Bohemian and Prussian shack

Bohemian and Prussian Baude ; (closed)
	Bohemian cottage and St. Laurentius chapel
Mountain range	Giant Mountains
Geographical location:	50 ° 44 '9.6 " N , 15 ° 44' 24.4" E Coordinates: 50 ° 44 '9.6 " N , 15 ° 44' 24.4" E
Altitude	1601 m nm
owner	Various
Built	1868/1850
Construction type	Mountain hotel
Development	Zigzag path, anniversary path

The Böhmische Baude and the Prussische Baude were mining sites on the summit of the Schneekoppe .

location

The Bohemian Baude, which was last called Česká Boudá , was located on the Schneekoppen summit , directly on the border with Poland in the Czech Republic, at an altitude of 1601 meters above sea level. Only a few steps away, on the Silesian, now Polish, side was the Prussian building, built in 1862, and a weather station from 1900. Both buildings no longer exist either; the St. Laurentius Chapel from the Baroque period is still in the immediate vicinity today.

history

Prussian hut and St. Laurentius Chapel

The history of the two mountain hotels is closely related and is almost inextricably linked to the other. This is mainly due to the fact that they had a common owner for a long time.

19th century

Friedrich Sommer's time In
1850, Friedrich Sommer from Bad Warmbrunn founded the first hut on the Koppengipfel. The one-storey building made of wood with a gable roof cost the client, who was already operating the snow pit building on Hohen Rad , 2000 crowns. In 1857 the wooden structure was probably destroyed by arson, but a year later it was rebuilt, larger with 35 beds. Unfortunately, this building also burned down again after a lightning strike in 1862. In the same year, Sommer had the Prussian building built on the same site. This was even bigger than its two predecessors, had a large dining room on the ground floor and had a total of 26 rooms with more than 100 beds.

In 1868, after his father's inn, the Blaschkebaude , had burned down on the border pass eight years earlier , Hermann Blaschke built a new hostel, which he called "Bohemian Baude" to distinguish it from the neighboring Prussian one. This hut was significantly smaller than the competition on the other side of the border and offered space for around 50 people. After just two years, Blaschke sold his property to the landlord of the Prussian Baude, against whom he could not compete. He rebuilt his parents' house for the proceeds.

In 1872 Friedrich Sommer succeeded in opening the highest post office in Prussia in the hut on the Silesian side. This was documented on May 22, 1872. The following year the world's first postcard was canceled here.

At the beginning of the Pohl era in
1875, there was another change of ownership and Friedrich Pohl, who had previously been a successful hotelier in Adersbach , took over the two simple mountain buildings, which he subsequently converted into first-class hotels. The range of food and drinks on offer could compete with that of the leading hotels and restaurants in Berlin and Dresden. This was possible because tourism experienced an enormous boom and guests from the upper classes came to the Giant Mountains.

For three generations, from 1875 to 1945, the Pohl family directed the fortunes of the two summit buildings. Both hotels were open from mid-May to the end of September, but winter operation was only maintained by the Bohemian Baude. About the Koppenwirt one could read: "Pohl is subject and officer of two emperors, but on the Schneekoppe he is the ruler."

On July 5, 1880, the Prussian state opened the highest meteorological station north of the Danube, manned all year round. This was initially housed in the Prussian Baude before it was able to move in 1900 to the meteorological station, which had previously been built at a cost of 45,000 marks.

The Deutsche Reichspost already had a representation in the Prussian Baude, which was also called Deutsche Baude after the establishment of the Empire . On September 11, 1899, the post office of the K. u. k. Austrian Post officially opened in the Bohemian Baude. Although the hut was part of the municipality of Klein Aupa , the post office was initially managed by the more accessible post office in Petzer . During the summer season, the "Koppenbriefträger" came up every day to carry all the mail down in the evening. Allegedly there were often more than 15 kg of postcards.
In the picture left: The Prussian weather station from 1900.

20th century

Head bearer, around 1920

Although the buildings together had more than a hundred beds, it was not uncommon for three hundred guests to spend the night here in the summer, mainly to watch the sunrise. This required special planning of the supply, which was mainly ensured by service personnel, the so-called head carriers. Those from Silesia mainly carried heating and building materials up, while the porters from Groß Aupa ( Velká Úpa ) delivered food, beer and wine six times a week during the summer.

In 1911 a depot was set up on the Koppenplan and the road via Krummhübel-Brückenberg (now Bierutowice ), Schlingelbaude and Hampelbaude up to the Koppenplan was expanded. The path was still closed to motor vehicles, but from now on horse and carts could relieve the porters, who still had to carry the needs of the hotels up the steep ascent over the last few meters.

