Chomutov (German: Komotau) is a statutory town in the Ústí nad Labem Region, 49 km southwest of Ústí nad Labem. It covers an area of 29.26 km2 and has a population of approximately 49,000. It is the 22nd largest city in the Czech Republic, the fifth in the Ústí Region and the largest in the Chomutov district.
The name of the town is derived from the personal name Chomút, Chomout meaning Chomoutův dvůr. In historical sources, the name occurs, for example, in the forms: Fridericus de Chomutov, filius Nacherati, fratribus hospitalis s. Marieae Theutunicorum dat oppidum Chomutov cum villis (1252), Chomontowe (1261), in Cometave (1281), in Chomutow (1290), in oppido Comatow (1321), in Chomatow (1325), in Chomotov (1330), de Chomutow (1332), comentur ze Comentow (1355), Comotaw (1369), de Chomutoua (1389), w Chomutowie (1455), Kommotau ( 1787) or Komotau, Kommotau and Kommothau (1846).
Medieval
The first mention of Chomutov comes from
March 29, 1252, when Bedřich Načeradec from Chomutov donated the
town to the Order of German Knights, who established his command
here in 1254. Thanks to the work of the Teutonic Knights, the town
became very Germanized, which stemmed the saying: "People
everywhere, in Chomutov, Germans." The original wooden fence was
replaced by stone walls in the second half of the fourteenth
century. In 1396, Commander Albrecht of Dubá granted a seal with a
coat of arms. The German knights held the Chomutov estate until
1411, when after the battle of Grunwald they were King Wenceslas IV.
(except for the patronage over the churches) he took away. On March
16, 1421, Chomutov was conquered and plundered by the Hussites.
After that, the city changed aristocratic owners; the last time they
were the Hasištejn family from Lobkovice, who, as one of the first
places in Bohemia in the town, promoted harsh re-Catholicization (in
1589 the Chomutov Jesuit College was founded here). In 1591, the
townspeople revolted against the Jesuits and looted their seat, for
which two of the leaders of the revolt were executed. After the
conviction of Jiří Popel the Elder of Lobkovice, Chomutov was
confiscated from him in 1594 by Rudolf II. In 1605, the people of
Chomutov redeemed themselves from servitude and since then Chomutov
has been a royal city.
Early modern age
The oldest mining
company near Chomutov was the alum mine Kryštof Chomutov (originally
Prague) burgher Lazar Grohman. It was located together with the
vitriol smelter in the area of today's Kamencov Lake. The first
written mention of the mine comes from 1558 from a privilege issued
by John of Veitmile. The extracted raw material was processed into
alum directly on site in the smelter, whose annual production was in
the order of tens of tons (for example, in 1563 it was 62 t). From
1770, the smelter began to burn coal, which was supplied by the mine
in Pohlody. After the middle of the seventeenth century, the
waterlogged area forced the costly construction of an approximately
1,500 m long drainage gallery towards Otvice, the collapse of which
in 1810 led to the flooding of the mine and the termination of
operations. Immediately, attempts were made to drain and resume
production, but they were not successful.
At the turn of the
1950s and 1960s, an imperial road connecting Chomutov with Prague
was built, along which development also developed on the right bank
of the Chomutovka. Although Chomutov lay on this important link to
Saxony, it grew only slowly until the middle of the nineteenth
century. The turnaround did not occur until the seventies of the
nineteenth century by connecting to the railway lines leading along
the Ore Mountains and to Prague. At this time, brown coal mines were
opened near Chomutov, and in 1870 ironworks were established, which
after 1887 became famous as Mannesmann's tube rolling mills; In
1890, seamless steel pipes began to be produced here in the first
place in the world. In addition to the rolling mills located on the
eastern edge of the town, in 1917, the arms branch of the Kladno
Poldi was added south of Chomutov, and after the war it was also
reoriented to metallurgical production.
Brown coal mining
The largest brown coal mine in Chomutov was the Jan Žižka Mine,
which was not closed until 1992. The first company in its mining
field was the Augusta shaft, which was opened in the 1960s. During
the economic crisis in 1874, she changed owners and was renamed
Karel. In 1895 it was bought by the nearby Mannessmann factories.
