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Sumperk is a town and district in the Olomouc Region of the
Czech Republic. It is called "The Gate to Jeseniky mountains."
Sumperk was founded by German colonists in 1269. The German name
Schonberg means "beautiful hill", and the name Sumperk is a
Czech garbling of the original German name. The town of Sumperk
became the center of the area. It was located on a trade route,
and the town profited from the copper mines. Sumperk was a
possession of the Moravian margrave until the 15th century. Petr
ze Zerotina bought the town and had the city walls improved. The
town became very rich in the 16th century from the production of
top-quality cloth, better than was known in western Europe. The
town became able to buy itself and it became a royal city,
meaning that the king was the only owner, and there was no
nobility. The town was substantially damaged in the Thirty Years'
War, because it was an active member of Protestant alliance.
Sumperk was punished by losing its royal statute and became a
possession of Lichtenstein family. A later tragedy was a huge
fire in 1669 in which 244 houses were destroyed. The end of 17th
century saw witch trials, in which 25 men and women were burnt
as witches. In 1930 Sumperk had about 12,000 citizens, of whom
one quarter were Czechs and the rest Germans. In 1938, after the
Munich Agreement, Sumperk was occupied by the Wehrmacht and most
Czech citizens were expelled to the Protectorate of Bohemia and
Moravia. As the war ended the town was liberated by the Russian
Red Army and all of Germans were expelled to Germany. During the
Prague Spring the area was occupied by the Polish army on 21
August 1968. The Polish army was replaced by the Red Army on 3
October 1968. Jan Zajic and Jan Palach both protested the
occupation by self-immolation (in Prague). The Red Army moved
out in 1991 after the Velvet Revolution. |
