Nový Žďár

Historical milestones

Before Aš there is a roundabout, which will lead us, in this order, to Nebesa or Aš, to the Aš bypass leading to the border with Germany - the Aš Selb border crossing (formerly Wildenau), and finally the last turn is to the former, now rather extinct village of Nový Žďár (German: Neuenbrandt). A few houses still remain, but the village originally also spread out on the other side of the main road towards Nebesy and Mokřiny. Most of the houses were demolished in 1951 as part of the declaration of the border zone. Between the wars, there were 35 houses and 380 people lived here. Most of them were small farmers or workers in the quarry.

Tourist signpost - historical boundary stones

However, we are waiting for another interesting thing. If we are driving, we will park in a spot by the forest, because the traffic signs will not let us go any further. Cyclists and pedestrians can safely continue straight to the railway line, which we will cross over on the bridge. We will come to a crossroads at the former signal light used by border guards and go straight along the yellow tourist sign until we reach the turnoff to the red one, which will take us to the border with Germany. This is an interesting section of the state border where several historical landmarks stand between the boundary stones 7/10-9/8. Seven landmarks with the Zedtwitz coat of arms (on one side) and the von Lindefels coat of arms from Erkersreuth. The landmarks are dated 1718 and 1754. Another curiosity is the so-called bowl-shaped stone with a carved cross. The boundary stone is located in the bowl-shaped depression. Karl Alberti believed that this is a prehistoric sacrificial site associated with the Celts. Which was a relatively widespread romantic idea for these stones. Today we know that most of these bowls were created by natural processes. However, this does not exclude that they could have attracted our ancestors and served some cult purposes. In addition, there are so-called seats on the stone, one for the Czech and the other for the Bavarian king.