role as a basis for discussion. No matter if it were politics, ideology or practical matters concerning the house, that were being talked about. The squatters were for a large part made up from "older" squatters who had been with the movement since its beginning. The house soon became the unofficial headquaters of the squatters movement.

References