Alpine view

Oldřich Kalousek served 27 months of military service “on the line.” From the end of 1953, after graduating from an NCO school in Volary, until January 1956, when he was released from the army, he served in the company of the first wave of the border guard. The first-wave companies were placed in different locations in the border zone, usually at a great distance from the civilian settlements, such as the Plešné jezero Lake or the Třístoličník Mountain. The so-called “Alpine view” lay at the foot of the Třístoličník Mountain, where the borders of three countries - the Czech Republic, Germany, and Austria - met. Kalousek recalled: “When the weather was extremely nice, mostly in the early winter or after New Year’s Eve, we took the big binoculars and had the Austrian Alps at our fingertips. Seeing the Alpine horseshoe was a fantasy.” The view of the beautiful scenery made it easier to cope with the hardships in the demanding terrain of the Šumava Mountains to the poorly equipped men of the border guard. Kelousek went on to say: “Our original equipment was taken over from the Germans. We had regular rifles at first – only later did we get machine guns. Even our boots were German.” In all probability, even the binoculars, with which the border guards viewed the Alpine mountain range from the Třístoličník outlook, were German made.