The story
The first written mention of Jablonec was in a Latin document from 1356 as Jablonecz. According to this document, Jablonec was founded in the 14th century. In August 1469, the village was burned to the ground by troops of rebelling Lusatians in the war between them and King George of Poděbrady. The village was then resettled in the 1530s and 1540s by mostly German-speaking colonists.
In the first half of the 17th century, Jablonec was owned by Albrecht von Wallenstein, who sold it to the Desfours family. In 1643, during the Thirty Years' War, Jablonec was burned down for the second time. Glass production began to flourish in the second half of the 17th century and Jablonec began to develop rapidly. In the 18th century, the first bijou was produced and the first exporter, J. F. Schwann, spread the villages's name throughout Europe. Jablonec was promoted to a market town by Emperor Francis II on 21 April 1808.
Further development followed the construction of the road in the 1840s. Jablonec was then promoted to a town by Emperor Franz Joseph I on 28 March 1866. Franco-Prussian War in 1870–1871 damaged competitors in the production of glass and jewelry, and the Jablonec traders seized the foreign markets. A steady supply of a wide range of glass and artificial jewellery products flowed out of the town. This industrial advancement also improved the quality of life, and Jablonec's appearance changed dramatically.
Historian Peter Hinks, writing about the various types of Late Victorian jewellery sold by British and American companies at the turn of the 20th century, noted that "The Bohemian garnet jewellery sold by Moore and Evans [in Chicago] was the product of an industry based in the town of Gablonz, now Jablonec. These very effective jewels were set with locally mined garnets, rose cut and set in gold mounts of very formal design."
However, the worldwide economic crisis resulting from the Wall Street crash of 1929 damaged the glass and jewellery industry and the crisis of the 1930s began. Changing trends and the growth of foreign competition also hurt the local industry. In October 1938, Jablonec was annexed to Nazi Germany after the Munich Agreement, and was administered as a part of Reichsgau Sudetenland until 1945.
Between 1945 and 1949, most of the Germans were expelled under the terms of Beneš decrees. After the war, some of the expelled German-speaking citizens of Jablonec founded a new settlement in Bavaria and called in remembrance of their hometown Neugablonz ('new Jablonec'). Today, it is one of the districts of the city of Kaufbeuren.
From Wikipedia’s article on Jablonec nad Nisou, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5