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History of the vanished village Libná
The village of Libná lies north of the Adršpach Rocks in a promontory surrounded on three sides by the state border with Poland. Until 80 years ago it was a place where people lived and farmed. Now, walking through the desolate romantic valley, we can only guess from certain traces in the terrain (uneven ground, clumps of trees and bushes, building foundations, remnants of cellars) and a few small religious monuments that there were houses on both sides of the road. From old postcards, maps and literature we can then get an idea of what the village might have looked like.
The site was probably settled at the beginning of the 14th century in the northern part near the state border, where a settlement of hunters and charcoal burners called Helgendorf was established. As the population increased, water shortages threatened and the settlers moved lower down into the valley through which the stream flows. This is probably the origin of the German name of the village Liebenau, Libnow, Libná in Czech. In German it is a compound name: the adjective lieben = dear and die Aue means meadow on wetter soil, meadow, but also floodplain, which is a meadow by a watercourse.
The first written mention of this name appears in 1576 in the land records in connection with the purchase of the Adršpach-Skala estate by members of the Bohdanecký family from Hodkov. In addition to the three ruined castles of Skály, Střmen and Adršpach, the manor included the villages of Zdoňov, Svatoňov (an extinct village near Zdoňov), Horní and Dolní Adršpach, Hodkovice, Janovice and Libná. From that time until 1848 Libná was part of the Adršpach estate, which was governed and administered from the castle in Dolní Adršpach (built by Adam Abraham Bohdanecký of Hodkov after 1590). Spiritually, Libná belonged to the parish in Zdoňov, which means that the faithful attended the church in Zdoňov, where weddings, baptisms and funerals took place. The deceased inhabitants of Libná were buried in the cemetery in Zdoňov. All these important life events were recorded from the 17th century onwards in the registers kept by the parish priest in Zdoňov. The administration of the village was handled by the town crier and two constables, who together supervised the observance of the rights of the upper classes, collected taxes, checked the observance of labour obligations, resolved neighbourly conflicts and also settled court disputes, unless they were criminal offences. These could only be judged by the authorities. The town clerk had a municipal seal with a fox on it. The office of the town crier was lifelong and later hereditary. The earliest known advocate was Hanns Schreyber in 1686.
During the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) Libná, like most of the villages in the Czech Kingdom, was burnt and plundered several times by the army, so that after the end of the war there was a great loss of population. Between 1652 and 1654, when an inventory of land and serfs in Bohemia was taken - the so-called Berní rula - Libná, as the smallest village of the Adršpach estate, had only ten families: three peasant and seven cottage families, and there were 14 ruined and ruined buildings. Gradually, as life returned to normal, the village was restored and grew and a hundred years later there were 43 farmers with families living in 19 houses. In Johann Gottfried Sommer's topography "Das Königreich Böhmen" (The Kingdom of Bohemia) from 1836, it is mentioned that Libná had a school (from 1822), a pub, a wine bar with a dance hall, a manor house and a grove. There were 456 inhabitants in 77 houses. In the meantime, various owners changed the estate, of whom the Nádherní of Borutín, who lived in Dolní Adršpach between 1828 and 1945, had the most significant impact on the life of the inhabitants of Adršpach and therefore Libná. They devoted a considerable part of their wealth to social and humanitarian projects, supported the education of their subjects, introduced modern farming and fruit-growing methods, and spent considerable sums on health and poor care.
At that time, Libná, as well as the entire Adršpach, Teplice and Broumov regions, had a population of German nationality. It is interesting that each region used a specific dialect, Mundart, in German, in addition to the written German. This dialect has not yet completely died out and is called "Braunsch".
Social activities
The year 1848 and the events that followed changed the life of the inhabitants in Libná. The most important change was the abolition of serfdom, when the serfs became free citizens. This was followed by a major reform in 1850, when manors were abolished and private estates were created, and new territorial units called districts were created. The basic unit of the state became the free municipality. The abolition of strict censorship and laws that prevented free association accelerated the development of civil society, and one of its most important manifestations was the establishment of associations. Probably the oldest was the Veterans' Association, founded in 1874, which brought together retired veterans from the Adršpach region and included veterans from Dolní Adršpach, Libná and Zdoňov. The main focus of this association was to help war veterans and war-affected families. The most important and most active association in the village was the volunteer firefighters, because the danger of fire had always existed and its consequences were always disastrous if it was not extinguished in time. The association was founded in 1880. As Libná was mainly an agricultural village surrounded by forests, an agricultural and forestry association was established there. The purpose of this association was to support local farmers, for example by obtaining agricultural raw materials on favourable terms from suppliers, while hunting was also open to non-born landowners, whereas until 1866 only the nobility had the privilege to carry out this activity.
