Königsmühle (Königův Mlýn)

Königův mlýn was under the municipality of Háj in the Chomutov (Komotau) district. The place was erased from maps due to the gradual eviction of its inhabitants. While in 1860 Königův mlýn had 53 inhabitants in seven houses, over the next decade the number of inhabitants decreased by seven to 46, but one new house was added. Historical information, both old and recent, is fragmentary.

Thanks to inquiries among the older residents of Háj, the following was discovered:

Five houses were residential, belonging to the families Fohrmann, Siegel, Giebert, Pöschl, and Siegel. The remaining two houses were probably mills. Here, grain brought along the trade route (hence die Mautstrasse = toll road) from Bohemia to Saxony was ground and bagged. One mill also included a small pond with a dam where water was collected. Upon careful inspection, it can still be identified today. The last owner of this mill was an ancestor of the innkeeper from Klínovec. The preserved entrance to the cellar of this former mill was used as a shelter by the inhabitants of the five houses during the air raids of World War II.

"Yes. It was the end of the world. Especially in winter. People were completely cut off from the world," says Rosemarie Ernst, a native of Königsmühle, who this year published a book of memories about this place (from interviews with P. Mikšíček and W. Wittenberg). One of the houses in Königsmühle belonged to her paternal grandparents. Amid great hardship, Mrs. Ernst's grandfather, as a young man, built it for his family on the foundations of an old ruin. His three sons were born and raised there.

The access road to the small settlement, coming from the direction of Háj, was roughly 1.5 km long through a ravine. For centuries, an old trade route had passed through here. Heavy horse-drawn carts transported grain, ore, wood, and other heavy loads from Bohemia to Saxony along this route. The road was gradually compressed deeper and deeper into the ground over the years, and in some places, it now reaches a depth of up to three meters.

Today, this place is referred to as a 'deserted village,' representing a set of processes that took place in the built-up and surrounding areas of the village after the expulsion of the Germans in 1945 and 1946. When the inhabitants of Königův mlýn were expelled in the autumn of 1946, the remaining people from Háj used their houses as a source of building material. Roofs, balconies, windows, and doors - all disappeared, leading to the demise of the settlement. Today, the houses that still tell of the poverty of their former inhabitants are mere ruins.

The buildings were gradually demolished, roads ceased to be maintained, and meadows and fields followed suit. Nature gradually started to reclaim the valley. Succession here is very slow due to the high altitude and short vegetation period, so unlike most deserted villages, the center of the settlement is not engulfed in a jungle of secondary-growth woods.

This location is primarily a memorial to the times of settlement eliminations from the 1950s. During that time, about 3,000 villages, village parts, and solitary farms disappeared. No memorial site, a monument of the deserted villages directly in its original place, has yet been established in the entire Czech-German border region. Most locations are unsuitable for this purpose. Either nothing remains of the buildings, or the entire built-up area is overgrown by dense secondary vegetation, which does not attract any visits. In the case of Königův mlýn, a set of valuable historical buildings, open and passable terrain, and an aesthetic experience of the surrounding landscape come together.

It is more than likely that if the buildings aren't preserved, the location itself will disappear within 20 years. It is not just a wild, nature-like valley, but also a preserved example of a deserted settlement in a mountain valley. The former settlement represents a unique location where landscape, historical, and natural values converge. On the surrounding meadows, we can also find relics from the mining boom in the Ore Mountains.

In the case of Königův mlýn, it is more about genius loci than classical cultural heritage values - there is not a significant number of historically valuable constructions, equipment, interiors are completely missing, only fragments of artisanal elements are preserved, etc. In this case, it is necessary to state that nature conservation has much clearer protection objects than cultural heritage preservation. This is clearly declared by the fact that this place has one of the highest possible levels of protection. Consequently, larger development and other projects can be excluded, which is a significant plus given the proximity of recreation-heavy locations.

The future of Königův mlýn lies in raising awareness about this cultural site through various events, such as Königsmühle 2013. We are also working on re-including and mapping this place on official maps, trying to connect it with a tourist trail and equipping it with an informational board highlighting cultural-historical connotations.

This unique landscape has been captured by the most famous painter of the Ore Mountains, Gustav Zindel.

The commemorative book, written in German by the native of Königův mlýn - Mrs. Rosemarie Ernst, can be ordered at: info@königsmühle.cz.