Construction of the first water pipe
The construction of the water pipe in the same year was a further relief. It was built on the Bohemian side in Riesengrund at a cost of 120,000 crowns and overcame a slope of 450 meters with the help of a petrol engine driven Pelton turbine and filled it a water reservoir with a capacity of 3200 liters. Before that, the water that was taken from the Goldbrunnen (Goldborn, 1380 m) on the Koppenplan had to be laboriously carried up in barrels. The cable was also an improvement to protect against lightning strikes, as it could be used to ground the lightning rod. Until then, the grounding had been set up using a strong copper cable that led to a spring 200 meters below on the edge of the Melzergrund .

Also in 1911, the Koppenhäuser received a telephone connection in addition to the Morse code , which was housed in the Prussian Baude, which was specially secured because of the increased risk of lightning. The exposed wire lines on the Koppe had to be constantly serviced, as they were exposed to all kinds of weather; they were safest in the deep snow during winter. In 1923/24 underground cables were laid.

First World War
The First World War had a very negative impact on tourism in the Giant Mountains. This was not so much due to the lack of guests, but rather to the fact that everything important to the war was drawn up by the Austrian army for deployment to the front. This affected staff, porters and horses. The maintenance of the Bauden therefore became more and more difficult as the war went on, and between 1916 and 1920 even the Prussian Baude had to be closed.

1918-1945

Reorganization of Europe
After the dissolution of the Danube Monarchy , the Bohemian Baude no longer belonged to Austria , but to the newly founded Czechoslovakia . Tourism then recovered only slowly from the crisis caused by the war. The Pohls had long since settled in Krummhübel and the transition from the monarchy to the republic in Bohemia did not initially seem to involve any difficulties for the operation of the hotels on the territory of two states. But after the land reform of 1927, the Czechoslovak authorities questioned the right to pump water out of the huge ground. There was also a rumor of the confiscation of the Bohemian lodge. Heinrich Pohl was able to avert these dangers thanks to good political contacts. Twenty years later, that would no longer work.

With the beginning of the global economic crisis, the decline of the hotel business began. During the 1930s, the growing striving for autonomy of the three and a half million Sudeten Germans led to extremely tense German-Czechoslovak relations, which in the run-up to the coming war culminated for the time being in the Sudeten crisis and ultimately led to the break-up of Czechoslovakia . After the annexation , the Czech post office in the Böhmische Baude was closed and it should stay that way for the next 55 years.

Second World War
The Second World War sealed the collapse . It was like a quarter of a century before: the staff was drafted, there was insufficient fuel and the food supply kept deteriorating. As a result, tourism decreased and in 1940 the Deutsche Baude was closed. From March 1943, the Deutsche Reichspost carried out extensive extensions and renovations. The buildings were electrified and a transmission and reception system for wireless telegraphy was built, which was taken over by the Wehrmacht . At the beginning of 1945 the Deutsche Baude was occupied by the Luftgau Command there in connection with the Battle of Breslau .

1945-1989

After the Second World War, the Bohemian building was confiscated by the People's Administration of the Czechoslovak Republic and business operations were immediately resumed. She shared this fate with most of the other Kammbauden, which the German Wehrmacht held fully or partially occupied during the war years. In this context, this expropriation was not at the beginning of the injustice, but was on the way to its continuation. The Pohl family, like the rest of the German population , was expelled from their homeland on July 1, 1947 under the Beneš decrees .

Construction of the first cable car
In the years that followed, tourism exploded and the technical development of the Schneekoppen summit was considered. According to the brothers Novak, the People's managers Bohemian cottage, the plan was then a cable car ride through the lion reason ( Lví dul ), but ultimately they decided on the route of Pec pod Sněžkou, the former sneak and a stopover on the mountain Růžová hora ( German Rosenberg ) up to Schneekoppe, which was now called Sněžka . Construction of the cable car began in 1946 and was completed for the entire length in 1949. The upper part of the railway caused difficulties again and again due to the unfavorable weather conditions, in the winter of 1962/63 the operation was interrupted due to icing, in 1968 the railway even collapsed.

In 1957, the German Baude - but now under the name Pruská bouda, alias Polish Baude - was demolished after it had previously been allowed to fall into disrepair, perhaps for nationalist reasons. Today the viewing platform is in its place. The bohemian cottage, which was now called Ceska Bouda , was unfortunately destined for a similar fate.