Then followed associations according to various interests, such as the local theatre amateur actors, founded probably after World War I, whose activities are documented in the literature until 1938. Theatrical performances in Libná were staged in the large ballroom of the 'Lesní zátiší' inn, mostly in the winter months. They were said to be well attended not only by visitors from the Broumov or Trutnov regions, but also from neighbouring Prussia. It is also worth mentioning here that this inn had a summer veranda and a bowling alley and stood on the road to Schömberg (now Chelmsko Slaskie).
Sports enthusiasts became members of the gymnastic or Turner association (Deutscher Turnverein) in Upper Adršpach, which also brought together athletes from Libeň and Lower Adršpach. It is said that the impulse for its foundation was given in 1898 by a march of the Broumov gymnastic association, which went from Teplice nad Metují to Krčmov in Upper Adršpach. There, its members gave a "demonstration lesson in gymnastics" and aroused general enthusiasm. The local athletes then regularly participated in gymnastic performances in the vicinity, in Teplice, Stárkov or directly in Horní Adršpach. Turners also organised theatre performances and took care of maintaining folk customs, such as public singing of folk songs or burning midsummer bonfires. The German gymnastic societies had a 'spiritual father of gymnastics', Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778-1852), who wanted to give the German population confidence and a sense of belonging when exercising. He can be compared to the founders of the Czech Sokol, Miroslav Tyrš and Jindřich Fügner, because he pursued the same goal as they did.
After the First World War, when the Czechoslovak Republic was established, German-speaking inhabitants still associated themselves in associations such as the Union of Germans in Bohemia or the German Cultural Association, which played an important role in strengthening German identity and boosting national self-confidence. Local groups of these two associations were active in Libeň. The latter two associations, like the "Turners", had a hidden national character, which was particularly evident in the 1930s, after the rise of Nazism in neighbouring Germany. The societies in the border region and thus also in Libeň mostly forcibly ceased their activities at the end of 1938, when the whole area became part of Germany.
Over old postcards and photographs...
Libná was and still is interesting and exceptional in its location and shape, but we can only get an idea of its appearance from surviving postcards and photographs (you can see them in the book "Adršpach region" by Tomáš Dimter and Pavel Lisák or "Broumov region" by Petr Bergmann) and also from old directories. Life in the village is vividly described in a book by Waltraut Schmied from 1985, published in Forchheim: Die Gemeinden Merkelsdorf und Liebenau (The Municipalities of Zdoňov and Libná).
The development in Libná was loosely connected to the end of Zdoňov and stretched for about 4km along a shallow valley to the state border. The centre of the village can be found only by the pond and the statue of St. John of Nepomuk. Probably the oldest lithograph from 1898, however, shows a different Libeň: we can see into the courtyard of Marie Steindler's famous wine bar, where pilgrims refresh themselves in the garden and stagecoaches arrive. Another view shows that this wine bar used to be located near the pond on the edge of the village square, on the road leading to Chelmsko. Its history dates back to the end of the 17th century, when the building was both a tavern and an inn. The inn had the number 14 and many owners changed, the last being Liborius Fischer, who owned the inn and wine bar until 1945. This establishment is said to have offered car hire. The Lesní zátiší inn, also on the road to Chelmsko, was also very well known and was often depicted on postcards. They show how its owner, Johann Kostial, prospered when the original thatched-roof building was first joined by a wooden veranda and a bowling alley, and then in the 1920s the inn was rebuilt and extended to include a theatre and dance hall where balls, theatre performances and other festivities were held. Another famous restaurant was the so-called Vorwerk. There used to be an after-service yard (German "Vorwerk"), where it is said that farming was most successful because the fields were more fertile, larger in size and on relatively flat terrain. A postcard from 1910, marked A. Kadletz, Gasthaus am kalten Vorwerk (Gasthaus am kalten Vorwerk), shows a simple building that does not resemble an inn, although it is said to have been visited by guests from as far away as Trutnov. In the Directory of the so-called political district of Broumov, Bohemia from 1907/8 we read that at that time Libná had 519 inhabitants in 90 houses, there was a municipal office, a two-class school with 96 pupils, and 4 inns. There were also 6 linen trades, 3 linen merchants, a baker, a bottled beer seller, a butcher and a smoker, a general store, 2 grocers, a miller, a blacksmith, 2 shoemakers, 3 tobacco sellers or tobacconists, 2 cabinetmakers, a wheelwright, a tailor, a ladies' dressmaker and a painter. From other sources, I add that the inhabitants of Libná grew potatoes and flax, also made a living by basketry, broom making, feather plucking in winter, and worked in the forest (this included not only cutting down and planting trees, but also grooming forest paths, maintaining watercourses, and chasing game during hunts).
