Bohemian Netherlands
The Bohemian Netherlands , also called Schluckenauer Zipfel ( Czech Šluknovský výběžek ) is a landscape name on the German-Czech border. The Czech "tip", surrounded by German territory, is located in the north of the Czech Republic between the Elbe Sandstone Mountains and the Lusatian Mountains . Administratively it belongs to the Okres Děčín . The area was once densely populated. The largest places are Varnsdorf (Warnsdorf) , Rumburk (Rumburg) and Šluknov (Schluckenau) .
Sightseeing and tourism
Since the Thirty Years' War, the region has been a cultural region shaped by Catholicism and profitable small-scale textile trade. This is shown by the numerous baroque churches with the associated cemeteries, chapels, cloisters and places of pilgrimage . One of the most famous places of pilgrimage in the region is Annaberg (Anenský vrch) in Lobendava ( Lobendava ) with the Annenkapelle, which is the scene of the Annaberg Festival every year. Many of these sacred sites were created on the mountains of the region. The region's large baroque churches are also striking; they can be found in every larger town. Varnsdorf has been a center of the Old Catholic Church since the times of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy .
There are also various architectural monuments from the feudal era . Most of the palace complexes were either destroyed or left to decay. Castle ruins can be found in the old town of Schluckenau and hidden in Hainspach . These await further refurbishment and renovation work as target points to promote tourism . Historically, it is hardly known today, "... that in the epoch from 1470 to 1620, after all 150 years, a kind of 'private Ländchen' existed in the region between Oberlausitzer Bergland and Schluckenauer Zipfel. The so-called 'Schleinitzer Ländchen' At the time it embodied a coherent international property of a larger area. The property was founded by the electoral Saxon noble family von Schleinitz and extended geographically over three politically independent territories: Kingdom of Bohemia , Electorate of Saxony and Margraviate of Upper Lusatia or Sechsstädteland .... Under Heinrich (von Schleinitz ) the little Ländchen (around 1513) with 13.5 square miles (QM, according to modern conversion about 756 km² total area) reached its greatest extent. Thus the Schleinitzer Ländchen was comparatively somewhat smaller than the largest German island Rügen with 926 km² (quoted L Mohr 2020, pp. 84ff). Residences of the Schleinitz rulership t were: Schluckenau , Rumburg and Hainspach .
Also worth seeing are the wooden houses in the region, which, like on the German side of the border, were built as half- timbered houses , but also partly as block houses. Due to the proximity to Germany, the cross-border tourism infrastructure in the region is quite well developed.
The Bohemian Netherlands landscape is connected to Bohemian Switzerland . A national park house with parking spaces is located in Krásná Lípa . In the east there is access to the Zittau Mountains with its rock formations and health resorts .
population
The area previously almost completely inhabited by German Bohemia was not settled to the same extent with new Czech settlers after they were expelled as a result of the Second World War. Some localities were therefore given up . Today's population is only a seventh of the pre-war level. Around a fifth are Roma . Trying to make them resident in the region often led to social problems. For some years there has been an increasing tendency for Roma to migrate to the region from other parts of the country, while Czechs are leaving.
economy
Little is left of the economic structure that was well established before 1945. Many of the resident businesses were confiscated in 1945, are not very productive and hardly receive any investment. The primary economy also needs funding . Currently, a large part of the agricultural land in the Schluckenauer Zipfel lies fallow and is overgrown by wood. There are initiatives of the European Union to plan a cross-border, agricultural structural development with the help of the government of the Czech Republic, for which, however, there is a lack of experts. The mountainous region is separated from the Bohemian Basin around Prague by the Lusatian Mountains, and all traffic routes have to overcome their high altitude. During Czechoslovakia, this separation had a very negative effect on the development of the depopulated region in the north of Bohemia over the past 60 years. The economic situation in the region is precarious. The investments made in the Czech Republic primarily benefit the core Bohemian region. The proximity to the border with Germany has so far hardly had any positive effects. The economic situation in the neighboring part of Saxony is also unfavorable and the infrastructural connection of the region is poor. Many residents leave the area to find work opportunities in the central Czech region around Prague or abroad. A large part of the local residential houses are now only used as weekend and holiday homes or are in ruins.
