Partial confession in arson trial

The trial for the large forest fire in Saxon-Bohemian Switzerland in the summer of 2022 began on Thursday at the District Court in Ústí nad Labem. The accused is former national park ranger Jiří L. He confessed right at the start that he had set smaller fires last year. This included the historic lodge on Vlčí hora (Wolfsberg) near Krásná Lípa (Schönlinde). The lodge burned down completely. The observation tower was also damaged in the fire.

The defendant continued to deny having started the large forest fire in Bohemian Switzerland in the summer of 2022. However, this is what the prosecution accuses him of. The defendant had admitted to the arson during a police interrogation, but later retracted it.

The trial was interrupted to obtain another psychiatric report. The court also did not accept the confession because there was uncertainty about the defendant's state of health. The defendant suffers from mental illness.

Wolfsberg Tower reopened

Last weekend, the observation tower on Vlčí hora (Wolfsberg) was ceremoniously reopened. It had been extensively renovated after a fire a year ago. The reopening coincided with the tower's 135th anniversary. The tower is the oldest in the Šluknov area and is popular because of its extensive view as far as the Giant Mountains.

Police report more violations in motorway tunnel

The Czech Panenská Tunnel in the Ore Mountains on the motorway from Dresden to Prague is increasingly becoming a gold mine. The responsible municipal authorities of Ústí nad Labem (Aussig) reported almost 85,000 violations of the speed limit last year. The speed limit in the tunnel and in the Libouchec tunnel further towards Prague is 80 km/h. The Panenská Tunnel has a system for measuring speed using so-called section control. This measures an entire stretch of road and not just a single point.

According to the figures, the officials had an average of over 230 cases on their desks every day. The city therefore plans to strengthen the department and hire additional staff soon. This year, almost 20,000 violations have been identified by the end of April. This is particularly good news for the city's coffers: in 2023 up to the end of April this year, the magistrate collected around 44 million krone (1.76 million euros) in fines, including many notices sent to Germany.

On the D8 motorway, as the A17 is called in the Czech Republic, there are two more tunnels in the low mountain range, the Radejčín tunnel and the Prackovice tunnel. The city council of Lovosice (Lobositz) deals with the fines there.
Traffic violations have increased dramatically in the city of Ústí. While there were almost 3,900 violations last year, this year there have already been over 5,500. In particular, illegal parking has been punished more frequently. This is also due to a stricter approach.

Museum Ústí wins prize

The City Museum in Ústí nad Labem has won the most important museum award in the Czech Republic. The "Gloria Musaealis" award for 2023 in the category of Museum of the Year was awarded to the research project "Database of old quarries in the area of the Bohemian Switzerland National Park and the Elbe Sandstone Mountains Protected Landscape Area". The project, which also included the special exhibition on sandstone, was recognized as an example of applied research with a major social impact. The project was carried out in cooperation with the Purkyně University (UJEP) in Ústí.

The award ceremony was very successful for the Ústí Region. The North Bohemian Gallery of Fine Arts in Litoměřice and the Gallery of Modern Art in Roudnice nad Labem were also recognized for an exhibition and a publication. The Gallery of Fine Arts received the special prize in the category of "Museum Publications" for the volume "Pious Morning: The Art of Seeing / Mystics, Esoterics, Automation in Czech Fine Arts". The Gallery in Roudnice received second prize in the category of Museum Exhibition for the exhibition "The Principle of Heraclitus: 100 Years of Coal in Czech Art".

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The production of this newsletter is co-financed by tax revenue on the basis of the budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament.

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This year marks 20 years since the Czech Republic joined the European Union. One of the main benefits that EU membership has brought is access to EU funding. Cohesion policy supports not only projects on Czech territory, but also initiatives that strengthen cross-border relations. Over the past 20 years, the Czech Republic has invested billions in joint projects with Saxony. How do the regional partners assess this cooperation? And how do they envision the next 20 years?

• What is the benefit of cross-border cooperation between the Czech Republic as a "new" EU member state and Germany
• as a "long-standing" EU member state?
• How has the role of the Czech Republic in cross-border cooperation developed over the last 20 years in the EU?
• How do the regional partners assess this cooperation? And how do they envisage it in the future?
• What has proven successful in the collaboration over the years? What have been the successes of the collaboration so far? And what should be improved?
• become?
• Which lighthouse projects are financed by the Interreg programme? And which projects are in the preparation phase?

Elke Zepak, Managing Director of the Erzgebirge Euroregion, and Vladimír Lipský, Managing Director of the Elbe/Labe Euroregion, have been invited to take part in the discussion.

The event is organised by the European media network EURACTIV.

You can find more information about the event in this flyer . You can register here .

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Czech Republic closes first open-cast mine

The phase-out of coal in the Czech Republic is approaching. The first open-cast mine to close in the coming weeks is the ČSA open-cast mine south of Horní Jiřetín. By July, the open-cast mining company Severní energetická plans to lay off 485 employees, mainly in technical positions. The employees will receive severance pay amounting to eight times their monthly salary. Some of those affected are already of retirement age.

