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Bohemian history
Just a few kilometres beyond the Hammergut, Bohemia begins – and the history of Bohemia and the Czech side is closely intertwined with our own. Slavic tribes settled along the Elbe from the 6th century, the Přemyslids made Bohemia a kingdom, Emperor Charles IV ruled the Holy Roman Empire from Prague, and for a long time even Pirna and Königstein belonged to the Bohemian crown. Then came the Hussite Wars, almost 400 years of Habsburg rule, Czechoslovakia in 1918, the hard years from 1938 to 1946, communism, the Velvet Revolution in 1989 and the peaceful separation from Slovakia in 1993. Today the border is open – you can simply walk across. Shall I start from the beginning?
Slavic tribes on the Elbe
From around AD 550, Slavic groups migrated into the Bohemian basin; in the 7th century they joined a tribal union under the Frank Samo, who died in 658. Anyone travelling up the Elbe from Saxon Switzerland today passes through former tribal territories known from the boundary description of the Diocese of Prague, handed down by the chronicler Cosmas: among those named are the Dasena – usually identified with the Děčané around Tetschen/Děčín – the Liutomerici around Leitmeritz, the Lemuzi, the Lučané and the Pšované. The charter is dated 1086, but according to current interpretation it describes the situation around 973; the dating is disputed.
The Lučané, the people of Leitmeritz and the Přemyslids
According to Cosmas, the Lučané lived in north-western Bohemia and bordered the territory of the Leitmeritz tribe near Lovosice. He tells of a war waged by the Lučané against the Czechs under Duke Neklan, which the Lučané lost – a half-legendary tale that was only written down around 1100. What is certain is that in the 10th century the Prague Přemyslids gradually brought the individual tribes under their rule, and by around 995 they governed the whole of Bohemia.
Great Moravia, Christianisation and Saint Wenceslas
In the 9th century Bohemia was under the influence of the Great Moravian Empire. The Přemyslid Bořivoj I was baptised in 874 by Archbishop Methodius and is regarded as the first Christian duke of Bohemia; in 895 the Bohemian princes broke away from Moravia and swore allegiance to the East Frankish King Arnulf. Duke Wenceslas, later the country’s patron saint, was murdered – the sources give 929 or 935. With the founding of the Diocese of Prague (973), Christianity was firmly rooted in the land.
Tetschen
a border castle above the Elbe ford: People were already living in the Děčín/Tetschen basin in the Late Bronze Age. In the 10th century the Přemyslids built a wooden fortification on the rock where the castle stands today, controlling an important ford across the Elbe and the river traffic; the castle is first mentioned in 1128. In the 13th century a stone castle was built – according to Czech accounts around 1249, under Hermann von Schönburg on behalf of King Wenceslas I.
Leitmeritz
the church centre of the north: Leitmeritz/Litoměřice takes its name from the Slavic Litoměřici and had already become a fortified administrative centre of the Přemyslids in the 10th century. Around 1057 Duke Spytihněv II had the stone church of St Stephen built on the castle hill and founded a collegiate chapter, which received, among other things, revenues from the Elbe tolls. Around 1225 the town was laid out on a planned grid around a market square; the grain trade, fruit growing and wine making made it prosperous – to this day the area is called the “Garden of Bohemia”.
The kingdom, Ottokar II and German settlers
Ottokar I Přemysl received the royal title in 1198, and on 26 September 1212 the “Golden Bull of Sicily” issued by Frederick II made it hereditary. Under Ottokar II (King 1253–1278) Bohemia reached its greatest extent. In the 12th and 13th centuries the Přemyslids recruited settlers from Bavaria, Franconia, Upper Saxony and Silesia, above all for the border regions – which is how Bohemian Switzerland, too, was opened up by German-speaking farmers from the 12th century onwards. Ottokar II fell in 1278 at the Battle of Dürnkrut against Rudolf of Habsburg.
