Dukla Barracks
After a series of lost wars waged by Maria Theresa against Prussia in the mid-18th century most of Silesia was lost and the Habsburg Monarchy borders changed substantially. Since Opava became a border town, permanent garrison was set up in town to reinforce the imperial army, which was present in Opava since the end of the Thirty Years’ War.
From the end of the 1740s the military quarters in Rybí Market housed 180 infantrymen. In 1835 stables for 40 horses were added. At the end of the 19th centrury the barracks closed down. In 1778 the town was occupied by the Prussian army during the War of the Bavarian Succession (so called Potato War). The following year Emperor Joseph II visited Opava and he abandonded his original plan to turn the town into a fortress. The town fortifications were then torn down. In 1847–1849 Franz Joseph’s barracks were built close to the demolished Jaktařská Gate. The three-storey building, which stood next to the site where the department store Breda&Weinstein was to be built, housed almost seven hunderd soldiers. After the consitution of the Czechoslovak Republic, the building was known as Old Barracks. It was torn down in 1939. In Krnovská Street close to the power plant stood Archduke Albrecht’s Barracks (Small Barracks). Not far away the Archduke Reiner’s Barracks (New Barracks) were built at the end of the 19th century. The barracks housed the militiamen and later the 15th regiment of the Czechoslovak Army. In 1966 the barracks were turned into Jan Žižka of Trocnov Grammar School, then into Silesian Grammar School. Today the buildings house departments of the Municipal Authority. There were other premises for the army in Opava – a shooting range near Palhanec from 1839, storehouse for gunpowder in Kasárenská Street, army headquarters (later Army House, today the Silesian University Rectorate), army hospital in Republiky Square from 1846, or coachmen barracks in today’s Jaselská Street.
The Principality of Opava originally belonged to administration districts which provided recruits for various units. This chaned mid-19th century when Opava belonged to Franz Joseph’s First Infantry called Kaiser or Kaiserinfatry or Einser. This unit, whose soldiers wore dark red shoulder boards and yellow buttons, fought in the battle of Trutnov in the Austro-Prussian War in 1866. Towards the end of the 19th century, Conrad von Hötzendorf, later field marshal and chief of the general staff in the Austrian army in World War I, became the unit’s commander. After 1912 there was only the 3rd battalion in Opava, the first two battalions were relocated to the Polish Krakow and Bosnian Mostar. In 1914 there was the 15th Landwehr regiment in Opava. In October 1915 Heliodor Píka was conscripted into the regiment. In 1917 the regiment changed into the 15th rifle regiment (Schützenregiment). There was also a reserve company of the 16th hunting battalion in Opava. Before World War I, there were 2,000 soldiers, 100 army officers, and 250 horses in Opava.
By then the largest military quarters in Opava were Rudolph’s Artillery Barracks. The main part was built in the years 1887–1889 as a project of F. Puchner and E. Labitzký in cooperation with M. Hartel on the site behind today’s railway station Opava-západ. The entry into the premises is in the upper part of Horovo Square with a staircase and a terrace and two buildings with avant-corps on their corners that served as quarters for officers. Large closed space with a central yard is formed by three historicizing buildings for the men. The 10-hectare premises further included stables, prisson, utility buildings, riding hall, garden, and even tennis courts and a football pitch.
After the constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic the barracks were named Masaryk’s Barracks, and when some of the headquarters and units relocated to Hranice na Moravě, it housed the 8th artillery regiment and the 15th infantry. When the Czech border fortifications were under construction in 1936, the barracks housed Engineering Group Headquarters IV. In March 1938 IV. Hlučin battalion and 4th Hranice regimen were accommodated in the barracks. In 1938 the area around Opava was one of the best fortified places near the Nazi Germany borders. Following the Munich Agreement, the German army entered the town without fight and seized all the military quarters in Opava. None of the buildings were damaged during World War II. After the war had ended, the barracks were taken over by the Red Army, and in summer 1945 the Czechoslovak Army. Masaryk’s Barracks again housed artillery, first with horse-drawn cannons. Part of the barracks temporarily served as an internation camp for the German inhabitants before they were resettled. After the Czechoslovak coup d’état, the barracks were renamed Dukla Barraks and became the seat of various army units, e. g. the 5th geodetic detachment. Worth mentioning are the events of August 1968 when the Sovied Army was prevented from entering the barracks, which resulted in sanctions for those participating in the protest. Training later changed to logistics (rearward services), and the 53rd training logistics centre was set up, which from 1999 carried the name of the army general Heliodor Píka. The unit did an outstanding job in helping to eliminate the consequences of the catastrophic floods of 1997 and 2002. The state-mandated military service ended in 2004, and the unit dissolved in 2005. Two years later most of the premises passed on to the town of Opava.