Broumov

Broumov (Braunau) is a town in Náchod District in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 7,200 inhabitants. There are three important historic buildings, protected as national cultural monuments: the Benedictine monastery, the Church of the Virgin Mary and the Church of Saint Wenceslaus. The historic town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an urban monument zone.

Administrative parts
The town parts and villages of Benešov, Kolonie 5. května, Nové Město, Olivětín, Poříčí, Rožmitál and Velká Ves are administrative parts of Broumov.

Etymology
The name is derived from the old Czech personal name Brum (also written as Brúm, Brun, Brún).

Geography
Broumov is located about 22 km northeast of Náchod and 19 km south of the Polish city of Wałbrzych. The municipal territory shortly borders Poland in the north. It lies in the Broumov Highlands. The highest point is the hill Bobří vrch with an altitude of 740 m. The town is situated on the Stěnava River. The territory lies entirely in the Broumovsko Protected Landscape Area.

13h–14th centuries
In 1213, King Ottokar I had granted the remote area around today's Broumov and Police nad Metují to the Benedictine monks of Břevnov Monastery in Prague, who began to colonize the lands. The wooden Church of the Virgin Mary already stood here. Broumov was probably founded in 1255. Broumov was first mentioned in 1256 and already referred to as a market village. It was a centre of trade, crafts and administration of the abbatial estates. In 1275, the drapers in Broumov received from King Ottokar II the privilege of producing and selling cloth, and the production soon began to be exported. This laid the foundation for the textile industry in the region.

Many fires broke out and destroyed the original buildings except for the Church of the Virgin Mary and damaged the local castle. In 1305 and following years, the castle was largely rebuilt and extended by one of the abbots into a fortified monastery complex with an abbey and Church of Saint Adalbert. The town became the administrative centre of the abbey's manors. In 1348, it received privileges by King Charles IV similar to royal towns. From 1357 to 1380, the town walls were built.

15th–18th centuries
The Broumov Monastery remained strongly tied to Břevnov Monastery, from where the monks fled during the Hussite Wars in 1420 to Broumov. The town was besieged by Hussites, but never conquered. However, it suffered losses and had to invest heavily in strengthening the walls. During the 15th century, Broumov was affected by war conflicts over the Bohemian throne. In the 16th century, the cloth production flourished and until the Thirty Years' War, the town was known as one of the biggest Bohemian producers and exporters of this article. Thanks to the wealth, it was possible to carry out renaissance repairs and build stone houses after the great fire in 1549.

It was incorporated into the Habsburg monarchy in 1526. During the Thirty Years' War, the town was damaged and looted several times. Thanks to good work of abbots between 1663 and 1738, the town recovered and reached economic prosperity. Broumov again suffered in the Silesian Wars from 1740 onwards, when troops of the Prussian Army plundered it and upon the 1742 Treaty of Breslau, the adjacent lands of Silesia and Kłodzko were cut off by the newly established Austro-Prussian border. The wars stopped most of the cloth manufactury.

19th–20th centuries
With Bohemia, the town became part of the Austrian Empire in 1804 and Austria-Hungary in 1867. From 1868 it was the administrative seat of Braunau District, one of 94 districts in the Austrian Kingdom of Bohemia. After the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, more than 400 citizens emigrated to Latin America, especially to Chile, where the village of Nueva Braunau was established near Puerto Varas in 1875.

During the first half of the 19th century, the built-up area of the town stretched outside the town walls. In the late 19th century, the industrialization started and new factories were established. Textile factories have become the mainstay of the economy.

Upon World War I and the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, Broumov with its predominantly German population became part of the new state of Czechoslovakia according to the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain. After the Munich Agreement, Broumov was occupied by Nazi Germany in October 1938 and incorporated into Reichsgau Sudetenland.

Pursuant to the Beneš decrees, the German-speaking population was expelled, including the monastery's monks, who re-established the Braunau in Rohr Abbey in Bavaria. The Broumov Monastery was finally abolished in 1950; after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the premises were returned to the Benedictines.

Economy
The tradition of the textile industry continues to this day. The main employers in the town are the textile company Veba and its subsidiary Vebatrade-Plus.

Transport
Broumov is the starting point of the railway line Broumov–Starkoč via Náchod.

Sights
Broumov has preserved historical centre similar to Silesian towns with a large rectangular market square with two parallel main streets running from both sides of the square and converging at both gates located on the opposite sides of the town. Throughout the perimeter of the old town are preserved fragments of town walls. The town hall on the square was originally from the 13th century and one of the oldest in Bohemia. Its current appearance is a result of many reconstructions, the last are from 1839 and 1994. In the historic centre there are many valuable burghers' houses, originally in the Gothic style and rebuilt in 16th, 18th and 19th centuries.

The Benedictine Monastery of Saint Wenceslaus from the early 14th century was rebuilt in Baroque style to plans by Christoph Dientzenhofer, continued by his son, Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer in 1728–1738. Today the monastery houses the regional museum. The monastery garden is also accessible. The Church of Saint Adalbert in the monastery complex dates from 1357 and was baroque rebuilt in 1684–1694. For its value, the monastery is protected as a national cultural monument.

Besides the monastery church, there are four other significant churches in the town. The rarest is the wooden Church of the Virgin Mary, which is a national cultural monument. This cemetery church was founded at the latest in the early 13th century. It was rebuilt in 1450 or 1459 after it was burnt down by the Hussites, and repaired in 1779. It is one of the oldest wooden sacral buildings in central Europe. The church is exceptional not only for its age, but also for its construction technique. It does not contain any nails and is formed by half-timbered structure made of massive oak beams. It includes a gallery with Renaissance and Empire tombstones.

The Church of Saint Wenceslaus was built in 1728–1729 according to the design made by K. I. Dientzenhofer. It replaced an old wooden Protestant church, abolished in 1618. The church it the third building in the town protected as a national cultural monument.

The Church of Saint Peter and Paul was first mentioned in 1258. The church was replaced by a stone building in the 14th century and it rebuilt in Baroque style in 1679–1680. The tower was added in 1682.

The Church of the Holy Spirit was first mentioned in the 14th century. The originally wooden church was replaced in 1689 by the current stone building.

Notable people

 * Julius Lippert (1839–1909), historian
 * Alois Jirásek (1851–1930), writer; attended school at Broumov Monastery
 * Józef Kasparek (1915–2002), historian
 * Amadeus Webersinke (1920–2005), pianist
 * Jiří Petr (1931–2014), agroscientist; attended school at Broumov
 * Peter K. Vogt (born 1932), American molecular biologist and virologist
 * Christian Feest (born 1945), ethnologist
 * Pavel Krmaš (born 1980), footballer
 * Hynek Martinec (born 1980), Czech-British painter
 * Tomáš Pöpperle (born 1984), ice hockey player

Twin towns – sister cities
Broumov is twinned with:
 * 🇩🇪 Forchheim, Germany (patronage for the town's expellees since 1955)
 * 🇵🇱 Nowa Ruda, Poland