13 Feb 2008 Weapons and ammunition discovered during road construction

Archaeologists discovered weapons and several hundred pieces of ammunition during the construction of the S1 road link in the Opava region. Among the finds were machine gun magazines, an engineer's charge, several artillery anti-tank rounds, as well as five Panzerfausts of 60 millimetre calibre.

The S1 link was basically a connection of the I/11 and I/56 roads. The cost of construction exceeded 775 million crowns. It was planned that the link would be approximately 1.76 kilometres long and would also consist of five bridges with a total length of 401 metres. The construction did not include any off-grade crossings and noise barriers.

A big surprise awaited archaeologists who had been searching for prehistoric settlements in the fields near Opava for several weeks. Finally, they found a 53-year-old military treasure in the form of weapons ammunition. This was thanks to a digger who came across the first pieces of ammunition during a regular field dig.

Police officers were called to the site, including a bomb disposal technician who transported the ammunition for disposal. But after a while he had to return because the war treasure was really extensive. The digger kept pulling more ammunition out of the ground.

René Černohorský, a spokesman for the Opava police, explained what was found in the field near Opava. "In addition to four hundred and forty-four pieces of 20 millimetre calibre bullets and twenty-one 88 millimetre calibre artillery anti-tank rounds were found at the excavation site five 60 millimetre calibre Panzerfausts, an artillery shell, a grenade, an engineer charge and four machine gun magazines were also found in the excavation site," the police spokesman said.

Such a large discovery of ammunition and weapons is probably related to the so-called Ostrava-Opava operation, which began on 10 March 1945 with an attempted direct attack on Ostrava and Těšín from the north-eastern direction. The Germans put up stiff resistance at that time. As late as March 1945, Ostrava accounted for thirty-five percent of the Reich's industrial production, and Hitler was well aware of its vital strategic importance.

"If you surrender Moravian Ostrava, you surrender Germany! Moravian Ostrava must be held fast," he declared two months before the end of the Second World War.

The operation lasted until May 5, 1945, and was an attack by Red Army units and units of the First Czechoslovak Army Corps towards Czechoslovak Silesia and northern Moravia and penetration into Czechoslovakia.

Sources: www.denik.cz, www.pametnaroda.cz, www.wikipedia.org