Architects showed places bombed during the war in Plzeň, proceeds go to Ukraine

Administrative building of the Municipal Brewery in Pilsen in 1945 (photo: archive Pilsner Urquell)

Pilsen – Dozens of people today in Pilsen took part in a charity architectural walk, during which they visited places bombed during World War II. It was organized by the Pilsen association Pěstuj prostor. The proceeds from the voluntary admission were handed over to the organization People in Need for humanitarian aid to Ukraine. CTK was told by one of the guides, architect and architectural historian Petr Klíma.

The walk highlighted selected buildings from the first half of the 20th century that were damaged by Allied air raids and their post-war restoration, such as the municipal baths building on Denis waterfront, which was hit during the bombing of the nearby sorting railway station. The representative landmark of the waterfront in the city center underwent a complete renovation after the war. The baths then served the public until the early 1990s.

Like the baths, the administrative building and the storage and fermentation building of the brewery were damaged during the bombing of the station, where today a visitor center is located after extensive reconstruction. "The Kroft houses next to the brewery still bear traces of bullets from the liberation in May 1945," Klíma stated.

One of the stops on the route was also the confluence of the Radbuza and Mže rivers in Štruncovy Sady, the site of a Nazi transmitter that reportedly served as a jammer for London radio. During the uprising on May 5, 1945, it was seized by the city defenders and local radio amateurs to declare Pilsen free. On the same day, free Pilsen radio began broadcasting there. "It was the most dramatic post-war broadcast. The insurgents managed to capture the German crew with weapons," said Karel Zoch, head of the city's heritage department.

The architects also showed the sorting station near Na Sklárně street. "It was the air raids in April 1945, targeted at this strategic infrastructure, that led to the destruction of many emergency residential buildings on Jateční street, which the city built in the interwar period, as well as the entire district called Cikánka, located further downstream along the nearby Úslava river," Klíma explained. A memorial to the victims of the bombing, built a few years ago, commemorates the site.

"The first air raids on Pilsen occurred as early as 1942, but they were very unsuccessful. However, they intensified as the war neared its end," Zoch stated. According to him, Pilsen was a very disadvantageous target for the Allies, at the limit of aircraft range. And although they were aware that the Škoda arms factory was a key target, they did not carry out many raids. The British and Americans bombed Pilsen from bases in England, but the air raid that damaged the brewery, baths, and the police headquarters came from central Italy. Air raids began to be successful by the end of 1944. The most successful attacks occurred on the night of April 16 to 17, 1945, when the sorting station, heavily overloaded with train formations, was destroyed, and the raid on the Škoda factories on April 25, which destroyed 70 percent of the factory. On April 26, German experts arrived on site, who stated that wartime production could no longer be restored.

According to Zoch, since the end of World War II, blanket bombing of cities has been considered absolutely unethical, wrong, and unproductive. "That we are witnessing this today (in Ukraine) is a total catastrophe," he added.