City Names Guide

Much of what ultimately became Czechoslovakia back in 1919 had been part of the recently defeated Austro-Hungarian Empire where many cities and towns went by German names. After the First World War ethnic Germans in the Sudeten border districts resisted taking on Czech names for their cities. Rather than switch back and forth between two names for the same places, the novel uses the German names for these Sudeten municipalities. But to make it easier for readers to find cities mentioned in the book, following is a guide to the names used today: