Cheb

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For other uses, see Cheb (disambiguation).

Statistics
Area:	96.4 km²
Population:	33,462 (2005)
Map

Cheb (German:Eger (help·info)) is a city in the Karlovy Vary Region of the Czech Republic, with 33,256 inhabitants. It is situated on the river Ohře, at the foot of one of the spurs of the Smrčiny and near the border with Germany. Prior to 1945, the town was the centre of the German-speaking region known as Egerland, and was part of the Northern Austro-Bavarian dialect area.

The name of the city has changed several times over the years; in 1179 it was known as Egra, from 1322 as Eger and after the fourteenth century as Cheb or Chba. From 1850 it was given the twin official names of Eger and Cheb, and since 1945 it has been known for official purposes exclusively as Cheb.

The three world-renowned spa-towns of Karlovy Vary, Marianské Lázně and Františkovy Lázně are located only a few kilometres away from Cheb, and Bavaria in Germany is easily reached by car via the Svatý Kříž-Waldsassen border-crossing. The musically renowned areas of Saxon Vogtland can be accessed via the Kraslice-Klingenthal and Vojtanov-Schönberg crossings. For walkers, wheelchair-users and cyclists, border crossings are present going into Bavaria (Aš-Rehau) and Saxony (Bad Brambach-Plesná, Bad Brambach-Vernéřov, Bad Elster-Podhradí, Markneukirchen-Luby and Hranice-Ebmath).

The twin towns of Cheb are Hof in Germany, Rheden in the Netherlands and Nizhny Tagil in Russia.

1 History
2 Population
3 Sights
4 Surrounding area
5 Famous people
6 Districts
7 External links

[edit] History

Market Square in Cheb

The district of Cheb was in 870 included in the new margraviate of East Franconia, which belonged at first to the Babenbergs, but from 906 to the counts of Vohburg, who took the title of margraves of Cheb. In 1179 town status was achieved, and the castle was in the twelfth century. By the marriage, in 1149, of Adela of Vohburg with the emperor Frederick I, Cheb came into the possession of the house of Swabia, and remained in the hands of the emperors until the 13th century, during which time it became and Imperial Free City.

In 1265 it was taken by the king Ottokar II of Bohemia, who retained it for eleven years. After being repeatedly transferred from the one power to the other, according to the preponderance of Bohemia or the empire, the town and territory were finally incorporated with Bohemia in 1350, after the Bohemian king became the emperor Charles IV. Several imperial privileges, however, continued to be enjoyed by the town till 1849.

On May 5th 1389 during a Reichstag between King Wenceslaus and a group of Imperial Free Cities of south-west Germany, the Peace Treaty of Cheb was agreed, after Wenceslaus had failed to secure his interests in the city.

It suffered severely during the Hussite Wars, during the Swedish invasion in 1631 and 1647, and in the War of the Austrian Succession in 1742. Indeed, Albrecht von Wallenstein was killed in Cheb in 1634 during the Thirty Years' War. During the Middle Ages the lands around the town were often known by the German term Egerland.

In 1723, Cheb became a free royal town. The northern quarter of the town was devastated by a large fire in 1809, and many middle-age buildings were irreplacably destroyed. Until 1851, the renowned spa-town of Františkovy Lázně belonged to the Magistrate of Cheb. The carbonated mineral water coming from these springs was delivered to spa visitors residing in Cheb.

Austrian geographers of the period of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy proclaimed the nearby 939m high Tillen as the geographical centre of Europe. This fact was documented on a copper plaque mounted at the summit. Recent calculations now put the centre point somewhat north of Vilnius in Lithuania.

Austrian National Socialism and hence German National Socialism can trace its origins to Cheb when Franko Stein transferred a small newspaper (Der Hammer) from Vienna to Cheb in 1897. There, he organized a German workers congress called the Deutschvölkischer Arbeitertag where the 25-point program was published.

1919 brought civil unrest to the town between the Sudeten German population and the Czechoslovak administration, just as in the rest of the Sudetenland. This was eventually suppressed by force.

On October 3rd 1938, the town was visited by Adolf Hitler; shortly afterwards German troops marched into the Sudetenland and seized control. From 1938 until 1945 the town was occupied by Germany. On May 1st 1939, the town split away from the surrounding district to form its own municipal district together with the settlement of Matzelbach, and gave its name to the most westerly of the three administrative regions of the Sudetenland. The administrative seat of the Regierungspräsident lay in Karlovy Vary, however.

From 1945, Cheb became once more part of Czechoslovakia. Under the Beneš decrees of the same year, the German population of the town was dispossessed and expelled. In 1954, the town of Amberg in Germany adopted the expelled Sudeten German population from the Cheb and the surrounding districts.

On August 24th 2001, the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Czech Prime Minister Miloš Zeman visited the Euregio Egrensis (a cross-border initiative between Bavaria, Saxony, Thüringen and Bohemia), and received the Freedom of the City of Cheb.

Since 2002, Cheb has been member of the Friends of Central Europe organisation. In 2004, the foundations of a town-twinning agreement was agreed with Hof in Bavaria. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Cheb has also had cordial relationships with the neighbouring German towns of Waldsassen and Marktredwitz.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cheb has held the horrific distinction of being the child sex capital of Europe. The sex slave traffic in children, and Cheb's notorious leading role in the commercial sexual exploitation of children, are described in nauseating detail by author Gordon Thomas in his piece titled Captive market:The sexual slave traffic in children in the Canadian Free Press.

[edit] Population

1930 - 31,406 inhabitants, of whom 3,493 (11%) were Czech.
1945 - 45,000 inhabitants
1947 - 14,533 inhabitants, after the expulsion and resettlement of the German population.
1990 - 29,962 inhabitants (1,837 houses)
2004 - population includes a large group of Vietnamese people (whose families were invited to the country as guest workers during the Communist era) and Roma, who were resettled after the Second World War.

[edit] Sights

On the rock, to the north-west of the city, lies Cheb castle, built probably in the 12th century, and now in ruins. In the banquet room of this castle Wallenstein's officers Terzky, Kinsky, Illo and Neumann were assassinated a few hours before Wallenstein himself was murdered by Captain Devereux. The murder took place on February 25, 1634 in the townhouse, which was at that time the burgomaster's house. The rooms occupied by Wallenstein have been transformed since 1872 into a museum, which contains many historical relics and antiquities of the town of Cheb.

Near the castle is a romanesque double-chapel dating from the twelfth century, with an eight-cornered opening connecting the two storeys. The upper-storey contains a ribbed vault supported on four polygonal columns.

The pristine Church of St. Clara was built between 1708 and 1711 according to a design of Christoph Dientzenhofer.

Spalicek

On the notable market place dating from the thirteenth century are a group of houses originating from the late-Gothic period known as Spalicek. This distinctive feature of the market place is a bizarre complex of eleven houses. The outline of the two blocks can still be seen on the oldest existing records of 1472.

The Green House on the market place belonged to the well-known Wrendl dynasty, whose family crest lies above the entrance. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe frequently spent time here.

The Church of St. Nicholas was established in the thirteenth century as a three-naved basilica, of which the western portal and the lower part of the tower remain in place. The three-part nave, presbytery and sacristy stem from the Gothic era. After the fire of 1742, the tower was rebuilt with a baroque cupola, after the design of the indigenous architect Balthasar Neumann.

The Franciscan Church is one of the greatest architectural treasures of the town centre.

The Cheb Museum (Cz:Krajske muzeum Cheb) is situated in the fifteenth century gothic town hall (Pachelbel House), in which Wallenstein was murdered.

[edit] Surrounding area

The early-baroque Church of Maria Loreto in Starý Hroznatov is situated 5km from Cheb. The annex, which had lain in ruins since 1990 has since been renovated through the initiative of an inhabitant of the neighbouring town Waldsassen.

Maria Loreto in Starý Hroznatov

Notable in this area are several timbered houses in the sparsely-populated villages, particularly in Doubrava.

Eight kilometres north-east of Cheb, near the district of Nový Drahov is the popular Soos nature reserve. The reserve consists of peat moors and springs, with gas-producing mofettes.

Attractions near the Bavarian border include the Komorní hůrka and Železná hůrka. These are remains of the most recent Czech volcanoes, which now form the basis of a nature reserve. This area was researched by Goethe.

For watersports enthusiasts, two reservoirs are of interest - Skalka (north-east of Cheb and fed by the River Cheb) and Jesenice (south-east of Cheb).

[edit] Famous people

Prof. Peter Glotz, SPD politician, publicist and media analyst, member of the German Bundestag; born in Cheb in 1939.
Heinrich Gradl, historian born in Cheb in 1842.
Johann Habermann, Lutheran theologian, born in Cheb in 1516.
Helmut Lederer, sculptor, born in Cheb in 1913.
Pavel Nedvěd, football Czech national and Juventus F.C. footballer.
Johann Balthasar Neumann, Cheb-born baroque architect.
Dr. Erich Riedl, CSU politician and member of the German Bundestag, born in Cheb, 1933.
Johann Adam Schertzer, Protestant theologian, born in Cheb in 1628.
Kaspar Schlick, born in Cheb in 1396 who became the chancellor under three different kings and one of the most politically-significant figures of the fifteenth century.
Rudolf Serkin, Cheb born pianist of Jewish-Russian ancestry
Norbert Singer, responsible for many of Porsche’s victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans race
Albrecht von Wallenstein, military leader during Thirty Years' War was killed in Cheb.
Johannes Widmann, mathematician born in Cheb in 1460.