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Images after Petr Exner's Vexilologický Lexikon prapory obcí ČR (1998)
- Bečov, Most district, Ústí region - adopted 9 Mar 1998.
Jarig Bakker, 13 Jan 2004
Images after Petr Exner's Vexilologický Lexikon prapory obcí ČR (2004) - Brandov, Most district, Ústí region - adopted 5 Oct 2004.
By its origin Brandov is rather a younger village - founded as late
as 16th century. First written mention comes from the year 1549, its original
name is likely to come from its probable founder - a German Brand. The
notion Brand itself means heat, burning, fire, the German colonist was
given it due to his way in gaining a land - burning of woods. Rise and
development of the settlement of the Ore Mountains had close been bound
to mining of copper and silver. Brandov was significant by mining iron
ore, a number of local inhabitants were also occupied with woodwork. As
early as by end of the 16th century Brandov was a small street-type town
with a peripheral narrow square. As of 1622 also a church is reminded here.
In the period 1720 - 1730 a construction of a Baroque St. Archangel Michael's
church took place here. It concenrns one-aisle building with a semicircular
ended presbytery with a peripheral sacristy and a chapel on sides. The
front with a flat central buttress reaches a wing fronton at the peak.
Also local statue of St John of Nepomuk dated 1730 is worth seeing. In
1780 there was established a parish in Brandov.
Hard coal mining was very
significant activity for the village, let's take a more detailed point
thereto. First exploration took place here in 1851 opposite to the house
no. 10. In the 135 ells deep bore was however found no coal. In the following
year there were made further bores, which were already successful - there
were found hard coal marks in the wood on Koňský potok. Soon afterwards
was established a mining company, run by the ironworks headquarter in Kalk,
and in 1853 it was started to mine. The pit was given a name "Gabriela"
in honour of the countess Buguoy, owner of dominion Červený Hrádek. Early
in the 60ies mining considerable rose, when however the countess died in
1863, mines of Brandov came to decline. In 1876 e.g. worked here but 6
miners, until 1890 this number even decreased to a half thereof! In the
meantime inherited the dominion Červený Hrádek Gabriela's daughter Isabelle,
whose daughter was married to the prince Bohumír von Hohenlohe - Langenburg.
This was how dominion went from progressively and patriotically thinking
house of Buguoy to the reactionary and to the Czech nation hostile house
of princes von Hohenlohe - Langenburgu. Prince Bohumír died in 1866 in
the battle at Hradec Králové, dominion was in 1887 taken over by his son,
whose name was also Bohumír.
In 1893 Jan Schlutius, owner
of a knight's estate at Karov in Meklenburg region bought Brandov mines.
Mining experienced redevelopment under his government. After one year number
of miners rose to 15, as of 1900 there were already 92 here. In June 1898
there was built up a gantry way and a hopper by the pit. The pit was equipped
with 16 double mine gauges. By end of the 19th century Brandov is given
as a parish village in Bohemia, having, in addition to St. Michal's church
also aschool, a post office and a mill. 1168 German inhabitants lived here
on mining hard coal and making wooden toys. At the beginning of the 20th
century number of miners went on rising, the firm built therefore successively
a miner's colony for them. Thus next to the mine rose in 1902 a new part
of Brandov. At the turn of 1901 - 1902 was made a steam mining installation
and a special kind of a boring tower. AS a mining tunnel there was used
an existing old, 600m long and 60m deep pit "Gabriela". This changed however
soon when Schlutius in 1906 opened a new updated pit "Zdař Bůh" by upper
end of the village. It was until end of the same year that a large building
with offices and flats for officers was built here..
The pit "Zdař Bůh" was linked
by means of a cable way with a treatment plant lying on the saxon side
of cadastre of the city of Olbernhau. This treatment plat covered a sorting
room, washroom and briquette plant. It was here that all the mined coal
was brought to, in order to sort it and distribute worldwide under name
of "Olbernhaus anthracite coal." As of to 1910 it was already 172 miners
working at the mine. After World War Ist had broken out in 1914 the border
to Saxon got closed. Phone connection, needed for cable way operation,
was at the same time broken off, coal had to be piled on tips in Brandov.
Only certain time later and after a number of deals with respective authorities
it was allowed to restore phone connection and a cable way could thus be
put into operation again.. The war ended in 1918. The whole country could
at last heave a sigh of relief, misery, troubles and anxiety, all that
plagued people all over 4 years was over.
In 1921 works on mines were
stopped for several months. Reason was distortion of the German Mark due
to which mining became unprofitable for the firm. Financial situation in
neighbouring Germany was getting on worse, until the pit "Gabriela" was
at the end put up for auction. Auction didn't happen due to discount allowed
by government, the firm however in the menatime released all the employees
and announced its decision to bring the mining to a standstill. It was
followed by dismantling internal equipment of the mine as well as of the
mine's building. There were only 73 workers working in 1924 on the mine.
A lot of people of Brandov had thus to find a new job - a number of local
miners could be employed as building workers, joiners or wood turners,
others were admitted to a far away mines of the North Bohemian Coalfield
below mountains, some were employed at the F.A. Lange rolling mill in Zelený
důl, a village of Brandov. Agriculture in Brandov was not very significant,
most often it was thought as a second employment in a family. In 1930 there
are registered 2473 inhabitants in the village. In 30ies of the 20th century
influence of Nazis in neighbouring Germany was rising. This was in addition
backed by existing economic crisis resulting in great unemployment. Along
with near September 1938 atmosphere between Czechoslovakia and Germany
would become more and more charged until the Munich Agreement signature
followed by occupation of the border area by German troops. World War II
broke out soon thereafter. During occupation the Germans made exploration
in Brandov aimed to possible recovery of mining on local mines. Mining
works were however definitively stopped in 1942. Referring to later exploration
coal stocks in these mines are nearly totally exhausted. The year 1945
brought peace. Two years later evacuation of German population took place.
This resulted however to nearly depopulation of Brandov as this village
had nearly exclusively been German. Though the village was then resettled
with immigrants from inland, their number was not sufficient for complete
settlement of Brandov. In 1950 there were only 395 inhabitants living in
the village. This number has over years gone on sinking (in 1991 it was
235), only since a recent decade it has shown increase again. These days
there live 268 inhabitants in Brandov.. Brandov belongs now to holiday
areas, there is situated a border crossing for walkers to Germany.
References: Šulcová, H. Brandov. 1998
Source: municipal website.
Jarig Bakker, 9 Jul 2005
Images after Petr Exner's Vexilologický Lexikon prapory obcí ČR (2004)
- Havraň, Most district, Ústí region - adopted 5 Oct 2004.
Jarig Bakker, 18 Jul 2005
Images after Petr Exner's Vexilologický Lexikon prapory obcí ČR (2003)
- Lišnice, Most district, Ústí region - adopted 13 May 2003.
Jarig Bakker, 10 May 2004
Images after Petr Exner's Vexilologický Lexikon prapory obcí ČR (2002)
- Lužice, Most district, Ústí region - adopted 9 Apr 2002.
Jarig Bakker, 3 Apr 2004
Images after Petr Exner's Vexilologický Lexikon prapory obcí ČR (2002)
- Malé Březno, Most district, Ústí region - adopted 9 Dec 2002.
Jarig Bakker, 3 Apr 2004
Images after Petr Exner's Vexilologický Lexikon prapory obcí ČR (2001)
- Polerady, Most district, Ústí region - adopted 5 Apr 2001.
Jarig Bakker, 13 Jan 2004