Timeline
Browse through the most important milestones in the history of the Bata Group and its successors in Zruč nad Sázavou.
Browse through the most important milestones in the history of the Bata Group and its successors in Zruč nad Sázavou.
The first Bata shoe shop was opened in Zruč nad Sázavou for 1,422 local inhabitants.
Bata Concern, a. s., Zlín, decided to build a new factory town (Nová Zruč or Zruč nad Sázavou - Bat'ov) in Zruč nad Sázavou. The decision was related to the deconcentration of production beyond the borders of the Zlín agglomeration and the strategy of spreading capital risks within the Czech lands at the time of the international crisis on the eve of the Second World War. After Munich, Zruč found itself almost in the middle of the truncated Czech lands.
The original Bata company shop in the old house on the square in Zruč was replaced by a new Bata branch in house no. 199.
Representatives of the Bata concern signed a purchase contract for the land, forestry, distillery, power plant, dead and living inventory of the farm yards Damhoř (Domahoř) and Zruč nad Sázavou of the landowner and castle lord Jan Schebek.
Preparatory work begins on the first of the eight factory buildings designed under the direction of the builder Bohuslav Slováček. The site was probably visited by Jan Antonín Bata.
The municipal board of Zruč nad Sázavou gave its consent to the sale of the land of the landowner Jan Schebek to the Bata concern, a. s., Zlín.
Leopold Klátil was appointed head of the Bata concern.
The first Zlín machines were installed and put into operation under the supervision of Zlín instructors in the granary of the zruč estate. With the first 150 employees, production of the so-called bagans, heavy work shoes, began.
The district office in Ledec nad Sázavou received an official announcement of the establishment of the Bata concern factory in Zruč for the production, storage and sale of all types of footwear. Hynek Bata and Václav Rojt were appointed responsible deputies for the operation of the branch factory of Bata, a. s., Zruč nad Sázavou (Bata, a. s., Production Plant in Zruč nad Sázavou).
Excavation work began on the construction of the first factory building, which had been in use since December 1939.
Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, ten production workshops were working in the factory.
The construction of the Bata Municipal School, the most modern school building in the region at the time, is started, according to the project of M. Drofa (possible co-author Vladimir Karfík).
Construction of a water reservoir above the town on the top of Pohoří Hill begins.
On the last day of 1939, all production equipment was transported from the granary to the first factory building.
A football team of Bata's young men began to operate on the field of SK Sázavan in the local part of Závist. In fact, at the same time as the football club, the foundations were laid for an athletics club, which made its first appearance in the spring of 1940 with a two-kilometre spring run around Nová Zruč (however, it was not officially established until the following year, 1941). Already in 1940, the activities of the Bata athletes were supplemented by agile aeronautical modellers and scouts of the BŠP, organised within the Junák.
The construction of the factory's thermal power plant began.
The first factory building is put into operation with the opening of the first workshop on the third floor.
Second workshop in the first factory building opened: daily production of each workshop was 1000 pairs of textile work shoes with wooden soles.
The first factory building was completed, which served both production and temporary accommodation, educational and social purposes.
The twelve-chamber brickworks behind the railway station on the meadow stretching towards Domahora is opened.
The younger of the pair of five-bay production buildings completed.
The company fire brigade, the best equipped fire brigade in the Ledec district at the time, is founded.
Factory medical dispensary opened in the company's one-room building, serving as a kindergarten after the war.
Foundations of the Community House were laid, which was under roof on 22 April 1941.
In 1940, 150 houses were completed with 50,000 square metres of ornamental gardens and lawns with 1,050 fruit trees planted and over 12,000 ornamental and utility shrubs.
The Oberlandrat banned all construction activity in Zruč nad Sázavou - Bat'a.
In Zruč nad Sázavou, a meeting was held between representatives of the local government (the mayor of Zruč and the district governor of Ledec), the Bata concern (directors Alfred Miesbach and Hugo Vavrečka and architects Vladimír Karfík and Jiří Voženílek) and the German occupation administration headed by Dr. Eckholdt. The dispute over the existence and non-existence of the Bata concern's factory in Zruč was finally resolved in the field of urban planning in favour of the Bata concern, which, however, had to agree to concessions in favour of traditionalist German architecture (Heimatstil).
Completion of the three-storey, twelve-classroom municipal school.
In the Community House with a biograph (theatre hall), a company shop was opened on the second floor along with a library and reading room. In front of the Social House, which was temporarily used for accommodation purposes, a football field was also opened, but gradually turned into an asphalt parking lot thanks to the construction of dormitories and a department store on the square in the 1960s.
Zimolka's competitive boxing team was established, which made its first appearance in the canteen in the second factory building in January 1942 in a match with the Bata team from Trebic-Borovina (Zručský lost 6 : 10).
The first Bata employees from Zruč nad Sázavou were sent to the Reich for forced labour.
The iconic waiting room, also depicted in Forman's film The Love of a Saleswoman, was opened at the Bata Works railway station.