The directory also mentions 6 trades engaged in stonework. Tomáš Dimter writes in his book "Adršpach region" that sandstone mining and processing has been carried out here since the end of the 18th century. The 1901 inventory of Austro-Hungarian quarries lists six quarries in Libná. Among the oldest families who earned their living by quarrying and processing stone were the Gansels, Siegels and Ringels. The quarries were used to break blocks and slabs of chalky greenish-yellow sandstone, which were used for building, artistic and industrial purposes. However, this sandstone was also suitable for small stonework such as door frames, pavements, fence posts and religious monuments. The quality of the sandstone in Libná can be seen from the fact that the sculptor Emil Schwantner from Trutnov used it for his sculpture and stonework. Several photographs from the local quarry have been preserved showing the sculptor together with the stonemasons.
Quarries in Libná, statues and monuments, Emil Schwantner
Libná was famous for its quarries, whose stone was of high quality and suitable for creating building elements, sculptures and other works of art. That is why the important sculptor Emil Schwantner from Trutnov often came here between the two wars. I will not go into his life and work in detail here, but only mention what concerns Libeň and Zdoňov. Tomáš Dimter and Pavel Lisák wrote about Emil Schwantner in their book "Adršpach", published in 2011. In the same year, a series of articles by Petr Hnyk was published in the monthly magazine "Broumovsky Newsletter" No. 2-6/2011 (this magazine can still be found on the Internet). In 2018, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, a book "Nevrátili se - mrtvi jsou" by Věra Vlčková and Jan Čížek was published, which documents in detail the monuments and plaques to the victims of the First World War in the Náchod district. In 2020, Petr Bergman prepared and realised an exhibition of photographs that summarised the life and work of Emil Schwantner with the support of the City of Teplice nad Metují. The exhibition was installed in the meeting hall of the town hall and was widely visited by those interested in the history of the region throughout the summer, including during the International Mountaineering Film Festival. In 2022, this exhibition was turned into a monograph of the artist entitled "Fates written with a chisel", also published by Peter Bergmann. All of the above publications and the book of old postcards "Broumovsko" by Petr Bergmann can be borrowed or viewed in the Teplice library.
Most of Emil Schwantner's works were senselessly destroyed after World War II in 1945. But even what escaped destruction and survived to this day testifies to the importance of the artist of German nationality. Emil Schwantner was an anti-fascist and created the monuments to the fallen as a warning against the horrors of war that he himself experienced on the front in World War I. It is hard to imagine what he experienced when he witnessed the destruction of his statues in 1945. Completely broken himself, he voluntarily chose to leave for Germany, where he died in 1956. One of the few surviving memorials created in memory of the fallen in World War I is located in Libná, right next to the road leading from Zdoňov. It was designed by Emil Schwantner and made of Libeň sandstone by local stonemasons. The memorial was unveiled and consecrated by the parish priest Cölestin Baier in June 1925 in the presence of the associations from Libná, Adršpach and Zdoňov. The ceremony was held in the open air on the slope opposite the memorial. The monument consists of a three-metre high stele on a block base resting on three stone steps. On the front side of the stele was originally a plaque with the names of 33 fallen or missing inhabitants of Libná (about one in ten citizens of the village), but it was removed during 1945. At the top of the stele, a footed cross in an oval with a wreath of oak leaves has been preserved, and there was a chain link fence around the memorial on 12 stone posts. This lasted until 2007, after which it was stolen.
