Abstract
The changes of society's relationship towards a historical memorial are dynamic, similar to memory which the given historic site preserves. Considerable discontinuities, such as changes of political regimes and of social systems or the resettlement of entire ethnic groups also manifest themselves in the changes of comprehension and understaning of memory-forming places and objects.
There are many places of memory in the territory of the Czech Republic - as a part of the Central European region which has a tendency towards similar revolutionary changes. Some of them are already "extinct" or their contents of remembering have undergone "grand circles" literally, and in many cases even several times.
It is possible to include a collection of military memorials in the foothills of the Ore Mountains, which commemorate the year 1813 and battles which took place there, especially ub the environs of CHlumec and Přestanov, in the first group of historic sites. Their complex development is linked inexorably to the fact that the French, Russian, Austrian and Prussian armies participated in this battle.
Obviously, their placement in the locality inhabited to large degree by a German ethnic group made a mark on the historical sites. over the years, the multi-layered, respectful and military character underwent changes but it was only on the eve of World War I that it became debased into forms of German nationalism and militarism. It could not survive the year 1918 in such a form and despite a slight renaissance between 1939-1945, it expired.
At present, groups of enthusiasts gradually return to these memorials o reflect on them merely for their original pietistical importance. The old nationalist German memory entirely disappeared with the resettlement of the ethic group from the region and it can never reurn in its most extreme form.