Panenské Břežany () is a municipality and village in

Prague-East District Prague-East District () is a Okres, district in the Central Bohemian Region of the Czech Republic. Its capital is Prague. The most populated town of the district is Brandýs nad Labem-Stará Boleslav. Administrative division Prague-East District i ...

in the

Central Bohemian Region The Central Bohemian Region ( ; ) is an administrative unit () of the Czech Republic, located in the central part of its historical region of Bohemia. Its administrative centre is in the Czech capital Prague, which lies in the centre of the regio ...

of the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. It has about 700 inhabitants.

Etymology

The name Břežany is derived from the word ('

bank A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

' in Czech, but in old Czech also meaning 'hillside') or from the word ('birch forest'). The word ''břežané'' denoted people who live near a bank, hillside or birch forest, so Břežany was a village of such people. The attribute ''panenské'' ("virgin's") referred to the women's convent that owned the village.

Geography

Panenské Břežany is located about north of

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

. The western part of the municipality lies in the

Prague Plateau The Prague Plateau () is a plateau and a geomorphological mesoregion of the Czech Republic. It is located in the area of Prague and in the Central Bohemian Region. Geomorphology The Prague Plateau is a mesoregion of the Brdy Macroregion within ...

, the eastern part lies in the

Central Elbe Table The Central Elbe Table () is a plateau and a geomorphological mesoregion of the Czech Republic. It is located mostly in the Central Bohemian Region, but due to its size, it also extends to other regions. The axis of the plateau is the Elbe River, ...

History

The settlement was first mentioned in 1233 as the possession of the Benedictine St. George's Convent at

Prague Castle Prague Castle (; ) is a castle complex in Prague, Czech Republic serving as the official residence and workplace of the president of the Czech Republic. Built in the 9th century, the castle has long served as the seat of power for List of rulers ...

. The first mention of a fortress in Panenské Břežany is from 1441. In the first half of the 18th century a Baroque palace was built, which came to be called the Horní zámek ('upper castle'). After the secularization of the monastery during reign of Emperor Joseph II, the estate fell to the Virgin Teinitz Religious foundation. Until 1828 the owners changed several times, then it was purchased by Matthias von Riese-Stallburg. Around 1840 he built the Dolní zámek ('lower castle'). His descendants lost the property in 1901 because of indebtedness to the Prague Credit Bank. In 1909 the property was bought by Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, a financially strong Jewish buyer involved in the sugar industry. Following the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

occupation after 1939, the Jewish industrialist fled and the estate was confiscated. From 1939 to 1942 the Lower Castle was the residence of the '' Reichsprotektor'' of Bohemia and Moravia. In the castle complex lived both

Konstantin von Neurath Konstantin Hermann Karl Freiherr von Neurath (2 February 1873 – 14 August 1956) was a German politician, diplomat and convicted Nazi war criminal who served as Foreign Minister of Germany between 1932 and 1938. Born to a Swabian noble famil ...

and from 1941 his deputy (''Stellvertretender Reichsprotektor''), the SS-''

Obergruppenführer (, ) was a paramilitary rank in Nazi Germany that was first created in 1932 as a rank of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) and adopted by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) one year later. Until April 1942, it was the highest commissioned SS rank after ...

Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( , ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a German high-ranking SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He held the rank of SS-. Many historians regard Heydrich ...

, with their families. In May 1942, while driving from the mansion to his work in

, Heydrich died as a result of an assassination attempt. After Heydrich's death, his widow Lina lived with the children at the castle until 1945. Their ten-year-old son Klaus died in a car accident there in October 1943. The Horní zámek Castle was occupied by

Karl Hermann Frank Karl Hermann Frank (24 January 1898 – 22 May 1946) was a Sudeten Germans, Sudeten German Nazism, Nazi official in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia prior to and during World War II. Attaining the rank of ''Obergruppenführer'', he was in ...

during World War II. "In April 1943 Hitler finally decided that the future of the eydrichfamily must be safeguarded, and by a special Fuehrer-decree he ordered that Heydrich's "beloved schloss Jungfern-Breschan" with all its contents and lands should be handed over to his widow and family in perpetuity. The Fuehrer added that it was his desire that the heirs should always be associated with the property."

Demographics

Transport

The D8 motorway from Prague to

Ústí nad Labem Ústí nad Labem (; ) is a city in the Czech Republic. It has about 91,000 inhabitants and is the capital of the Ústí nad Labem Region. It is a major industrial centre and, besides being an active river port, is an important railway junction. ...

passes through the municipality.

Sights

The Upper Castle is open to the public. It contains several exhibitions with chapters of Czech history during the

Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia The Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was a partially-annexation, annexed territory of Nazi Germany that was established on 16 March 1939 after the Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945), German occupation of the Czech lands. The protector ...

. Next to the castle is the Chapel of Saint Anne. This valuable chapel was built by the architect

Jan Santini Aichel Jan Blažej Santini Aichel, also spelled Aichl (, ; 3 February 1677 – 7 December 1723) was a Czechs, Czech architect of Italians, Italian descent, whose major works are representative of the unique Czech Baroque architecture#Baroque G ...

. The Lower Castle is also a landmark of Panenské Břežany. It is a Neoclassical building with a monumental staircase in

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French (), is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design that first Art Deco in Paris, appeared in Paris in the 1910s just before World War I and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920 ...

style. Since 2016, it has been unused and inaccessible to the public.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Panenske Brezany Villages in Prague-East District