After the Karel shaft was damaged by fire, a new 105 m deep Julius
mining pit was opened in 1904 and renamed the Jan Žižka Mine in
1946. At the same time as Augusta was opened, the Hugo mine was
opened between Otvice and the defunct Michanice, connected by a
siding to the main railway line at Kamencov Lake. In the 1970s, it
was abandoned with a total production of around 60,000 tons. The
third important mine in Chomutov was Max on the southern edge of the
city. It was also built in the 1960s and already at that time
reached a depth of over 100 m. Two seams were mined in it: the upper
(1.5–3 m) and the lower (5–6 m). In addition to them, crumbs were
also mined, which were used as a raw material for the production of
alum. Until its closure in 1887, it produced 5-6 thousand tons of
stone raw materials a year and up to 800,000 tons of coal during its
existence. Other mines were located in Horní Ves.
Twentieth century
In 1928, Horní Ves (today's northwestern
part of the town) was annexed to Chomutov. In connection with the
Munich Agreement, the majority German city had to be ceded to Nazi
Germany in October 1938, it became part of the Reichsgau Sudetenland
and within it the Ústí nad Labem government district. Chomutov was
liberated at the very end of the war, on May 8, 1945, by Red Army
units. In the following months, the German population was expelled
from the city.
In the 1960s and 1980s, the city was
extensively rebuilt, which did not significantly affect the historic
core, which has been a city monument zone since 1992. The plan for
the construction of housing estates between Chomutov and Jirkov was
drawn up in the 1960s. It was based on the assumption that in 1975
95,000 people would live in the Chomutov-Jirkov agglomeration. The
construction of the Březenecká and Kamenná housing estates was
decided in 1966 and in the years 1970–1971 also of the Zahradní and
Písečná housing estates, although the construction of the other two
was not planned until after 1980.
In addition to up to
sixteen-storey houses, they also included a new hospital, grammar
school, swimming pool, retirement home, underground garages and
other common facilities. In the end, only the cinema with a library
(demolished during October and November 2012), a football pitch with
tennis courts and a shopping center remained from the big plans.
The Březenecká, Kamenná, Zahradní and Písečná housing estates
connect Chomutov with Jirkov as an urban agglomeration with
approximately 68,000 inhabitants.
The Březenecká and Kamenná
housing estates were built in the years 1970–1985. The dominant
feature of both housing estates were to be the so-called
experimental houses with maisonettes, lightened by above-ground
pillars. In the style of Le Corbusier's concept, it is inspired by
the Marseille collective house Unité d’habitation, designed by
architect Rudolf Bergr. Large time slippages caused by unusual work
procedures caused that only 3 of the planned 6 houses were built. On
Březenecká, they were partially replaced by the construction of
three three-part thirteen-storey houses in Holešická Street and the
construction of Hutnická Street on the site of the planned
retirement home. Compared to the original plans, which included the
start of construction after 1980, the construction of Zahradní and
Písečná housing estates began before 1975. The reason was relatively
easy connection to existing utilities, hot water from Komořany,
four-lane section of road I / 13 and civic amenities in Jirkov.
Therefore, construction began in the neighborhood of Jirkov and
absorbed the small settlements of Keprtovo Pole and Kamenný Lom.
After 1990, most of the prefabricated houses in the housing
estates underwent reconstructions and, as part of the Sídliště -
place to live project, several playgrounds were built, sidewalks
were gradually repaired and car parks were being expanded.
Until 2002, Chomutov was the seat of the district office, since July
1, 2006 it has been a statutory city headed by the mayor.
Before the introduction of the regular census, Chomutov had a
population of 1,129 (1702), 2,967 (1811) and 4,014 (1843).
Population structure
According to the 1921 census, there were
20,894 inhabitants in 1,271 houses, of which 10,037 were women. 1869
inhabitants declared their Czechoslovak nationality, 18,042 German
and 103 Jewish. There were 18,770 Roman Catholics, 825 Evangelicals,
80 members of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church and 483 Jews.
According to the 1930 census, there were 33,279 inhabitants living
in 2,818 houses. 4,449 inhabitants declared their Czechoslovak
nationality and 27,609 German. There were 28,570 Roman Catholics,
1,311 Evangelicals, 529 members of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church
and 444 Jews.