Coal mining will initially cease. 150 employees will remain in the mine. In the event of an emergency next winter, coal mining could be restarted for a few months. For this purpose, employees could be temporarily withdrawn from the second active opencast mine, Vršany, west of Most. However, no new employees will be hired in this case. And if it does come to that, it will be over for good next spring. Because all the coal that would still be in the ground is protected by a government decision from 1991. According to this, no more towns or communities may fall victim to coal. Further mining would inevitably affect the towns of Horní Jiřetín and partly also Litvínov. There are still 750 million tonnes of brown coal stored there. In 2015, the then government finally confirmed the 1991 decision and the future began for Horní Jiřetín.
The Czech Republic plans to phase out coal by 2035. Until then, mining will continue in Most, Sokolov, Chomutov and Bílina.

Chemnitz christens tram "Ústí nad Labem"

Ústí nad Labem and Chemnitz have been twinned since 1970. This is now also reflected in the Chemnitz tram, which has been named after the northern Bohemian city. On the occasion of Europe Day on 9 May and the 20th anniversary of the EU's eastward expansion in 2004, since which the Czech Republic has also been a member of the community, the tram's godfather, Ústí's mayor Petr Nedvědický, together with Chemnitz's mayor Sven Schulze, presented the new name of the Škoda tram with the number 921 on Friday afternoon. This is already the thirteenth christening of a Chemnitz tram, most of which are named after the twelve twin cities. In their welcoming speeches, Schulze and Nedvědický emphasised the importance of the partnership, which will be celebrating its 55th anniversary next year, when Chemnitz will be the European Capital of Culture. In his speech, Nedvědický also promised to "repay" his city in an appropriate manner in the near future for this great honor. David Joram, head of vehicle service at Chemnitzer Verkehrs-AG, also emphasized that in 2018 Chemnitz was the first city in Germany to order trams from the neighboring Czech Republic since reunification. Several German transport companies have now joined this development.

Soon trains to Krupka again

Trains are expected to run from Děčín to Krupka again this year. The rail network administration Správa železnic (SŽ) plans to renovate the section from Telnice to Krupka in the coming months. This will provide a direct rail connection to the valley station of the chairlift to the Mosquito Tower and to the UNESCO old town of Krupka.

The Ice Hockey World Championship starts in the Czech Republic

The most important sporting event in the Czech Republic is still the annual Ice Hockey World Championship. Every May, hearts beat faster and the whole nation hopes for nothing other than the title. This year, the Czech Republic is hosting the World Championship for the first time in nine years and expectations are accordingly even higher. The World Championship began on Friday with the first games, Norway against Switzerland and Slovakia against Germany. In the evening, the Czech Republic played its first game in the sold-out Prague O2 Arena against Finland.

Whether the Czech Republic will actually win another World Cup title will be decided in the final on May 26th at the latest. One of the toughest competitors could be Germany, who finished runners-up a year ago and thus did better than the traditionally stronger Czechs for the first time. The Czech Republic last won a bronze medal two years ago. The last World Cup title was 14 years ago. Back then, the Czech Republic triumphed in Germany. Winning a home World Cup is not that common, by the way. But two years ago, the Finns showed the Czechs how to do it and won at home.

The production of this newsletter is co-financed by tax revenue on the basis of the budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament.

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Hřensko's new mayor wants to close border huts

The border town of Hřensko will be run by women in the future. Kateřina Horáková was elected as the new mayor on Monday. Her deputy, Alena Pačáková, is also a woman. Horáková succeeds Zdeněk Pánek, who resigned at the end of the year and was mayor of the municipality for many years. Pačáková replaces the previous deputy Robert Mareš, who had temporarily led the municipality since the end of the year and has now resigned not only as deputy mayor but also as municipal representative.

Horáková takes over the office at a difficult time. For years, Hřensko was able to rely on a buoyant income from the operation of boat trips in the Edmund Gorge. But since the major forest fire in the summer of 2022, the gorge has been closed due to the risk of trees breaking. As a result, Hřensko has already had to lay off employees. Only the smaller Wild Gorge, which is more difficult to reach, remains open for tourist boat trips. It is not possible to say when the Edmund Gorge will open. A few weeks ago, the national park announced that it would remain closed for at least another three years.

The first goal for the newly elected mayor is therefore to negotiate with the national park about opening the gorge. The new mayor also wants to introduce parking meters in the municipal office in order to reduce the costs of parking space management.

Horáková said her second major goal was to reduce the number of stalls where mainly Vietnamese traders sell their sometimes wild mix of goods. She cited safety as the reason. Some of the stalls make it impossible for fire engines and ambulances to get through. But she also hinted that the stalls, where counterfeits and fakes have repeatedly been confiscated during checks, where right-wing extremist items are also offered for sale and which in the past have also turned out to be a transshipment point for drugs, do not fit the image of the community that she wants. "We want more tourists to visit us. That's why we will do everything we can to ensure that our village finally arrives in the 21st century. So that visitors like it here," said Horáková.

