Mimoň

The first written mention of Mimoň is from 1352, when it was a parish village. Mimoň was then mentioned as a customs post in 1371 on an old trading route from Zittau to Prague. At the time the town was under the control of the Lords of Wartenberg.[2]

The economic development of Mimoň was affected by the Hussite Wars. In 1500, Mimoň was acquired by the Bieberstein family. In 1505, Mimoň was first referred to as a town. The Biebersteins had built here a manor house in 1570, which was later rebuilt into a castle.[2]

According to historians, Mimoň may have been caught up in the 1618 Protestant Bohemian Revolt during the early phase of the Thirty Years' War, until it was suppressed by the Catholic Emperor Ferdinand II of the Holy Roman Empire and his Imperial Army after 1620 (Battle of White Mountain). However, in 1632 the Saxons (allies to the Protestants and the Swedes) attacked northern Bohemia and may have occupied Mimoň, as well as Prague. That same year the Emperor pleaded for his best ex-general, Albrecht von Wallenstein, to raise a new army to repel the threat. Wallenstein quickly attacked Prague and northern Bohemia to dislodge the Saxons during this campaign. It may have been during this time that Mimoň was destroyed by fire.

The town, the castle and the church were rebuilt after the war, and even expanded from the 1650s to the 1680s. Mimoň (and all of Bohemia) would continue to be under Habsburg control until the 20th century. In the 1660s a series of caves and tunnels were made next to the church which served as storage rooms for the town brewery.

In the 18th century, Mimoň Castle in the town centre housed a large collection of books under the direction of Adam Franz von Hartig, a Bohemian diplomat. In June 1806 the town was again almost completely destroyed by a fire.[3]

In 1836 a textile factory was established by master cloth maker Anton Schicketanz (1803–1866).[4]

After the Revolutionary events in 1848 Mimoň became part of the judicial district of Niemes for the Habsburg Crownland of Bohemia (and later for Austria-Hungary). This district included 26 small villages in a large wooded area east of Mimoň such as Kuřívody, Hvězdov, Hradčany, Vranov, Svébořice, Černá Novina, Strážov, Stráž pod Ralskem and Olšina.[5]

From the 1850s to the 1900s many German-speaking and Czech-speaking Bohemians left their homes, like Mimoň, and migrated to the United States and Canada for a new life. Many of them settled in the American mid-west and Great Lakes region, such as Illinios, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Nebraska and Iowa.[6][7][8]

In June 1866, during the Austro-Prussian War, a small battle was fought at Hühnerwasser (Kuřívody) about 10 kilometers south-east of Mimoň, in the opening days of the Königgrätz Campaign. It was a Prussian victory.[9]

In 1883, the first railway station of the Imperial Royal Austrian State Railways was completed in Mimoň.[10]

At the end of the 19th century, Mimoň had a furniture factory, cloth and cotton weaving companies, a tannery and a beer brewery. Agriculture and forestry was also practiced.[11]

After the World War I and the Dissolution of Austria-Hungary, Mimoň became part of the newly created Czechoslovak Republic in late October 1918. German citizens in Mimoň protested until Czech soldiers entered the town to keep order. In 1930 the population was of Mimoň was over 6,000 of which over 5,000 people were German-speaking.[12]

With the rise of Naziism in Germany, so did German Nationalism through much of German-Bohemia. After the Munich Agreement in 1938, Mimoň became part of the Deutsch Gabel County, Aussig district, in the Reichsgau Sudetenland of Nazi Germany. Some citizens of Mimoň became part of the paramilitary group 'Sudetendeutsches Freikorps' who officially welcomed German Wehrmacht troops into the town on 10 October 1938. During the World War II, there was a military training camp of the Hitler Youth in Mimoň.[13]

From 6–11 May 1945, during the Prague Offensive, Czechoslovakia was liberated by the Soviet Red Army and Czech freedom fighters. The Red Army bombed Mimoň by air and arrived in Mimoň on 10 May 1945. By the summer of 1945, Soviet-occupied Czechoslovakia began a program to prosecute surviving Nazis and evict ethnic Germans out of the country. Most of the German population of Mimoň was emptied and re-populated by Czechs.

During the Cold War Era, Mimoň became a manufacturing hub for furniture, textiles as well as a Machine Tractor Station (state enterprise for maintaining agricultural machinery).

In 2010 Mimoň was hit by a severe flood. Afterwards, the town made extensive repairs to its infrastructure.[14]