For more than 30 years the self-governing settlement in the centre of the Danish capital has acted as a magnet for those trying to escape the rat race.

The residents of Christiania set up their own city state in a sprawling 18th-century naval fortress once used as a barracks by the Nazi occupation forces. The hippies’ economy was almost self- sustaining: pony-tailed craftsmen built and sold eccentric bicycles, 24-hour bakeries turned out biologically pure bread and carefully tended gardens supplied vegetables. Food was traded for make-shift schooling, firewood and roof repair for books: it was a primitive, free-wheeling bartering economy in the middle of one of Europe’s most prosperous cities.

But Christiania also became the hub of the capital’s trade in soft drugs — sold freely on Pusher Street — and it was this that stirred successive Danish Governments to consider a crackdown. This time, the authorities are serious. Government lawyers have discovered that an earlier deal with the hippies, struck in 1989, merely gives the residents the right to borrow the land, not to rent it.

Christiania had been recognised as a “social experiment” in 1987, but two years later it was made clear that the use of the land — 80 acres inhabited by about 1,000 people — was a concession rather than a formal rental contract.

That freed the way for a clean-up. The present conservative Government coalition has been growing impatient with the hippies. Last month the police raided the enclave 146 times, even though police are technically supposed to keep their distance. The live-and-let-live policy, symbolised by the sign hanging over the entrance, which declares “No uniforms allowed, no bullet-proof vests”, is crumbling. There have been 459 body searches in the past three weeks and cars driving past the colony are regularly searched for drugs.

Popular Danish opinion has been evenly divided over Christiania, with many regarding it as a harmless offbeat tourist attraction. But the housing shortage in Copenhagen is swinging Danes behind the idea that the large terrain, much of it green parkland, could be better used to develop urban housing. The flower power disciples could be comfortably rehoused and still leave space available for others. Furthermore, the drug trade would be brought under control.

The residents are ready to turn an eviction into a massive act of civil disobedience. The last eviction attempt, in 1976, sucked in tens of thousands of anarchist sympathisers from across the Continent, who set up barricades and waged war with the police.

The aim of the authorities in the coming months seems to be to start digging up the streets. Bulldozers will be sent into Pusher Street.

The street’s drug traders, however, are tough, typically surrounded by packs of fierce fighter dogs; they are capable of more than symbolic resistance. A hoard of weapons was found recently in a back room in one of the dilapidated cottages.

“We are prepared for street fights and civil war-like conditions,” Pernille Hansen, a 29-year-old Christiania resident, said. “People have had enough of the present Government and it won’t take much to spark full-scale violence.”

The community is divided into 15 self-governing districts, each controlled by so-called anarchist councils. Reports suggest that they have elaborate plans for defence should the police move in.

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