Jewish community
The oldest mention of the
Jewish settlement of Chomutov dates from 1421. They could live, work
and buy real estate in the town until 1517, when Petr and Šebestián
of Veitmile expelled the Jews from the town at the request of the
townspeople. For this privilege, the townspeople had to grind grain
only in the manorial mill and pay 400 kopecks in cash. The Jews
settled in the surrounding villages and, despite numerous bans,
continued to trade with the city's inhabitants. The larger community
in Chomutov then existed only from the middle of the nineteenth
century. The greatest numerical expansion took place in 1880, when
562 Jews lived in Chomutov (for comparison, in 1930 there were 444
people). The Jewish community decimated by the Holocaust was
restored after World War II and annexed to the Jewish community in
Ústí nad Labem.
There were three synagogues in Chomutov. The
first two medieval ones disappeared without a trace. The modern
synagogue, built in 1876 in the neo-Romanesque style, stood on the
corner of Mostecká and Karla Buriana streets. In November 1938, it
was burned down during Crystal Night and later demolished. The
Jewish cemetery, which is located next to the town cemetery in
Beethoven Street, has been preserved to this day. In the eighties of
the twentieth century, the cemetery was transformed into a park and
closed in the following decade due to the concentration of socially
pathological phenomena. It was opened after reconstruction in 2008
and includes a memorial plaque and a monument.
German
community
In 1930, more than 27,000 Germans lived in Chomutov, ie
over 80% of the entire population. According to the Munich Agreement
of 1938, Chomutov became part of the German-occupied Sudetenland,
and many Czechs, Jews and German anti-fascists emigrated to the
territory of the so-called Second Republic.
According to
witness estimates, at the beginning of May 1945, 60,000 people were
to live in Chomutov (before the war in 1939, the town had 33,475
inhabitants), of which about eighty Czechs remained in the town
after October 1938. From 8 to 9 May 1945 the city was occupied by a
division of the Red Army under the command of Major Nosov. The Czech
inhabitants of Chomutov, as well as local German anti-fascists and
communists, established a twelve-member Czechoslovak National
Committee, whose chairman was elected Josef Černý. The Czechoslovak
National Committee was later transformed into the National
Revolutionary Committee, and all German members were expelled from
it. This was later transformed into the Local National Commission.
After the necessary commissioning of the basic functions of the
city, which lasted until the end of May, the Chomutov MSK issued an
order that "all Germans must wear a visible white belt on their left
sleeve." In addition, the use of Czechoslovak tricolors by the
Germans and the marking of the houses in which they lived was
criminalized with Czechoslovak and red flags. These houses were to
continue to be marked with white banners. All the streets in the
city were renamed with Czech names. On June 9, a decree was issued
stating that “all German men aged 13–65 had to arrive at the former
DFK Chomutov playground near the park within ten hours at the
latest. Women, children and the elderly are not allowed to leave
their flats. ”According to witnesses, five to eight thousand Germans
arrived. They were later expelled by a three-day infantry march with
the assistance of the army along the route through Jirkov -
Kundratice - Dřínov - Jezeří to Nová Ves in Hory. Dozens of people
were allegedly beaten, shot or otherwise killed during the march.
However, the Czech escort failed to arrange a transfer to Germany,
and therefore they were all taken to Záluží, where some of them
remained until 1946.
At the turn of May and June, an
internment center was established in the building of the former
glassworks in Na Moráni Street, in which several dozen Germans were
killed on the night of June 6-7. From July 2, transport trains with
the German population began to leave via Křimov and Reitzenhain to
Germany. By September 8, 1945, a total of fifteen thousand other
Germans had been expelled from Chomutov and the surrounding villages
in a total of fifteen railway transports. Only a few hundred
Germans, especially anti-fascists and communists, were allowed to
remain in Chomutov (based on an individual review of their
activities during the occupation). Chomutov was then - like other
parts of the Czech border in the period after World War II - settled
by newly arrived settlers, in the vast majority of the eastern parts
of Czechoslovakia. This also completely irreversibly changed the
overall socio-cultural composition of the city.