Freetown Christiania

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

**Josh** (0:11)
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here, too. And we're going on over to foggy Copenhagen town, yeah, for this episode of Stuff You Should Know.

**Chuck** (0:22)
That's right, because we are talking about a little sort of village, neighborhood, anarchist commune in Copenhagen, Denmark, called Freetown Christiania, which was founded in 1971, and it has a pretty interesting story.

**Josh** (0:41)
Well, yeah, you had me an anarchist squatter commune.

**Chuck** (0:46)
Yeah.

**Josh** (0:47)
So it is, I think there's something like 800, 900 residents there depending on who you ask, and they just basically showed up, they set up shop in this former military base, and they said, we're not leaving, this is a free territory. And in fact, when you walk into Christiania, I just want to say Christiania so bad.

**Chuck** (1:07)
I know, me too.

**Josh** (1:08)
That extra I just throws me off, but it doesn't matter because I'm foreign to this. I'm foreign to the people of Denmark. So I will say, I will just deal with it, right?

**Chuck** (1:18)
That's right.

**Josh** (1:19)
At any rate, when you walk into Christiania, there's a sign that says you are now leaving the European Union.

**Chuck** (1:25)
Yeah, pretty cool. So the backstory here is in the 17th century, that's the 1600s by the way, in Copenhagen, they built a big fortress and some ramparts there to, you know, as protection, obviously, because that's what ramparts are. And in the 1830s, they built in our artillery barracks there.
They grew over the course of the 19th century, but then in the 1900s, Denmark was like, you know what? No one's gonna come after us. We're Denmark.
Everyone pretty much likes us, so we don't need this kind of presence here. And so in 1916, the southern part of the base was closed and actually like converted by the country into a park. And then in 1961, parts of the ramparts on the northern end were transferred to the public. And then about six years later, between 67 and 71, they finally, the military got out of it altogether and there was a completely abandoned military base there by 1971

**Josh** (2:25)
Yeah. So I mean, and it's pretty decent size. Part of it's a park, so it's alluring. It's in the middle of essentially downtown Copenhagen.
So it's kind of like attractive to people. You know, it's not out in the middle of nowhere. It's like right there. Let's do something with it. And there is a neighborhood right next to it called Kristianshaven, if you anglicize it. And they apparently, the parents there, kept tearing down the security fences to allow their children to go in and play in this abandoned military barracks.

**Chuck** (3:04)
You know, I actually looked up the V in Denmark and how you treated that thing.

**Josh** (3:09)
Did I butcher it? Is that how I treated it?

**Chuck** (3:11)
Well, I don't know, because I bet you're probably right, but what the internet said was that the V, and I'm sure someone can write in and let us know, that the V is pronounced like a V when it's in the front of a word, but is treated as a W when it's in the middle or rear of a word.

**Josh** (3:29)
Okay, so let me try this again.

**Chuck** (3:33)
Maybe that's how they pronounce it. I don't know. I'm genuinely curious, because that's always thrown me.

**Josh** (3:38)
Christian's how-win. That's what I'm going with.

**Chuck** (3:41)
All right. That's what I'm going with, too.

**Josh** (3:43)
Okay. Well, anyway, it's a neighborhood, and they tore down the fence, and apparently the local authorities, I think the military at first and then the government, kept building the fence. They're like, this is to keep you out. Stop tearing it down.
And the parents in the neighborhood said never, and they kept tearing it down, and finally the government just gave up and just left it to them to let their children play.

**Chuck** (4:04)
Yeah. So it became a kid's playground. In October of 1971, there's a guy named Jacob. Here's another B.
I'm going to say, Luke Wigson, if the Internet is correct. And he was then the editor of a, actually it turns out it's the most popular kind of counterculture rag in Denmark called the Høydbladet.

**Josh** (4:30)
It means new leaf.

**Chuck** (4:32)
Oh, I saw it meant the main paper.

**Josh** (4:34)
Oh, the main leaf, that's what I saw. Okay.

**Chuck** (4:39)
I like new leaf too, because you can turn those over and good things happen.