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The Spanish Riding School
of Vienna |
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The
True Miracle |
Where is Hostau anyway? By John D’Addamio
In the "The Imperial Horse" ("Lipizzaner - das Kaiserliche Pferd"), Isenbart & Bührer claim that Hostau was a small provincial town in Bohemia.1 Although they gave a convincing description of the town, I came to the conclusion that their statement is incorrect. Some years ago, I found a Freytag & Berndt map of the Czech Republic which has a historical names index. It gives the place name in both German and Czech. It says that Hostau was the German name for Hostouň in Pilsen province. That is the only entry for Hostau. However, there is also a Bohemian village named Hostouň near Prague and is nearly 200 KM (125 miles) from the border. That could not be Hostau as it is too far from the border and from Schwarzenberg, Bavaria. Consider the facts of Col. Reed’s statement in Handler’s “The Spanish Riding School ".2 In that statement, Reed says that, on April 26, his forces attacked a large German intelligence unit bivouacked in and around a Bavarian hunting lodge near the Czech border. This was a previously arranged mock battle and, after he had surrendered, the German commander invited Reed to breakfast. After some conversation about the Hostau stud and prisoner of war camp, they agreed that the horses and POW’s should be rescued by Americans. Reed says that he sent a German bicyclist to Hostau to ask an officer to come to his headquarters and discuss terms of surrender. Reed says that Captain Rudolf Lessing, staff veterinarian at Hostau, rode to Reed’s headquarters on a Lipizzaner stallion and arrived at 8 PM (20:00). Reed says he moved the herd from Hostau to Schwarzenberg, Bavaria on May 12. He says that the move to Schwarzenberg was completed in one day. Reed makes it clear that most of the animals walked since they had only enough trucks for mares heavy with foal or with foals at their side. Reed also says that, on May 7 1945, his forces were deployed on a line 10 miles southeast of Pilsen from Horšice through Zinkovy to Nepomuk in accordance with Patton’s desire to stop the Russians from advancing into American held territory in Germany. Reed remained in that area for at least another week as he was visited at his headquarters in Zinkovy by Podhajsky on May 14 – 15, 1945. In terms of geography, the Hostouň in Pilsen province made a lot more sense than the one in Bohemia. In addition to being called Hostau in the past, it is close to the border. It is also close to where Patton had Reed’s task force deployed on May 7. It is also a reasonable distance (less than 30 miles or 50 KM) from one of the many places named Schwarzenberg in Bavaria. Considering the average speed of a horse’s walk, this distance would be about an 8 hour walk. Allowing for suitable rest stops, that’s a reasonable amount of time for unconditioned horses like barren broodmares and young horses to walk in a day. This conclusion is supported by the German edition of Wikipedia. There is a definitive entry for Hostouň in Pilsen which says that it was not only known as Hostau but was also the site of the Lipizzaner stud during World War II. The Pilsen province is well known for its rich grazing land. In fact, the Austrian Imperial Stud in Kladruby, original home of Kladruber breed, is approximately 15 KM (10 miles) from Hostau “as the crow flies” but, because there are no direct roads, perhaps twice that distance by car. Although the dots may be imprecisely placed, the homemade map below shows the relative positions of Hostau, Schwarzenberg, Pilsen, St. Martin, and other locations mentioned in this series.
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