Jeschken cable car is being extended

The Liberec city council has decided. In the future, a cable car with just one large cabin suspended from two cables will lead up to the local mountain, Ještěd. At the same time, the city representatives decided to extend the cable car by 770 meters to the tram terminus in Horní Hanychov. The old cable car was 1.2 kilometers long.

The representatives made their decision based on a feasibility study. According to this, a circular variant with several gondolas would have been somewhat cheaper to build, but the city representatives were also guided by visual considerations. A cable car with circular gondolas would not suit Jeschken, they said.

However, it will still be some time before Liberec's local mountain can be reached by cable car again. Optimistic forecasts suggest that this will happen by 2029.

Pirna students translate fate of a Winton child

For three years now, a large, colorful mural has been located in a once dark passageway at Ústí nad Labem (Aussig) main train station. It tells the story of the unusual life of Ruth Hálová. Shortly after its completion, the mural was even viewed by Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his wife Elke Büdenbender, who made a special stopover in Ústí on their trip to the neighboring country. Recently, this mural, in the form of a leaflet, was the subject of a lesson for a German-Czech class at the binational Schiller Gymnasium in Pirna. "Ruth came from Český Krumlov in southern Bohemia. She was one of the 669 Jewish children who were rescued and brought to Great Britain shortly before the Second World War on the initiative of the Briton Nicholas Winton. (This heroic act is commemorated in the currently running film "One Life" starring Anthony Hopkins.) After the war, Ruth settled in Ústí and led a team that developed vaccines," explained Michaela Valášková, who had the idea for the mural and also for the leaflet that resulted from it.

The students' task is now to translate the leaflet into German. Ruth Hálová's story is not one that only has to do with Ústí. "It has a universal dimension that appealed to our Czech and German students," says class teacher Jana Neuper, adding: "Thanks to the translation, they are acquiring new skills that will help them in their further development." Work is still being done diligently on the translation. As soon as it is finished, a German leaflet version will of course be printed.

The mural and leaflet were created as part of the "Unknown Heroes" project and are the work of the artists Adéla Bierbaumer and Magdalena Gurská. The project presents the stories of people who were born in Ústí or who lived there and made history, sometimes later, when they no longer lived in Ústí, in public spaces in Ústí. In this way, works of art have already been created in honour of the graphic artist Heinz Edelmann, the illustrator and creator of the famous Beatles film "Yellow Submarine", or the nuclear physicist Lilli Hornig, who was involved in the development of the first atomic bomb in America and campaigned throughout her life for more women in science.

Steinmeier and von der Leyen in Prague

On May 1st 20 years ago, eight Central and Eastern European countries joined the European Union together with Malta and Cyprus. This largest wave of accession in the history of the European Union is therefore also called the EU's eastward enlargement. This week, two important politicians were in Prague: Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier took part in the anniversary celebrations. He called the accession an "epochal turning point". Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also paid tribute to the historic date with her visit. For both of them, the war against Ukraine was also the dominant topic. Steinmeier, together with his counterpart, Czech President Petr Pavel, emphasized the ongoing support for Ukraine. "Our solidarity has no expiration date," said Steinmeier. Ursula von der Leyen, who is running for a second term, also visited Czech arms manufacturers, whom she thanked for their deliveries to Ukraine.

The production of this newsletter is co-financed by tax revenue on the basis of the budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament.

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The situation of displaced persons and refugees from the former German eastern provinces and settlement areas of East Central Europe who had settled in the Soviet occupation zone/the GDR differed in important respects from that of their compatriots in the West. One crucial aspect was that the states in which their former homeland was located were among the "friendly brother countries" of the socialist camp and the people living there were considered friendly peoples. Refugees and displaced persons in the GDR were thus able to return to their old homeland in Bohemia or Silesia somewhat earlier and against a different political background than those in the Federal Republic.

Hundreds of thousands more GDR citizens traveled to Czechoslovakia and Poland on holiday or for business and met people there who often only arrived after 1945. For the refugees and displaced persons, such trips were always also trips into the past, to their former homeland, to the graves of their ancestors, to the houses in which they once lived and where other people now lived. Later, this was also possible for people from the Federal Republic, who - unlike those from the GDR - were able to speak publicly about it after their return and often did so in writing, which is why a lot of information is already available on this. Since this was not possible in the GDR, less is known about it.

This fact, often mentioned by those affected, has so far received little attention in research and in public. Encounters with Czech and Polish "new settlers" and their views on the former residents have also been sparsely investigated in this context. The conference is dedicated to these stories in the previously predominantly German-populated areas of Czechoslovakia and takes a comparative look at the situation in the People's Republic of Poland. More than 35 years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, we also want to take a look at previous reconciliation initiatives from Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic and talk to practitioners of cross-border cooperation about the future of understanding.

More about the conference and registration
 

This event is a cooperation project of the Deutsche Gesellschaft e. V. and the Euroregion Elbe/Labe.

The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Home Affairs based on a resolution of the German Bundestag, the Small Projects Fund in the Euroregion Elbe/Labe (applied for) and the Institut für Kultur und Geschichte der Deutschen in Nordosteuropa (IKGN) e.V. – Nordost-Institut (funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media based on a resolution of the German Bundestag).