Hometown Hostau - Patronage
Dillingen on the Danube is the main city in the governmental district of Swabia with a population of 18, 650. In the year 1111 this settlement was mentioned for the first time by the Count of Dillingen and, most probably, became a city in the 12th century. The first documentations are found in the archives dating back to 1220. The last Count of Dillingen fortified the city and by endowment it became a part of the Royal Diocese of Augsburg in 1258. From the 15th century on and up to 1803, Dillingen was a secular town and the residence of the royal bishops of Augsburg; it accommodated a major university complex from 1542 to 1802. Traditionally it remained a philosophical-theological college until 1971. The economic power of this medieval city allowed Emperor Charles IV to establish a mint in 1357. Ecclesiastical architectures are dominantly visible in the townscape; one of these is the university church “Assumption of the Virgin Mary” with a convent, and there are various university buildings with long, nicely jointed facades. Today the campus houses the Bavarian Academy of Education. In 1945/46 the number of inhabitants increased by a quarter with the influx of expellees from Bohemia. These new citizens have greatly contributed to the industrialization of the area between 1950 and 1960.
In 1946, a transport of expellees from the Sudeten German town of Hostau arrived at Dillingen and since then, and until 1987, there were nine Hostau-Reunions. On October 12, 1987 the city council of Dillingen decided to grant patronage to the city of Hostau from where their expelled citizens were forced to leave. They blessed and dedicated a new Hostau flag in memory of the 400 year anniversary (when the lost hometown acquired the status of a city) and honored the original hometown of their expellee-citizens. To that effect, the Dillingen City Council issued and signed a commemorative document on July 17, 1988. In his welcoming address the Mayor of Dillingen explained that the expellees’ social and economic integration had already been successful and, therefore, an official acceptance of today’s patronage might seem redundant, but the intent of this formal patronage is to memorize and to document the old homeland by maintaining its historical and cultural inheritance. The city of Dillingen’s patronage supports reunions with Hostau. Furthermore, a “Hostau-Department” is soon to become an extension of the City’s and Royal-Bishop’s Museum in Dillingen.
By unanimous resolution the city council of Dillingen accepted patronage for the city of Hostau in the Bohemian Forest as of this day October 12, 1987.
It is documented, accompanied with the blessing of the Hostau city flag , with the purpose to commemorate the city status granted to Hostau 400 years ago.
This document issued July 17, 1988 and signed for the town of Dillingen on the Danube by
Hans-Jürgen Weigl
Lord Mayor and Provost
The City of Dillingen adopted the town Hostau on the 16th and 17th of July in 1988. At the celebration there was also a blessing of the flags of Hostau in Dillingen on the Danube (Bavaria).