Aussig, Graupen and Peterswald
Aussig/Ústí nad Labem is mentioned in 993 as a trading place on the Elbe and became a royal town under Magdeburg law in the 13th century. On the edge of the Ore Mountains, Graupen/Krupka castle was probably built around 1300 – first recorded in 1330 – to protect the tin mines and the trade route to Saxony. Peterswald/Petrovice on the old pass road to Saxony, today the border crossing beyond Bahratal, is first mentioned in 1352, when it was owned by the lords of Wartenberg.
When Pirna and Königstein were Bohemian
What is Saxon today belonged for a long time in the Middle Ages to the Crown of Bohemia. In 1241 King Wenceslas I sealed a document “in lapide regis” – “on the King’s stone” – and that is where the name Königstein comes from. Pirna passed to Bohemia in 1293. Only in the course of the Dohna Feud did Pirna (1404/05) and Königstein (1408) fall to the Margraves of Meissen, a transfer finally sealed in 1459 by the Treaty of Eger.
Charles IV
Prague as an imperial city: Charles IV of the House of Luxembourg, born in Prague in 1316, became King of the Romans in 1346, King of Bohemia in 1347 and Emperor in 1355. He made Prague the imperial residence and a centre of Europe: in 1348 he founded the university, and he had St Vitus Cathedral and the Charles Bridge built. The Golden Bull of 1356 governed the election of the king and remained the fundamental law of the Empire until 1806 – the King of Bohemia was one of the seven Prince-Electors. Under Charles, Pirna and Königstein still belonged to Bohemia, and the Elbe linked his kingdom with the trade downstream.
Jan Hus and the Hussites on the Elbe
The Prague reform preacher Jan Hus was burned as a heretic at the Council of Constance on 6 July 1415. The Defenestration of Prague in 1419 sparked the Hussite Wars, which only ended with the Compacts of 1433/1436. Jan Žižka besieged Leitmeritz in 1420, Graupen castle was destroyed in 1429, and on their campaigns into Saxony the Hussites burned large parts of Dresden to the ground in 1429, including Altendresden.
The Battle of Aussig, 1426
From 26 May 1426 the Hussites besieged Aussig. A Saxon-Thuringian relief army was to free the town, and on 16 June 1426 the two armies met on the Na Běhání heights outside the town. The Saxons suffered a crushing defeat – the figures vary widely, but some 500 fallen noblemen are documented, among them the Burgrave of Meissen, Heinrich II. Aussig surrendered the following day and was destroyed; five weeks later the Saxons drove the Hussites out again.
The Wartenbergs, rock castles and robber knights
In 1305/06 King Wenceslas III gave Tetschen castle to the lords of Wartenberg, who held it until 1511. The rock castle of Šaunštejn (Schauenstein) in Bohemian Switzerland was built at the end of the 14th century by the Berka of Dubá family; from 1435 it belonged to the Wartenbergs, who launched raids from there. In response, the Wettins and the Upper Lusatian League of Six Towns besieged the castle several times and destroyed it. A Wartenberg castle near Tyssa/Tisá was also lost in the Hussite Wars.
George of Poděbrady and the border of 1459
George of Poděbrady, a moderate Hussite, was elected King of Bohemia in 1458. On 25 April 1459 he concluded the Treaty of Eger with the Saxon Wettins: the border now ran “along the heights of the Ore Mountains and the middle of the Elbe”, and Pirna, Königstein and Dohna remained with Saxony. For the most part this border still applies today – it is one of the oldest in Europe. The treaty was sealed with a marriage: Poděbrady’s daughter Sidonie (Zdeňka) became the wife of Albert the Bold, the founding father of the Albertine Wettins.
The Jagiellonians and the road to the Habsburgs
After Poděbrady’s death, the Estates elected the Jagiellonian Vladislaus II as king in 1471; in 1490 he also became King of Hungary. In Tetschen the lords changed: in 1511 the Trčkas, in 1515 the Salhausens, in 1534 the Saxon lords of Bünau. When Vladislaus’s son Louis II fell fighting the Ottomans at the Battle of Mohács on 29 August 1526, the Bohemian Estates elected Ferdinand I of Habsburg as king on 22 October 1526 – the beginning of almost 400 years of Habsburg rule.