Cross-border relationships
The mayors of the Czech border towns in Schluckenau Zipfel - Šluknov (Schluckenau) and Jiříkov (Georgswalde) - founded together with their colleagues from the German (Saxon) border municipalities in southern Upper Lusatia - Friedersdorf (Spree) , Neusalza-Spremberg and Oppach - in 2000 in Šluknov the cross-border communal German-Czech association of the five-community in order to build up and further develop friendship and cooperation in the border region under new social conditions. Sohland an der Spree (2008) and the Spree source town Ebersbach-Neugersdorf (2011) also joined the loose association . The Jüttelberg (Jitrovník) near the border between Neusalza-Spremberg and Königswalde (Království) has developed into a popular meeting place for residents of the international five-community community and an excursion destination for hikers in the border region. On September 27th, 2015 the 14th “Jüttelberg-Treffen” took place, on June 9th, 2019 the “18th meeting of all lovers of our area and nature ... on the Jüttelsberg in Schluckenau, where the event 'Music connects neighbors 'takes place ".
literature
- Andreas Bültemeier: Hikes in the Lusatian Mountains and the Bohemian Netherlands. Spitzkunnersdorf: Oberlausitzer Verlag Frank Nürnberger 2005, ISBN 3-933827-29-9
- Manfred Jeremies, Gerd Ritschel: The natural environment in the Schluckenauer Zipfel. in: Reports of the natural research society of Upper Lusatia. Volume 19, Görlitz 2011, pp. 3–16 ( digitized version )
- Milan Kořinek: Chronicle of the five parishes. The first ten years . German and Czech. German translation: Ingrid Pajerova. Šluknov o. J. (2011), ERDF project - Fund for Small Projects Objective 3 2007–2013.
- Helene Jahn-Langen : The Bohemian Netherlands. Population and social structure of an industrial village landscape . Research on German regional studies, Volume 117. With 14 maps and 4 diagrams. 70 S. Bad Godesberg: Federal Institute for Regional Studies and Spatial Research. Self-published in 1961.
- Lutz Mohr : 15 years of Fünfgemeinde / Petimesti, Germany-Czech Republic (2000-2015) , in: Official Journal of the Administrative Association for the City of Neusalza-Spremberg with the Friedersdorf district and the communities Dürrhennersdorf and Schönbach, Part 1, 20/2015/9 (September ), Pp. 5-6; Part 2, 20/2015/10 (October), pp. 6-7; Part 3, 20/2015/11 (November), pp. 13-14
- Lutz Mohr: The "Schleinitzer Ländchen" between Lausitzer Bergland and Schluckenauer Zipfel - an episode in German-Czech history. In: Frank Nürnbergers Oberlausitzer Heimatkalender 2020, previously Oberlausitzer Familien-Kalenderbuch published by Oberlausitzer Verlag , ed. by Frank Nürnberger. Spitzkunnersdorf 2019, pp. 84–87, ISBN 978-3-9818434-4-6
- Lutz Mohr: SHAPING HISTORY-FATE. In search of historical traces between Oberlausitzer Bergland and Schluckenauer Zipfel . Zittau: Oberlausitzer Verlag (owner: Dr. Andreas Gehrt) 2019, 236 p., Numerous. Fig., Lit., ISBN 978-3-946795-22-3
- Hans von Polenz: The railway from the Spree to Bohemia. Border history between Kottmar and Jedlova (Tannenberg). in German, e.g. T. Czech. Ed .: Ostsächsische Eisenbahnfreunde eV in Löbau (Saxony) 2002. (Funding by EU , INTERREG III A project, Euroregion Neisse (Nisa))
- Gitta Rummler: Pilgrimage sites in the North Bohemian Netherlands. Netherlands booklets. Issue 20/1996, series of publications by the Federation of the Dutch, Netherlands-Verlag Helmut Michel, Backnang 1996, ISBN 3-923947-23-2 .
- Rudolf Tilke: Chronicle of the North Bohemian Netherlands. Photos: Milan Holenda. Rumburk: Verlag Milan Holenda 1998, 168 p., Numerous. Fig.
Individual evidence
- ^ Karl-Peter Schwarz: Roma in the Czech Republic: Dispute in the Zipfel , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 1, 2011.