State German High School of Forestry in Zákupy

On the unsightly ground in front of the factory buildings in Nové Zákupy u České Lípy there used to stand a vast building called The Chateau. Between the years 1904 and 1940 it housed the Forestry Academy (called The State German High School of Forestry in Zákupy since 1925) which moved here from Bělá pod Bezdězem. In 1940 lessons were stopped here and the school was moved to Trutnov, where it still functions today under the name Czech Academy of Forestry. 

The classical style building, which used to be known as The Chateau due to its monumentality and ornateness, was built in Nové Zákupy by factory owner Josef Leitenberger as a textile manufacture and headquarters of his company. Production started 1788 here, but due to the growing number of rival textile factories, Leitenberger`s descendants were forced to sell and the factory closed down. In the second half of the 19th century, various industries operated here: a bleaching plant, a sugar factory, stonemasonry workshop or a blade sharpening factory. The premises became the property of the imperial family in the 1880s.

In the meantime, the High School of Forestry at the chateau in Bělá pod Bezdězem not far away, suffered from severe lack of space. The growing number of students, teachers and collections, but above all the missing boarding-school, led to the need for new, appropriate premises. In the spring of 1903 the premises in Zákupy, with its 7 ha of grounds were given to the school for free use.  Although the premises demanded an extensive remodelling to become a boarding school, the headmaster at the time, Stefan Schmid (1870–1932), was able to finish the school year in Bělá in June 1904 and start the next one smoothly in October of the same year in Zákupy. Schmid was headmaster of the school for thirty-one long years from 1901 to his sudden death which caught him while on duty in 1932. It was him who managed to reorganize the three-year-long educational process into a four-year-long one with a graduation exam at the end in 1922. He moved the vast collections from Bělá to Zákupy. But above all it was him who developed the school`s curriculum and increased the difficultness of the admission and final exams. He was also the initiator of the annual shooting competition organised by the school. In 1925 the school was put under state control and became The State German High School of Forestry in Zákupy (Staatliche deutsche höhere Forstschule in Reichstadt). The later endeavour to turn the high school into college, however, remained unsuccessful.  

German was the language of instruction and from 1818 the Czech language started to be partially introduced into the curriculum as well. The school`s equipment was very modern for the time. It had central heating, hot water, its own healthcare and a weather station too. The grounds contained also a 3-ha botanical garden, an arboretum with more than 1.000 types of forest-tree varieties (some sources say up to 3.000 specimens), a plant nursery for growing trees, or experimental forestry stations. After Schmid`s death Karel Bohutínský became headmaster and dr. Eduard Kuča after him. Over 2.400 students graduated from the school of forestry in Běleč and in Zákupy between the years 1855 and 1940. The most famous graduates include J. Bohdanecký, Fridrich Crey, forest manager Josef Schwarcz (son-in-law of Bedřich Smetana), M. Adamička, the above-mentioned K. Bohutínský, R. Rakušan and Hugo Konias.

After the annexation of the Sudetenland, the school came under the German Reich administration and in 1940 classes stopped because the students were drafted and went to war. From 1942 the Wehrmacht had army hospital in the building. When the war ended, the state decided to move the school to Trutnov and it became The State High School of Forestry on October 15 1945. The building in Zákupy was damaged by war-time events, the collections largely destroyed or stolen; the only thing that had been preserved was the extensive herbaria. The remaining equipment was sent to schools in Tábor and Trutnov, the library to the University in Prague.

After the war the 71. Infantry Battalion of “the Czechoslovak Parachutists”, was quartered at the premises and they ruined the arboretum, the plant nursery and the botanical garden. Since 1968 the premises were used by the Soviet army and after its departure in 1991 it fell victim to the wild 1990s. The continuous stealing of material led to a gradual decay and in the end to a complete disrepair of “The Chateau”. In 2020 partial salvage works were carried out on the west wing and the rest of the building has been demolished. While virtually nothing remains of the historically valuable buildings, the arboretum was restored between 2009 and 2014 by the care of the Zákupy municipality. Visitors can admire the floodplain of the Svitavka River from wooden walkways. There are a number of monuments commemorating the history and personalities of the School of Forestry school all around.

Uhlíř, J.: 160 let od založení lesnické školy v Bělé pod Bezdězem (1855–1904) a v Zákupech (1904–1940), přeložené roku 1945 do Trutnova. Boleslavica ’15 Vlastivědný sborník Mladoboleslavska, 8/2015, s. 75–85.
Uhlíř, J. (red.): Padesát let lesnického školství v Trutnově 1945–1995. Jubilejní almanach k 140. výročí středního lesnického školství v severovýchodních Čechách (1855–1995). Trutnov 1995.
ČLA Trutnov. Historie. URL: https://www.clatrutnov.cz/index.php/en/skola/historie/32-historie-trutnov [20. 8. 2021].
Kraus, Z.: Unikátní arboretum v Nových Zákupech bude hotové do léta. Českolipský deník.cz (29. 1. 2014). URL: https://ceskolipsky.denik.cz/zpravy_region/unikatni-arboretum-v-novych-zakupech-bude-hotove-do-leta-20140129.html [20. 8. 2021]. 

(Author: public domain)

(Author: public domain)

Condition of the building in 2019. (Author: jam)

(Author: public domain)

(Author: AH)