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History of Liberec


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Liberec was first mentioned in a document from 1348, and from 1622 to 1634 was among the possessions of Albrecht von Wallenstein. After his death it belonged to the Gallas and Clam Gallas families. The cloth-making industry was introduced in 1579. The prosperous local industry was interrupted by the Thirty Years' War and a great plague in the 1680s. The Battle of Reichenberg between Austria and Prussia occurred nearby in 1757 during the Seven Years' War.

At one time the second city of Bohemia, the city developed rapidly at the end of the 19th century and as a result has a spectacular collection of late 19th century buildings; the town hall, the opera house, and the Severočeské Muzeum (North Bohemian Museum) are of significant note. The Opera House has a spectacular main curtain that was designed by the Austrian artist Gustav Klimt. The neighborhoods on the hills above the town center display beautiful homes and streets, laid out in a picturesque Romantic style similar to some central European thermal spas.

After the end of World War I Austria-Hungary fell apart. The Czechs of Bohemia joined newly established Czechoslovakia on the 29th of October 1918, while the Germans joined German Austria on the 12th of November 1918, both citing Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the doctrine of self-determination. Reichenberg became the capital of the Sudeten German province of German-Austria. On the 16th of December 1918 the Czechoslovak Army occupied Reichenberg and the Sudeten German province and both became part of Czechoslovakia.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Liberec became the unofficial capital of Germans in Czechoslovakia. This position was underlined by the foundation of important institutions, like Buecherei der Deutschen, a central German library in Czechoslovakia and by failed efforts to relocate the German (Charles) University from Prague to Liberec.

The Great Depression devastated the economy of the area with its textile, carpet,
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