Construction of the Polish lodge
It was to take another seven years before construction work began in 1964 on the Polish observatory on the site of the former Prussian lodge. According to plans by architects Witold Lipinski and Waldemar Wawrzyniak, the 18-meter-high building consists of three flat cylinders arranged one above the other, each covered by a very flat dome. These “panes” are eccentrically offset from one another and connected to one another via a common tower-like staircase. The lowest building level has a diameter of 30 meters, the middle level of 20 meters. The top part of the building, in which the meteorological observatory is housed, closes the stairwell and has a circumferential balcony measuring 13 meters in diameter.

The shell construction could only be completed in the second half of 1969. In addition, it was necessary to build a new water supply, because the old water pipe, which leads up from the giant ground, was now in Czech hands. In 1974, the "Schronisko Na Śnieżce" with hostel and restaurant operations was inaugurated. Before the weather observations were resumed, it lasted until January 1, 1975.

Polish hut and weather station

The futuristic building on the Polish side was soon popularly known as "Flying Saucers" and aroused the envy of Czech neighbors. Ambitious prestige projects were soon planned, which provided for a new cable car and the replacement of the Bohemian Baude as the new "Czech Baude". It was not the first time that the blossoms of the nonsensical and nationalistic competition between Bohemia and Silesia came to light so openly. So people seriously thought about merging the “Ceska bouda” and the summit station of the lift under a hemisphere partially embedded in the ground into a single object. The “socialist brother states” were at least in agreement in one respect, namely the erasure of the German-speaking past.

Many different interests, here investors and party political forces, and there the administration of the KRNAP , supported by nature conservationists , clashed in the course of the decades of back and forth planning and ultimately did not lead to a final result until recently. And so, from the 1970s, the urgently needed renovation work on the Böhmische Baude was only implemented half-heartedly.

1989-2000

Czech post office kiosk

In 1989 the former Prussian weather station from the turn of the century was finally torn down. And in 1990 everything was too late for the former Bohemian Baude as well. It was closed because of the hygienic conditions that were no longer tenable; the wooden structure was infested with wooden sponge and the ceiling above the veranda collapsed. Therefore a new place had to be found for the Czech post office. On the initiative of the former postmaster from Velká Úpa, the old postal tradition was to be resurrected and the Czech post office was reopened on August 24, 1994 in the kiosk between the cottage and the chapel, formerly known as the “witch's house”.

A last attempt to save the Czech alias Bohemian building and to declare it a national monument failed in 1992 (the Foundation for the Rescue of the Bohemian Building made a corresponding application to the Ministry of Culture). But the following building inspections only underlined the miserable condition of the building fabric.

21st century

After many more years and unsuccessful attempts at privatization, the city administration of Pec pod Sněžkou, which had meanwhile become the owner of the more than just ailing Bohemian building, commissioned the demolition in May 2003. In September and October of the same year, this order was put into practice. It had been agreed to leave the basement of the old building standing and only remove the dilapidated part above, but several hundred tons of material had to be transported into the valley by cable car and helicopter.

Construction of the new Czech post office

New Czech post office
on the right the wall of the old basement

In August 2008, instead of the old hut, the New Czech Post Office was built with a flat roof that serves as a viewing platform on a floor plan of 17 x 4.5 meters. It is a modern, two-story building made of wood, steel and glass that rests on only 12 steel feet. The construction method without an actual foundation has the advantage of an extraordinarily light construction that, without concrete , mortar or other cement-based binding agents, takes into account the aspects of nature conservation. What is special about the upper floor are the all-round glazed outer walls, which are protected by hydraulically operated wooden shutters. Depending on the weather, the character of the building can be completely changed with this blind system. When the sun shines, the shutters open and the house becomes transparent. In bad weather, the blinds remain "closed" and make the building look like a mountain hut. The basement is housed in the former cellar of the Böhmische Baude and houses the utilities. The development plan also provided for the demolition of the provisional post office in the witch's house, which was also carried out in 2008.

A near disaster
In March 2009, the “Polish Baude” was badly damaged by the weather. In the course of two months, a meter-thick ice accumulation had formed on all buildings on the summit. The “saucers” of the Polish mines were particularly hard hit because of their highly fragmented architecture. When a strong storm came up on March 15 with speeds of up to 140 km per hour, the metal struts of the construction made frightening noises, so that the decision was made to evacuate the building. On the night of March 16, the extremely icy balcony in front of the meteorological station could no longer withstand the ice load and broke off. The floor of the station was also swept away.
The following day the enormous damage became apparent and there was fear that the top part of the building would fall onto the one below. After this could be ruled out, facade climbers from a company from Wroclaw began demolishing the meteorological station without scaffolding. The building was restored to its original state in October 2009.