By the end of the year, when further construction was definitely forbidden by the occupation authorities, 13 single-family houses, 116 semi-detached houses and 20 four-family houses were built in Bata Zruč. The spectrum of leisure organizations was complemented by the K. Kadeřábek, a former captain of the Czechoslovak army, organised every Thursday evening promenade concerts of brass music on the square in Zruč, supplemented by performances of the employees' music group under the direction of J. Hlavatý.
31 journeymen passed their first journeyman examinations.
The Nazi youth organisation Hitler Youth (Hitler Youth) rented a community centre with a school and playground in the family quarter. The annual rent was more than K 800 000.
In Dresden, František Gabris and Josef Šubrt were executed for illegal activities in the factory.
After the raid on the Bata factory in Zlín on 20 November 1944, two shoe workshops with 300 employees were transferred to Zruč. In 1944, Zruč production accounted for 8.5% of national shoe production, and in 1945, due to the damage to the parent Bata factory in Zlín, even 12.2%, although the number of employees fell for a number of reasons.
The Revolutionary Factory Council of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was established, which decided on practically all economic, social and pedagogical issues of the company.
The newly appointed national administrator Jan Pištěk, a long-time Bata worker with a history as a prisoner of the Buchenwald concentration camp, remained at the head of the plant until 1949, when he moved to the management of the Gottwaldov Svit. The factory had five workshops with 1,009 employees, which by the end of 1945 had grown to 1,421 people.
The local organisation of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was founded.
The KSČ Trade Union Council was founded: one of its first tasks was to distribute one pair of free shoes among the workers in October 1945.
The factory organisation of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia was established.
On the basis of the decree of President Dr Edvard Beneš of 24 October 1945, the Bata concern was nationalised: the Bata enterprise, Zruč nad Sázavou, part of the Bata, n.p., Zlín company, was now under the responsibility of the Directorate of Czechoslovak Tanneries and Rubber Plants.
Zruč nad Sázavou - Bat'a was visited by Minister and Chairman of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Klement Gottwald.
Approved construction documentation for the construction of apartment buildings with three- and four-room apartment units. Implementation started in 1947.
In the second half of the year, the factory produced 1,820,000 pairs of shoes with a weekly production of 40,000 pairs. The economic result of 1946 was a profit of CZK 2 352 000.
As part of the centralisation of post-war Czechoslovak education, the Bata School of Labour was closed down.
Another 13 smaller shoe factories were added to the Svit, n.p., Zlín, Zruč nad Sázavou plant. Probably the most significant post-war innovation in the portfolio of goods produced was the launch of engineering production at the turn of 1948/1949. It saturated the chronic shortage of spare parts and sought to at least partially harmonise the numerical representation of men and the predominantly female workforce. The first engineering products produced were hydraulic multipliers and switchboards for presses.
Decree No. 1005 of the Minister of Industry established the national enterprise Sázavan (Svit, n.p., Sázavan), whose production programme was the production of footwear.
The ROH, n.p., Sázavan Racing Club was founded for employees and their family members.
The employees, mostly aged around 24, produced 3 309 000 pairs of shoes in 1949, 6.5% of the total production of the Czechoslovak shoe industry.
Ludvík Vondrus (1949-1954), a long-time Bata worker and still chairman of the ROH Works Council, took over the management of the factory and was succeeded by František Hladík as company director.
The Workers' Theatre, built in 1948-1950 with the support of the central headquarters in Zlín, was opened in the former Bat'a. The first theatre building in the Ledeč district was opened with a production of Smetana's The Bartered Bride by Prague artists. The very next year, Dvořák's Rusalka (Opera of the National Theatre in Prague) was performed there.
The enterprise was declared a strike factory.
The Sázavan plant was placed under the Ministry of Consumer Industry, to whose organisational structure the nearby Slavona plant from Ledec nad Sázavou was transferred.
Opening of a (two-year) master shoemaking industrial school and a secondary vocational school.
The reorganisation of the Czechoslovak footwear industry consisting in the merger of the national enterprises Svit Gottwaldov and ZDA Partizánske created the largest economic unit in the consumer industry with 55 000 employees. It also included the Gustav Klimenta Třebíč, Botana Skuteč, Bošany Tanneries, ZZKP Otrokovice and Sázavan Zruč nad Sázavou. In the mid-1960s, autonomous patterning of up to 75 types of footwear, mainly export children's flexibles, and the transition to the production of less labour-intensive glued shoes, whose production accounted for 58% of the total production, were promoted in footwear production.
Miloš Forman's feature film Love of a Mermaid premiered in Prague and was already screened at the Venice International Film Festival at the end of August. The film was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe.
In 1985, when Sázavan produced 7,722,000 pairs of shoes with a profit of 491,000,000 CZK, the company presented a collection of 131 models for the spring-summer 1986 season at the Agrokomplex Nitra exhibition.
Zruč shoe production, famous in Europe and overseas mainly for the production of quality children's shoes, was closed. After 1989, the heirs of the national company Sázavan became several smaller companies specialized in footwear production, headed by the company Sázavan Product, s. r. o., which from 1996 developed the production of so-called cork fusbet (footwear with natural corklatex insole) in the buildings of the company Sázavan Strojírny, s. r. o.