Šluknov

During the middle of the 14th century, on the site of the town, a Slavic settlement named Slanknov was established by the noble family of Berka z Dubé. The family's coat of arms is, to this day, the inescutcheon in the town's coat of arms.

Schluckenau was struck, in 1710 and 1830, by two large town fires. In 1813, the town was plundered by a 200,000 man army during the Napoleonic wars.

Until 1918, Schlukenau (Schluckenau since the end of the 19th century) was part of the Austrian monarchy (Austria side after the compromise of 1867), head of the district of the same name, one of the 94 Bezirkshauptmannschaften in Bohemia.[2]

In 1930, Schluckenau was home to 5578 inhabitants who were largely ethnic German. Prior to the Second World War, Schluckenau was a center in Czechoslovakia for the pro-Nazist Sudeten German Party (SdP) led by Konrad Henlein. This was one reason why, in March 1939,[3] Adolf Hitler chose the town as the first stop of the Wehrmacht during the German annexation of Sudetenland. The Wehrmacht continued on to occupy Prague and establish the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

Following the invasion by the Wehrmacht some Czechs were driven out of Schluckenau into the interior of Bohemia. From 1938 until 1945 Schluckenau was the seat for the district administrator of the County of Schluckenau in the Nazist German Sudetenland, the district of Aussig (Czech: Ústí nad Labem).

After the war, in 1945, the town returned to Czechoslovakia and the German inhabitants were expelled under the terms of Beneš decrees. The town was renamed Šluknov. Only a few Czechs were willing to settle in the remote northern Bohemian town following its vacancy.

Today, the town and the Šluknov region are a problem area for the Czech Republic. The population is only ​¹⁄₇ of its prewar size. One fifth of the residents are Romani who suffer from a high unemployment rate.