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Cheb is a city in the Karlovy Vary Region of
the Czech Republic, with about 33,000 inhabitants. It is
situated on the river Ohre (also called Eger in German), at the
foot of one of the spurs of the Smrciny and near the border with
Germany. Prior to 1945, the town was the centre of the
German-speaking region known as Egerland, and was part of the
Northern Austro-Bavarian dialect area. The name of the city was
in 1061 recorded as Egire; in 1179 it was known as Egra; from
1322 as Eger and the surrounding territory as Regio Egere and
Provincia Egrensis; after the 14th century also as Cheb or Chba.
From 1850 it was given the twin official names of Eger and Cheb.
The twin towns of Cheb are Hof in Germany, Rheden in the
Netherlands and Nizhny Tagil in Russia. The first known
settlement in the area was a Slavic stronghold at what is now
called Jansky Vrch, north of the town-centre. In 807 the
district of today's Cheb was included in the new margraviate of
East Franconia, which belonged at first to the Babenbergs, but
from 906 to the counts of Vohburg, who took the title of
margraves. In 1179 town status was achieved, and the castle was
built in the 12th century. In 1149, by the marriage of Adela of
Vohburg to the emperor Frederick I, Eger (Cheb) came into the
possession of the House of Swabia, and remained in the hands of
the emperors until the early 13th century, during which time it
became an Imperial Free City. In 1265 it was taken by the king
Ottokar II of Bohemia, who retained it for eleven years. After
being repeatedly transferred from the one power to the other,
according to the preponderance of Bohemia or the empire, the
town and territory were finally incorporated into Bohemia in
1322, under John of Bohemia. Several imperial privileges,
however, continued to be enjoyed by the town until 1849.
Killing of Albrecht von WallensteinOn 5 May 1389, during a
Reichstag between King Wenceslaus and a group of Imperial Free
Cities of south-west Germany, the Peace of Eger was agreed upon,
after Wenceslaus had failed to secure his interests in the city.
It suffered severely during the Hussite Wars, during the Swedish
invasion in 1631 and 1647, and in the War of the Austrian
Succession in 1742. In 1634, during the Thirty Years' War,
Albrecht von Wallenstein was killed here. George of Podebrady
(the main square is named after him) married his daughter and
farthered two sons in the city. From the Middle Ages until 1945,
the lands around the town were known by the German name Egerland.
In 1723, Cheb became a free royal town. The northern quarter of
the town was devastated by a large fire in 1809, and many
middle-age buildings were irreplaceably destroyed. Until 1851,
the renowned spa-town of Frantiskovy Lazne belonged to the
Magistrate of Cheb. The carbonated mineral water coming from
these springs was delivered to spa visitors residing in Cheb.
Church of St. NicolasGeographers of the Austro-Hungarian
monarchy proclaimed the nearby 939m high Tillen (Dilen in Czech)
as the geographical centre of Europe. This claim was documented
on a copper plaque mounted at the summit.
Austrian National Socialism and hence German National Socialism
can trace its origins to Cheb when Franko Stein transferred a
small newspaper (Der Hammer) from Vienna to Cheb in 1897. There
he organized a German workers congress called the
Deutschvolkischer Arbeitertag, which published the 25-point
program. Sand gate near Ohre riverThe terms of the 1919 Treaty
of St. Germain triggered civil unrest between the Sudeten German
population and the new Czechoslovak administration, just as in
the rest of the Sudetenland. As elsewhere, protests in the town
- now officially named Cheb - were eventually suppressed by
force. On 3 October 1938, the town was visited by Adolf Hitler;
shortly afterwards German troops marched into the Sudetenland
and seized control. From 1938 until 1945 the town was annexed to
Germany. On 1 May 1939, the town split away from the surrounding
district to form its own municipal district together with the
settlement of Matzelbach, and gave its name to the most westerly
of the three administrative regions of the Sudetenland. The
administrative seat of the Regierungsprasident lay in Karlsbad,
however. People of Eger are greeting German soldiers with Hitler
salute in October 1938Books containing multiple photos of Cheb
in 1945: Valhalla Finale, 350 pp, Dorfmeister, Tittling, 2009,
(hardcover) ISBN: 3-9810084-7-2. and Ragnarok, 464 pp,
Dorfmeister, Tittling, 2010, (hardcover) ISBN: 3-9810084-8-0
After the end of World War II the region was returned to
Czechoslovakia. Under the Benes decrees of the same year, the
German-speaking majority of the town was dispossessed of their
homes and property, and was forcibly expelled from the country.
In 1954, the town of Amberg in Germany adopted the expelled
Sudeten German population from Cheb and the surrounding
districts. On 24 August 2001, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder
and Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman visited the Euregio
Egrensis (a cross-border initiative between districts in
Bavaria, Saxony, Thuringia and Bohemia), and received the
Freedom of the City of Cheb. In 2004, a town-twinning agreement
was made with Hof in Bavaria. Since the fall of the Iron
Curtain, Cheb has also had cordial relationships with the
neighbouring German towns of Waldsassen and Marktredwitz. |
