by
Robert J. Paulson

Weshorch

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The village lay in a clearing in the forest, south of Kladrau. It once belonged to the cloister at Kladrau. It was first mentioned in 1273, and again after a Czech uprising in 1239. After that, the local nobleman removed Weshorch from the control of the Kladrauer cloister, after he and his wife began to concern themselves with caring for their land and cleansed themselves of the local abbey.

In 1945, the abbot granted Weshorch the right to build a pond on the in the local meadow. The village belonged to the Kladrauer cloister and later to the Kladrauer nobles until the end of the feudal age. From 1850 until 1979 the village was self sufficient, then a settlement of Kladrau, and then, after 1990, self-sufficient again.

The village was brought into a parish later. There the children attended a Volks School until after 1945, the school lay 1 kilometer from the village. In the tax records from 1654

to 1655, the village was listed as one of the largest and richest in the Kladrau region. It consisted of 20 farms, wherein 23 farm fields stood.

The existence of the citizens of Kladrau depended on farming; only those tradesmen necessary to the workings of a village could make a living through practicing their trades. An inn was the center point of social life in the village. A group of volunteers with a steam-powered tractor founded a fire hall in 1892; a Turnverein and German Culture committee were also present in the town.

The village was laid out in a four-cornered fashion around a plaza. The village bloomed, against all odds, from the seemingly poor soil. Through the middle of the town square ran a street from Kladrau to Bischofteinitz. At the time, there were two small alleyways, which divided the large village square in two smaller sections. After 1930, four village ponds existed in the square. A Czech tour guide gave this description of the village: “In the middle if the village square stands the Marien Church from 1715, with a tin roof: and a bell house covered in lanterns from 1756. The interior of the chapel, which was built during the 18th century, is no more. The building will shortly be renovated and given a new tin roof. On the east side of the street stood a baroque field cross from the year 1654.”

The fallen of the First World War were given a worthy monument, which was beset with the names of 12 men from Weshorch who died in the war. The list of those fallen in the Second World War stretched to 29. About one Kilometer to the west from the village, towards Tinchau, lay the lodge of forester Herr Grünbaum.