From the history

The Bohemian Forest has always formed a natural border between Bavaria, Bohemia and Upper Austria. In the Middle Ages, the salt trade played an important role. The salt trade was important for preserving foodstuffs, was transported from the Salzkammergut (salt domain) to Passau, Germany via the Salzach and Inn rivers. From there, several trade routes led to increase competitive salt trading through Bohemia. The salt barrels were brought to the towns of Prachatice (Prachatitz), Vimperk (Winterberg) and Kašperské Hory (Bergreichenstein) by muleteers over the ridges of the border mountains, which were not forested at that time. The routes were known as the ‘Golden Trail’ because the salt trade was an extremely valuable commodity and salt was extremely expensive and labor-intensive to harvest the mass quantities of salt necessary for food preservation and seasoning, prior to industrialization. Another route led from Linz via Freistadt in Austria to České Budějovice (Budweis) transported by small, sturdy horses were used for transportation, with grain brought to Bavaria on the return journey. The heyday of these trade routes was in the 16th century, with several thousand muleteers crossing the mountain ridge every day.

Settlements were built along the ‘Golden Trail’ where the ancient forests were cleared in making way for establishing numerous glass working shops. Settlers from Bavaria and Upper Austria also cleared the forests on the other side of the border, were largely established by German-speaking communities in the barren highlands of South Bohemia until the middle of the 20th century. For example, the ‘Künische Freibauern’ (Künische Free Farmers) were given tax advantages in their own jurisdiction as an incentive and were only beholden to the Bohemian king.

The construction of the flumes from the 18th century onwards made it possible for the first time to transport large quantities of wood to the major cities such as Linz and Vienna in Austria, during which time more villages were founded, mainly for the timber industry.

The rise of nationalism from the middle of the 19th century led to tensions between the German and Czech populations of Bohemia, which ultimately brought about the end of the Habsburg Monarchy by the end of World War I in 1918.

In the newly founded Czechoslovakia, the national conflicts intensified until in 1938 when both Austria and the German-speaking areas of Czechoslovakia were termed as the so-called ‘Sudeten territories’, were annexed to the National Socialist German Reich, known as the Munich pact. In 1939, the Czech-speaking areas of Czechoslovakia were occupied by German troops, which became the ‘Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia’ shortly before the beginning of the Second World War began with the German invasion of Poland in September 1939.

After the end of the war, the borders of 1938 were returned to Czechoslovakia and a large part of the German-speaking population were expropriated, expelled or forcibly resettled in Germany and Austria. After the communist takeover in Czechoslovakia in 1948, the border, which had been open for centuries, became increasingly impermeable and was finally completely closed when the Iron Curtain was built across Eastern Europe. Germany and Austria were now separated from Czechoslovakia for four decades, and the border regions suffered from emigration and impoverishment.

In the Czech part of Šumava, hundreds of villages were destroyed and restricted military areas were established. The integration of the many expellees in Germany and Austria was initially difficult and painful for those affected, but the Sudeten and Bohemian Forest Germans made significant contributions to the economic upturn in Germany from the 1950s onwards. Unfortunately, the economic stagnated or deteriorated in Czechoslovakia controlled by the Communists.

The end of communist rule in Czechoslovakia was progressive and peaceful. The Iron Curtain was quickly removed from all western borders after the Berlin wall came down in November 1989 and the old borders were progressively opened. Old contacts were restored, new ones exchanged and forged new German and Austrian relations with the Czech Republic. The first joint projects such as church and cemetery renovations began with cooperation and new partnerships at both sides. The rapprochement between the long-separated neighbors was characterized by phases of euphoria and disillusionment, and it took a long time for complete normalized state relations, especially at the political level. In 1993, Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia, both of which joined the European Union in 2004.