About This Episode
"Behind the Barricades – The Battle of Ryesgade – Part 2" is an episode of the podcast Danske Kriminalsager, hosted by historian Anders Brandt Lundager. It picks up the story of what happened after squatters from the Danish BZ movement and their supporters sealed off a large area around Ryesgade in Copenhagen on 14 September 1986.
Streets were dug up and barricades were built. In the days that followed, police struggled even to approach the area, let alone enter it.
Behind the barricades, the squatters organised their own guards, their own communications and a form of internal order. Police made several attempts to push into the occupied zone, and each time they failed.
The conflict came to a head in an intense manhunt. Riot officers carrying out observation work were discovered and had to take refuge at the Rigshospitalet, the large public hospital in central Copenhagen. The episode examines, in close detail, the nine days during which the authorities lost control of an entire neighbourhood in the middle of the Danish capital.
**Hosts and release**
The episode is hosted by historian Anders Brandt Lundager. Frederik Strand, head of Politimuseet, the Police Museum in Copenhagen, takes part and offers his insight into the events.
The episode is part of Danske Kriminalsager, a podcast that examines significant Danish criminal cases and what they have meant for police investigative methods and the Danish justice system. It is available on Apple Podcasts and on the Danish audio platform radioplay.dk, and is produced by the team behind "Danske Drabssager".