The Habsburgs and Saxon noble lords
Under the Habsburgs, Saxon noble families often set the tone in the borderlands along the Elbe: in the 16th century the lords of Bünau converted Tetschen castle into a Renaissance palace, and in 1554–1557 they built Schloss Schönstein near Tyssa, with a Protestant church and school. Through these connections Lutheranism also spread to Aussig. In 1609 Emperor Rudolf II guaranteed the Protestants religious freedom in his Letter of Majesty.
The Estates’ revolt and the White Mountain
With the Defenestration of Prague in 1618, the predominantly Protestant Bohemian Estates rose up against the Habsburgs and elected Frederick V of the Palatinate as their king. On 8 November 1620 they were defeated at the Battle of the White Mountain near Prague – the first great battle of the Thirty Years’ War. The “Winter King” fled, on 21 June 1621, 27 leaders were executed in the Old Town Square, and with the Renewed Land Ordinance of 1627 Bohemia became a hereditary monarchy and Catholic once again.
The Thirty Years’ War in the borderlands
The war hit the border villages hard: in 1631 Croatian troops burned down Tyssa and Schönstein, and the Swedes plundered there in the same year; Schönstein was never rebuilt. Aussig, too, was repeatedly ravaged by Saxon and Swedish troops from 1631 onwards. The Protestant Bünaus had to sell Tetschen in 1628 to the Catholic Counts of Thun, who then owned the castle for around 300 years; Herrnskretschen (Hřensko) passed to the Princes of Clary-Aldringen.
Exiles
religious refugees in Saxony: Anyone who refused to become Catholic had to leave Bohemia – an estimated 150,000 people went into exile from the Habsburg lands, most of them from Bohemia. Many fled to neighbouring Electoral Saxony, and the border town of Pirna became the first centre: in 1629 more than 2,000 Protestant refugees were living there. The Czech-speaking exile congregation later moved on to Dresden, and after the war dedicated exile towns were founded, such as Johanngeorgenstadt.
1813
Napoleon in Peterswald: During the War of Liberation in 1813, the border mountains between Pirna and Teplitz became a theatre of war. Russian troops camped in Peterswald and were pursued by the French under General Vandamme; Napoleon himself spent three nights in Peterswald, and plundering laid the village waste. On 30 August 1813 neighbouring Nollendorf (Nakléřov) became famous through the Battle of Kulm and Nollendorf.
The Empire, 1848 and industry on the Elbe
From 1804 Bohemia belonged to the Austrian Empire, and from 1867 it was a crown land of Austria-Hungary – the empire whose traces you can still see in Bohemian Switzerland today (I would be happy to tell you more about the imperial era). In the revolutionary year of 1848 the Slavic Congress met in Prague; the Prague Whitsun Uprising was put down, but the emancipation of the peasants remained. After that, Aussig became an industrial centre: coal, around 1850/51 the railway to Prague and Dresden, from 1856 one of the most important chemical companies in Europe, and a large Elbe harbour. In Peterswald and Tyssa many people made their living from weaving and button making.
1918
Czechoslovakia is born: With the collapse of Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia was proclaimed in Prague on 28 October 1918; on 14 November Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk became its president. The roughly 3.5 million Germans in the border regions wanted to belong to German Austria and on 29 October proclaimed the provinces of “German Bohemia” and “Sudetenland”; from 13 November the Czechoslovak army occupied these areas. The young republic remained a stable democracy, and from 1926 German ministers also sat in the government – but during the Great Depression, in 1935, Konrad Henlein’s Sudeten German Party became the strongest party.
The Munich Agreement and the Protectorate
In the night of 29 to 30 September 1938, Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini signed the Munich Agreement – without Czechoslovakia. From 1 October 1938 the Wehrmacht marched into the border regions; Aussig, Tetschen, Tyssa and Peterswald became part of the German Reich. On 15 March 1939 Germany also occupied the rest of the Czech lands and set up the “Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia”. In the Treaty of Prague of 1973, the Federal Republic of Germany declared the Munich Agreement null and void.
