train workshop with about 2,000 employees: this was the largest rail repair shop in all Austria-Hungary. Between 1861 and 1877, the Plzeň railway junction was completed and in 1899 the first tram line started in the city. This burst of industry had two important effects: the growth of the local Czech (Slavic) population and the urban poor. Before 1860 the town was mostly German-speaking; after 1918 it was mostly Czech-speaking. However much of the countryside to the west, north and south of the town continued to speak a local German dialect.
Following Czechoslovak independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918 the German-speaking minority in the region hoped to be united with Austria and were unhappy at being included in Czechoslovakia. Many allied themselves to the Nazi cause after 1933, in hopes that perhaps Adolf Hitler might be able to unite them with their German-speaking neighbours.
Following the Munich Agreement in 1938, Plzeň became literally a frontier town, after the creation of the Sudetenland moved the Third Reich borders to the city's outer limits. During the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945 the Škoda Works in Pilsen was forced to provide armaments for the Wehrmacht and Czech contributions, particularly in the field of tanks, were noted.
Between the 17th and 26th of January 1942, over 2,000 Jewish inhabitants, most of Plzeň's Jewish population, were deported to the Nazi extermination camps as Terezin.
The German-speaking population was forcibly expelled from the city and in fact all of Czechoslovakia after the end of war in 1945, according to provision in the Potsdam agreement. All of their property was confiscated.
On 6 May 1945, near end of World War II, Plzeň was liberated from Nazi Germany by the 16th Armored Division of General Patton's 3rd Army. Also participating in the liberation of the city were elements of the 97th and 2nd Infantry Divisions. Other Third Army units liberated major portions of Western
