House of history: Plzeň building, where German garrison surrendered in 1945, set to become museum
A Plzeň building partly designed by the modernist architect Adolf Loos, in which the surrender of the German garrison occurred on May 6th 1945, is set to be renovated and repurposed. The dilapidated building is set to become a new museum all about the events of that fateful year in Plzeň.
As you walk down Plzeň's wide Klatovská Avenue towards the city centre, you might easily ignore the large building at no. 19. Simple in decoration and mostly faded white in colour, only two oriel windows stand out in terms of remarkable features. Yet this building has something to offer fans of architecture and modern history.
Designed by the pioneering Austrian and Czechoslovak architect Adolf Loos, the interior contains an apartment with spacious rooms, grand staircases and marble walls. It was constructed in the 1930s for the Jewish Semler family, who had the apartment stolen from them, following the German occupation of Bohemia in 1939. For the next six years, it served as the German military headquarters in the region.
On May 5th 1945, with American troops advancing on Plzeň, the city’s citizens rose up and fought against the occupiers. The following morning, American tanks from the 16th armoured division reached the city. After some brief resistance, the German commander, General Georg von Majewski, agreed to surrender. The general insisted on surrendering only to a senior American officer, but had to make do with Lieutenant Colonel Percy H. Perkins Jr, who came to the house on Klatovská Avenue. Having signed a document of capitulation, the German general shocked his staff and his wife Elisabeth by committing suicide with a secreted weapon.
The building has been abandoned since 2002, but with all this history, the city of Plzeň now has plans in place to renovate the building. It will open as a new experimental museum, describing the events of 1945 in Plzeň, and will also house the existing Patton Memorial Pilsen museum. The construction of the museum itself promises to be a historic event, especially in the installation of one particular exhibit. The museum will include a genuine Sherman tank from the Second World War era. Getting it in place will be complicated; Deputy Mayor of Plzeň Pavel Bosák (Pirates) described the process to Czech Radio.
“We will have to close Klatovská, because it will be necessary to remove the trolleybuses and trams so that probably the largest crane in the Czech Republic can fit here. It will have to lift this 40-ton colossus and place it over the roofs of the house into the courtyard …. Unfortunately, we will have to place it here at the very start of construction precisely because we will actually build the museum around it. That tank will be the centre piece and walls will be built around the platform that it will stand on.”
The renovations are expected to take about two years, so visitors can look forward to seeing the completed museum and its star exhibit in 2026.
