"Oversized Town Hall and Memorial plate" Domazlice Things to Do Tip by lotharlerch

This small town got in 19th century an absolutely oversized Town Hall in typical Austrian Historism style which was characteristic for the "ink castles", the administrative buildings of this period - in some way a demonstration of the power of the imperial government. It is with its proportions in some way "killing" the buildings around it.

A memorial plate in marble at the facade of the Town Hall is memorizing the victorious US Army which liberated the western part of Czechia in 1945 at the end of WW 2. I asked several locals whether this plate was already there before 1989 when the Communist rule ended. And they all told me that this plate was not here in Communist time.

I was in Domazlice exactly 40 years and 3 days after the "Prague Spring" of 1968 was terminated violently on 21 August 1968 by the intervention of the Soviet Army and their Allies. This "Prague Spring" was a peaceful revolution within the communist Czechoslovakia which intended to reform the system and to create a "Socialism with Human Face". And there were many big changes within a few months, a real democracy was coming up, censorship of the media was terminated, all people were allowed to travel abroad to any country of the world and together with many other changes of this quality it was seen by the Soviet Union as a danger for the entire system but in reality this was the last historical chance for a successful reform of communism. And the fact that the Soviet gerontocracy destroyed it violently was nothing else than the intellectual capitulation of communism. But the CIA and all these other "intelligence" agencies in he West did not understand it and so it took the communism 20 years more to die.

Interesting that there were close to no memory activities in Czechia at the 40 years anniversary. All what I could find was on an advertisement pillar at its lower end a poster announcing a memorial exhibition in the nearby city of Plzen. The text of the poster reads in English: A short tinge of freedom. 40 years anniversary of the occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968.