In the cemetery in Zdoňov, there are three tombstones made of Libeň sandstone by Emil Schwantner, whose theme is the figure of Christ. The most interesting of them is the tombstone of the forester Josef Skalický with the inscription "Kommet alle zu mir" (Come to me, all of you). The relief depicts as the central figure a plain-haired Jesus receiving supplicants. I was personally most attracted by the tombstone with the relief sculpture of the standing Christ, which Schwantner created for his long-time friend and supplier, the owner of the quarry in Libná, Josef Ringel. The figure with clasped hands, crown of thorns and halo looks down on the tombstone with names and years. Christ thus gives the Ringel family his eternal attention. The third tombstone was created by a sculptor for the Kostial family: Christ, with a crown of thorns on his head, looks up to the heavens, his hands on his heart.
In Zdoňov, in the village square near the former inn, there is a sculpture with an accordion player, which is also attributed to Emil Schwantner. The dramatic fate of this work, which also comes from the quarry in Libná, is described in detail by Petr Hnyk in the Broumov Newsletter of 2011. Preserved details such as the hands point to similarities with other sculptures by the artist (one can compare them with the bust of Christ on the Kostial's tombstone in the Zdoňov cemetery).
Finally, I will mention the monument to 42 fallen or missing citizens of Zdonovo from World War I, which stood until 1945 in Zdoňov in front of the parish church of the Holy Trinity. It was the largest monument of its kind in the Broumov region, carved from local sandstone in 1923-1924 by local stonemasons Heinrich and Hubert Siegel, of whom Hubert was also the author of the design. The monument was 4 metres high and in July 1924 it was consecrated by the parish priest Cölestin Baier, who had new bells placed in the church tower for the occasion. Unfortunately, only the torso - the base - remains of this truly majestic work. You can see its original form in the photographs in the above publications.
Border village, smuggling, financial guard, life of inhabitants after WWI
Originally, the village of Libná was adjacent to Silesia, which belonged to the lands of the Bohemian Crown and therefore to the Austrian monarchy. However, after the so-called "Silesian Wars" and the "Seven Years' War" in 1740-1763, Silesia was annexed to Prussia and Libná became a border village, just like Horní Adršpach.
Many of the inhabitants of Libná supplemented their existence by illegal business, such as smuggling. Therefore, a smuggling route called the Buttermilchsteig or Buttermilk Route operated between Adršpach and Schömberg, along which various goods flowed secretly from both sides, depending on what was in short supply. Apart from butter, these were other foodstuffs such as sugar, candy, coffee, bread, spices, but also tobacco, alcohol, grain and livestock or crockery and gunpowder. This was how the inhabitants on both sides of the border earned extra money and improved their low standard of living. The trail led from the small town of Schömberg (Chelmsko) to the village of Voigtsdorf, where it turned into the border forests and then across the border to the Vorwerk on the Libná, specifically to the Vorwerkbaude inn (this inn burned down in 1935), where the first shops were probably closed. It then continued along the Long Hill to Adršpach. Due to its location, the Vorwerkbaude Inn was a strategic place for smugglers, as the Salzstraße (later called Zollstraße by the locals) also led past it from Schömberg. However, this then continued from Vorwerk to Krčmov and then via Hodkovice, Janovice, Vernéřovice to Stárkov.
The new road through Libná was built in two stages. In 1891-1892 it was from Zdoňov to the lower part of the village and rows of cranes were planted along the road. In the spring of 1907 the road construction continued from the village pond to the state border towards Schömberg and was completed in the autumn of the same year.
After the establishment of Czechoslovakia, Libná remained a border village bordering Germany. At the beginning of 1919, the first members of the financial guard appeared here to guard the local border crossing and supervise the collection of customs duties and other fees. There was a customs station here until 1938. Gendarmes from the station in Horní Adršpach began to guard the village.
The area of the village was 467 ha in 1919, of which 184 ha were fields, 58 ha meadows, 0.40 ha gardens, 3.73 ha quarries and 213 ha forests, of which 100 belonged to the Adršpach estate. In 1921, 410 inhabitants lived in the village - 390 Germans, 15 Czechs and 5 foreigners. There were 87 houses, 4 of which were in the Vorwerk secluded area.
In 1928 a telephone was introduced to Libná. The first telephone set was installed in the house No. 90 in Heinzel's shop, which also served as a post office in Zdoňov.
Unfortunately, the peaceful period after the first war lasted only 10 years. The Great Depression also affected the lives of the inhabitants of Libná. In 1929, despite the resistance of the local citizens, production in the spinning mill in Horní Adršpach was stopped and the factory equipment was transported to the interior with the assistance of the Czechoslovak army. Most of the workers had to find work in neighbouring Germany. In the summer of 1931, the villages of Horní and Dolní Adršpach, Libná and Hodkovice were hit by a hailstorm that completely destroyed the crops in the fields. These sad events foreshadowed major changes in the mindset of the German population throughout the entire border region and led to the fateful Munich in the autumn of 1938.