1945
the end of the war and the expulsions: After the war ended, the Germans had to leave the country: in the “wild expulsions” from May to July 1945 some 750,000 people were driven out, and from January 1946 around 2.26 million were resettled in an organised manner. The basis for this included the Beneš decrees. According to estimates by the German-Czech Commission of Historians, between 15,000 and 30,000 people died violent deaths in the process. In Aussig an ammunition depot exploded on 31 July 1945, after which German civilians were attacked and killed – the number of victims is still disputed today. Since 2005 a bilingual memorial plaque on the Elbe bridge has commemorated these events.
Empty villages on the border
The expulsions fundamentally changed the border villages. In 1930 Tyssa still had 1,867 inhabitants, almost all German-speaking – by 2006 there were 747. In the Kirnitzschtal, Hinterdittersbach (Zadní Jetřichovice) had to be cleared in 1946 – formerly a popular hiking destination with four inns; today only overgrown cellar remains and bilingual information boards recall it. Many border villages were resettled. If you walk across the border today, you will still come across such traces in many places.
Communism and the Prague Spring
With the February coup of 1948, the Communists seized power; from 1960 the state was called the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR). In 1968 the Party under Alexander Dubček attempted “socialism with a human face”. In the night leading into 21 August 1968, Warsaw Pact troops put an end to the “Prague Spring”; the GDR’s National People’s Army stood ready in Saxony but did not march in. Afterwards Soviet soldiers moved into Schloss Tetschen, among other places – and stayed until 1991.
1968
tanks through the Bielatal: The Prague Spring was witnessed in the Bielatal too: according to the Jäger family, Soviet tanks rolled through the valley towards the border during the invasion in August 1968. In the night of 20 to 21 August 1968, around 400,000 soldiers with more than 6,000 tanks invaded Czechoslovakia. From the GDR, the Soviet 20th Guards Army and the 1st Guards Tank Army advanced into northern Bohemia and on to Prague; very close by that night, for example, tanks crossed the border at Hřensko opposite Schmilka. The NVA held two divisions in readiness but was not allowed to join the invasion – the memory of 1938/39 would have been too close. On 21 August the GDR closed its border crossings, including Zinnwald, Bad Schandau and Schmilka; on the Czech side, flags hung at half-mast and posters protested against the “friends” who had come in the night.
A holiday destination for East Germans, and autumn 1989
From January 1972, citizens of the GDR could travel to the ČSSR with just their identity card – and Bohemian Switzerland became a popular excursion destination. In the autumn of 1989 thousands of East Germans sought refuge in the West German embassy in Prague. After Genscher’s famous announcement on 30 September, special trains ran to the West from 1 October via Bad Schandau and Dresden – right here through the Elbe valley. When further trains followed on 4 and 5 October, thousands pushed their way into Dresden’s main station. The GDR then introduced a visa requirement for travel to the ČSSR, lifting it again on 1 November 1989 – just a few days before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The Velvet Revolution and the Velvet Divorce
On 17 November 1989, eight days after the fall of the Wall, police in Prague violently broke up a student demonstration – the start of the “Velvet Revolution”. Two days later the Civic Forum was formed, on 27 November a general strike brought the country to a standstill, and on 29 December 1989 Václav Havel became President; from December the border fortifications were dismantled. After the 1992 elections Václav Klaus and Vladimír Mečiar agreed on separation, and on 1 January 1993 two states peacefully came into being, the Czech Republic and Slovakia – even though, according to opinion polls, a majority had wanted to keep the common state.
New neighbours without a barrier
As early as 1992 the Euroregion Elbe/Labe was founded in Ústí nad Labem, linking northern Bohemia with Saxon Switzerland and the eastern Ore Mountains. The Czech Republic joined NATO in 1999 and the EU on 1 May 2004; since 21 December 2007 there have been no more border controls. Payment is still made in Czech crowns. In Hřensko and Petrovice, border markets – often run by Vietnamese traders – now shape the look of the villages, and since 2006 Petrovice has had its own exit on the Prague–Dresden motorway.
As of: 10/2026
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