Devastation of the Old Town Cemetery in České Budějovice and the Conservation Efforts to Save It in 1940–1957

The cemetery at the Church of St. Procopius and St. John the Baptist in the northern suburb of České Budějovice was used for its purpose from the Middle Ages until 1889. In the first half of the 20th century it was still remarkable for the large number of tombs, gravestones and wrought and cast iron crosses, most of which were made in the last hundred years of its original function. This case study attempts to answer the questions of whether and how conservationists sought to protect its values, what strategies they chose, and what obstacles they encountered. The wartime requisition of metal crosses and grilles in 1940 brought an acute threat to the site’s heritage values, and in 1943 and 1944 the Protectorate municipal administration planned to radically alter the cemetery and turn it into a memorial park. Both Adolf Träger, the long-time local conservationist, and Karl Friedrich Kühn, the conservationist in charge of the central conservation office for several decades, argued against this plan. In the post-war period, Träger also sought to cultivate the (by then already damaged) site in a gentle manner, but the local government’s activity was not successful. The cemetery suffered its worst devastation in 1954–1957, when – under the ostentatious disregard of the national security officers – it was used as a source of building material for both municipal and private purposes. This article uses the official correspondence between the local conservationist, regional authorities and conservationists from the central institution (especially Viktor Kotrba and Jiřina Nesvadbíková) as a crucial source of information and basis for interpretation.

Keywords: České Budějovice; history of conservation; cemeteries; municipal administration; Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia; 1950s; conservationists of heritage protection; State Heritage Administration