The Henlein Uprising
Since the beginning of the 1930s, there have been tensions between the German majority and the Czech minority in the borderlands of Czechoslovakia in the areas known as the Sudetenland. This was also the case in Adršpach. At first, these were only non-violent protests and provocations, such as opposition to the establishment of a Czech minority school in Adršpach, boycotts of Czech-owned businesses, or the harassment of German inns that provided services and shelter to the families of members of the financial guard. However, the situation gradually escalated into open hostility between Germans and Czechs in proportion as the aggression of Adolf Hitler's speeches demanding the right of Czech Germans to self-determination increased. The Germans organized themselves into nationalist political parties, mainly the Sudetendeutsche Partei (SdP).
Everything was leading up to the fateful events of 1938. On 20 May, the Czechoslovak armed forces announced the so-called partial mobilisation and a day later the border fortifications were occupied. The situation in the Adršpach region at that time is described by Tomáš Dimter (in his book of the same name) as follows. During the day, the SOS built a natural barrier about 50 metres high on the road from Libná to Schömberg, made of massive trees felled across the road. The road was further blocked by wagons filled with stones. The Germans did not remove the barrier until the end of June 1938. However, the first armed confrontation in Adršpach did not take place until the end of September 1938. In the morning of 22 September, three dozen members of the Freikorps (= paramilitary units of German volunteers trained across the border by SS and SA officers) entered Zdoňov and headed for the customs guard post. About 50 local residents began dismantling the border barriers as a signal and threatening the patrolling guards. At the same time, about eighty men led by the quarry owner, August Ringel, attacked the financial guard department in Libná. The attackers demanded the release of a light machine gun and the departure of the financiers from the village. The commander of the squad, Robert Jokl, refused the demand and, after a telephone call with the company commander in Teplice nad Metují, ordered his unit to withdraw; he himself still wanted to return to the building to retrieve confidential files. However, the insurgents captured him and took him to the border. When he tried to escape at the edge of the forest, he was shot twice in the leg and dragged to Schömberg. After a fifteen-minute gunfight, the new commander of the squad, Václav Sýkora, gave the order to retreat towards Dlouhý vrch and then to a military hut located south of Bučnice near the railway line. Around three o'clock, a train stopped at the military hut and the railwaymen informed the Czech soldiers that the station at Dolní Adršpach was in the hands of the Henlein, who captured the stationmaster and took him to the cellars of the Felsenstadt Hotel (today the Skalní město Hotel). In less than half an hour the train returned from Teplice with thirty volunteers, joined by a unit of financial guards from Libná. The soldiers intended to attack the henleins and take control of the station, and so they were dropped off at the level of the turn-off to Zdoňov. At that time, four trucks with soldiers were at the crossroads, and they had been ordered to put down the uprising in Zdoňov and Libná." There was a threat that the rebels from Zdoňov would join with those from Adršpach and that the henleins from Teplice would join them. However, this did not happen. The description of events from the book "Adršpach" continues: "After a quiet night, Czechoslovak soldiers took up strategic positions in Zdoňov and Libná, where the Nazi flag was already flying at the post office. The occupation of the two villages was without significant clashes. Most of the inhabitants of Libná and the men from Zdoňov fled across the border or hid from the Czechoslovak troops in the surrounding forests." However, the conflict continued in the following days, with Freikorps members viciously attacking the Czechoslovak soldiers, especially at night. The fighting in Libná culminated on 27 September, and the next morning about 200 men of the 10th Company of the Infantry Regiment arrived there, and for a few days the soldiers managed to push the Henlein troops over the border. Even after the signing of the Munich Agreement on 30 September, they remained there and anxiously awaited the arrival of the German army. Only on 6 October they were ordered to leave their posts. With the withdrawal of the Czechoslovak troops, the uprising in Adršpach ended.
These events are described in other publications dealing with this topic. For all of them, I would like to draw attention to the memories of witnesses recorded by Petr Hnyk and included in the book "The Post-München Fates of the Czechs from the Broumov Region", published in 2021, and the most recent description of the turbulent times in Zdoňov and Libná is also given by Miloš Doležal in the book "1945: the Summer of Fear", published in 2022.
Events not only in Libná and Adršpach in 1939-1945
In October 1938, the German inhabitants of Adršpach welcomed the Wehrmacht troops occupying the border area. They built gates, baked cakes and prepared a feast for the "liberators". However, this festive, euphoric mood did not last long, and moments of disappointment came. The first of these was that immediately after the occupation almost all the associations were closed down. Thus, the physical education organisations and trade unions were dissolved, and the Henlein Party and the Freikorps ceased to exist. Only some German interest groups such as gardeners, ornamental associations, etc. were tolerated. The abolished associations were replaced by organisations under the administration of the NSDAP and these were subjected to pre-military education. Everything was geared towards preparing for the war that broke out the following year in September 1939.
The writer Miloš Doležal described the situation in this period in the book already cited as follows: ... "The Zdoňovskis and other "liberated" must now fight for the Third Reich. They say goodbye at the Teplice railway station. Around three hundred men are enlisting in the Wehrmacht from Adršpach. Most of them are sent to the front lines on the eastern front. They send strangely optimistic greetings from there. When someone gets home for a short leave, they talk about the slaughter in whispers only among those closest to them. Seventy men from Zdoňov die at the front, thirty from Libná, ninety from Dolní and Horní Adršpach. Most of them died in Russland. The main actors of September 1938 in Zdoňov die at the front. And those who survive are mostly taken prisoner by the Russians..." The war affected the lives of the inhabitants of the borderlands, including Libná. Farmers had to pay much larger levies to the state, even though there was a shortage of able-bodied men. The situation was the same in the forestry sector. Women and old men were not able to replace this increasing loss of manpower, so prisoners of war and the totally deployed were used to help out.
As the end of the war approached, tension and a sense of hopelessness among the inhabitants of Adršpach increased. Already on 14 February 1945, the first refugees from the advancing front appeared in Upper Adršpach. By the end of February, a continuous column of German civilians and soldiers were marching through Adršpach, trying to retreat as quickly as possible, just to avoid falling into Soviet captivity. Fear of the Russians was reinforced by reports of their behaviour in the liberated territories, and the population awaited the arrival of the Red Army with apprehension.
On 8 May the German army capitulated and the following afternoon a vanguard of Soviet troops (two all-terrain vehicles manned by four officers) drove through Libná. At the same time, two Soviet tanks stopped in Dolní Adršpach near the sandpit where an internment camp had been set up during the war. Tomas Dimter, in his already mentioned book Adršpach, reports that the Russian prisoners began to celebrate their liberation with their fellow countrymen and in the ensuing euphoria two local residents were shot dead after refusing to hand over several cows and a bicycle to the Russians. Thereafter, a wave of violence broke out everywhere in the area, which intensified with the arrival of the so-called Revolutionary Guards. At this point I will let the writer Miloš Doležal speaks again: "...Chaos reigned in the region. There are a number of suicides among the German population, whose dream of a Greater German Reich has finally collapsed. Individuals and entire families. The appeal of our government, which was formed in Košice, is disingenuously instructive... President Benes says: "My programme is - and I make no secret of it - that we must eliminate the German question in the Republic. In this war, this nation has ceased to be human at all, has ceased to be humanly bearable, and appears to us as just one big human monster. This nation must suffer a great and severe punishment for all this." Prokop Drtina, the future Minister of Justice, says: "What is and what must be our first task in establishing a new life: to cleanse the Republic entirely and completely of Germans. This is the command of the moment for each of us; this is the historic task of our generation. But in order to achieve this goal, we must begin the expulsion of the Germans from our lands immediately, now, at once; we must stop at nothing and hesitate. And every single member of the nation has a historic responsibility here. Each one of us must help in the purification of the homeland." I have deliberately quoted these powerful words to remind you of them, which give you, chill... Let us therefore put them in the context of the violence, looting, murder and savage displacement in the borderlands. And so it was in our region of Teplice and Adršpach, where Libná was not spared. All these horrible acts have already been described in many places; I do not want to repeat them again. For all of them, I would like to mention again the book by Miloš Doležal "1945: The Summer of Fury", which documents the events of this period, among others, in Teplice, Adršpach and Broumov. Jiří Padevět has already treated this period in great detail in his book "The Bloody Summer of 1945". Post-war Violence in the Czech Lands. Published 2016. And I agree with the idea that "...1945 is a landmark perhaps more fundamental than 1948. For the Third Republic was no longer an island of freedom and democracy at all. From there it was only a step to a communist coup..."
As I was writing this article today, I was feeling even more strongly the fresh green of this spring, as pure and bright as ever, listening to the bird concert and inhaling the intoxicating scent of lilacs. And imagined that it could have been so in the spring of 1945...
Events in Libná between 1945 and 1960
During several savage removals in the summer of 1945 in the Adršpach region, people of German nationality were driven from their homes and taken with armed escorts across the border via Zdoňov and Libná, from where they were not allowed to return under threat of death, or they were gathered in the internment camp in Dolní Adršpach in the sandpit where the Adršpach Technical Services are today. On 12 July 1945, a savage removal of the old and infirm from Lower and Upper Adršpach, Zdoňov and Libná was carried out. All of them were taken to the main station in Teplice nad Metují on carts. From there, the train took them in open carriages to Zittau in Saxony, where they were dropped off and left to their fate.
In the last part of this sequel I noted that during the savage removals brutal violence was perpetrated against defenceless people of German nationality. These events have been described in detail and can therefore be traced. For all of them, I will mention one particular case: on 29 May 1945, ten men of German nationality from Libná were taken to the Adršpach Rocks and executed there without trial. To this day, the place of their burial has not been found.
After the wild removals in the summer of 1945, organized removals under international supervision followed from the autumn of the same year. Their conditions were set by the Potsdam Conference held from 17 July to 2 August 1945.
After the end of the war, local administrative commissions were set up in border villages with German inhabitants and took over the agenda of the municipal authorities. Their most important task was to ensure peace and order in the villages, to supervise the orderly operation of the resettlement of Germans, to take inventory of their property, and to deposit valuables. Unfortunately, in reality, in most cases the commissions did not fulfil this mission. In Libná, the local administrative commission began to work on 25 July 1945 with two Czechs, who used the former secretary Johann Gansel to manage the municipal agenda. On 16 August 1945, this commission carried out a census of the German population in Libná and arrived at a figure of 200 people - 39 men, 92 women and 69 children (for comparison: in 1939, 359 people lived in Libná). By October 1946, all of them had been deported to Germany. The Commission ended its activities on 20 September 1946, which is actually the date of the end of the village with its original inhabitants. On this date, all written records were handed over to the Local National Committee in Dolní Adršpach by order of the District National Committee in Broumov. It administered the territory of the village until 1950, when Libná was merged with Zdoňov and became its local part.
After the resettlement of the original inhabitants, the Mountain Pasture Cooperative was established in Libná, whose main activity was breeding cattle for the needs of farmers in the hinterland. However, as the village was no longer repopulated by new inhabitants, the cooperative faced a shortage of labour from the beginning. In the autumn of 1946, 18 Hungarian emigrants and 20 Bulgarian workers were assigned to help the cooperative, who worked there for a year on the basis of an agreement between Bulgaria and the Czechoslovak Republic. In 1947, however, the cooperative suffered a crop failure, went into debt and was forced to close down.
Since 1948, three state organisations have managed the former village: the State Farm used the fields and pastures; the less fertile land was taken over by the Czechoslovak State Forests and gradually reforested. The stone quarries were used by the North Bohemian Stone Industry Liberec.
The face of the picturesque village has changed beyond recognition. The uninhabited, plundered houses were falling into disrepair and crumbling. The wooden cottages were the first to take over. Since 1950, some of the houses were gradually demolished and the building material was used for the post-war reconstruction of the surrounding villages. The final decision to liquidate Libná took place in 1960 "as part of the Ministry of the Interior's nationwide demolition campaign in Bohemia and Moravia in 1959-1960, which was conceived as a commitment to launch a second national spartakiada". On 5-6 July, a military unit blasted the remaining ruins of the houses and razed them to the ground. Because this action was top secret and some of the documents were lost after 1989 - they were probably destroyed - it remains partly shrouded in mystery to this day. What is certain, however, is that Libná suffered the same sad fate as many other border villages, the closest to us being Sklenářovice near Trutnov.
I drew the basis for this last part mainly from my bachelor's thesis "Transformations of the border region-the vanished village of Libná", which was prepared on the basis of the study of archival sources and literature by Zbyněk Rychter in 2007-2008, then a student of archives-history at the University of Hradec Králové.
Text: PhDr. Miroslava Moravcová
