Company Towns of the Bata Concern: History – Cases – Architecture 9783515103763

Table of contents :
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
1. THE CASE OF COMPANY TOWNS OF THE BAŤA CONCERN
1.1. INTRODUCTION
1.2. REFLECTING ON THE TOPIC OF PERIOD DISCUSSIONS, THEIR SECOND LIFE, AND THE CURRENT STATE OF UNDERSTANDING
1.3. COMPANY TOWNS OF THE BAŤA CONCERN IN THE COORDINATES OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH
1.4. THE BAŤA CONCERN – CHARACTER OF GROWTH, STRUCTURE, AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS
1.5. ON THE GENESIS OF THE BAŤA MODEL OF COMPANY TOWNS: CONDITIONS AND CIRCUMSTANCES, PREMISES AND INFLUENCES
1.6. “THE IDEAL INDUSTRIAL TOWN” – ON THE SYSTEMATIZATION OF THE CONCERN’S PROGRAM AT THE END OF THE 1930S
1.7. CONCLUSION
II. REFLECTING ON BAŤA’S HISTORY
1. IDENTITY, DISCIPLINE AND ORDER IN THE BAŤA CONCERN
1.1. THE EMPLOYEE – SELECTION, RECORDS, CONTROL
1.2. BODY AND CHARACTER
1.3. MORAL DECLINE AND ITS TREATMENT
1.4. IMAGES AND METAPHORS. THE BAŤA COLLECTIVE…
1.5. … AND ITS ENEMIES
1.6. EPILOGUE
2. IMAGINING BAŤA IN THE WORLD OF TOMORROW: THE BAŤA COMPANY, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, AND THE 1939 NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR
2.1. HISTORIOGRAPHY
2.2. BAŤA’S PLACE IN THE WORLD OF TOMORROW
2.3. A FAIR AFTER MUNICH?
2.4. THE ORPHAN PAVILION
3. BAŤA’S SEARCH FOR SOCIAL RECONCILIATION IN THE CHANGING WORLD OF SOCIAL JUSTICE
3.1. INTRODUCTION
3.2. BAŤA’S CONCEPT OF SOCIAL RECONCILIATION
3.3. BAŤA AND HIS ERA
3.4. BAŤA’S SOURCES OF INSPIRATION
3.5. CONCLUSION
III. BAŤA TOWNS – CASE STUDIES
1. OTTMUTH (OTMĘT): A GERMAN OUTPOST OF BATISM?
1.1. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COMPANY DEUTSCHE SCHUH-AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT BATA, BERLIN (1928–1930)
1.2. DEUTSCHE SCHUH-AKTIEN GESELLSCHAFT BATA,OTTMUTH A.G. (1930–1938)
1.3. OTA SCHLESISCHE SCHUH-WERKE OTTMUTH A.G.(1938–1945)
1.4. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMPANIES DEUTSCHE SCHUH-AKTIEN GESELLSCHAFT BATA, OTTMUTH AND OTA, SCHLESISCHE SCHUH-WERKE OTTMUTH, A.G. (1930–1945)
1.5. CONSTRUCTION DEVELOPMENT OF THE FACTORY PREMISES (1931–1945)
1.6. BATA-SIEDLUNG
1.7. POSTWAR DEVELOPMENT AND OTA’S POSITION IN THE POLISH ECONOMY
1.8. CONCLUSION
2. PUTTING MÖHLIN ON THE MAP: THE SWISS BAŤA TOWN AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE COMPANY’S NATIONAL IMAGE
2.1. A CRISIS-RAVAGED VILLAGE
2.2. A COLORFUL BOUQUET OF ENEMIES
2.3. BAŤA’S ROAD TO THE STATUS OF A SWISS PRODUCT
2.4. MÖHLIN AS A NEW CENTER
2.5. BAŤA APPLIES AN IMAGEOLOGICAL BRICOLAGE
2.6. WHAT DAYS SHOULD ONE CELEBRATE?
2.7. WHAT LANGUAGE SHOULD ONE SPEAK?
2.8. WHAT ADVERTISING SHOULD ONE USE?
2.9. WHAT OCCASIONS SHOULD ONE SUPPORT?
2.10. FROM EXPANSION TO PRODUCTION STOPPAGE
2.11. CONCLUSION
3. BAŤA IN PONITRIE1: ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SLOVAK COMPANY TOWNS OF VEĽKÉ BOŠANY AND BAŤOVANY (TODAY PARTIZÁNSKE)
4. THE ESTABLISHMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE BAŤA FACTORY IN SVIT (1934–45)
5. MODERNITY ON “BRABANT’S HEATH”: BUILDING BATADORP IN THE NETHERLANDS, 1932–1959
5.1. NORTH-BRABANT BEFORE BATADORP: CONSUMER GOODS PRODUCTION AND AN EXPORT-ORIENTED INFRASTRUCTURE, 1800–1932
5.2. DUTCH COMPANY TOWNS BEFORE BATADORP: THE MODERNITY OF AGNETAPARK, HEVEADORP, PHILIPSDORP AND DRENTS DORP, 1880–1932
5. 3. BATADORP IN NORTH-BRABANT: BECOMING A CATHOLIC PARISH WITH A NEW NEIGHBOR, 1933–1959
5.4. POSTSCRIPT: BATADORP TODAY
6. “A BIT OF EUROPE IN MARYLAND”: THE BAŤA COLONY IN BELCAMP
6.1. INTRODUCTION
6.2. RAISON D’ÊTRE
6.3. LOCATION
6.4. TOWN DESIGN
6.5. CONSTRUCTION
6.6. FACTORY BUILDINGS
6.7. COMMUNITY CENTER OR SPOLEČENSKÝ DŮM
6.8. HOUSES
6.9. SCHOOL BUILDING
6.10. POSTWAR BELCAMP
6.11. ORGANIZED LABOR AND AMERICAN LABOR LAWS
6.12. CONCLUSION
7. BATAWA: A CANADIAN COMPANY TOWN NOT QUITE LIKE THE OTHERS
8. JAROSLAV FRAGNER AND THE UNREALIZED PROJECT OF AN INDUSTRIAL TOWN IN KOLÍN-ZÁLABÍ
IV. ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM
1. BAŤA’S ZLÍN – SPACE FOR THE INDIVIDUAL COLLECTIVE?
1.1. FAMILY HOUSES – A NEW TYPE OF HOUSING
1.2. THE WOMEN’S ROLE IN THE FAMILY HOUSES
1.3. MECHANIZATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD
1.4. MAKING ARCHITECTURE SCIENTIFIC
1.5. TRANSFORMATION OF THE FLOOR PLANS
1.6. THE NEW PATTERN – AESTHETICS
1.7. COMPETITION WITHIN THE COLLECTIVE
1.8. WORK COLLECTIVELY, LIVE INDIVIDUALLY
1.9. VISIBILITY
1.10. PUBLIC – PRIVATE
1.11. THE FACTORY AS ROLE MODEL
1.12. CONCLUSION
2. ZLÍN AND THE INVENTION OF THE PANEL BUILDING
3. BAŤOVANY/PARTIZÁNSKE: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CONCEPT OF THE FUNCTIONAL CITY
4. THE ROLE OF BRANDS CORPORATIONS IN THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE: THE URBAN FOOTPRINTS OF BAŤA, NIKE, AND VOLKSWAGEN
4.1. VOLKSWAGEN TOWN
4.2. NIKETOWNS
4.3. BAŤA TOWNS
4.4. THE BAŤA TOWN OF BATANAGAR
4.5. CONCLUSION
LIST OF AUTHORS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
LIST OF ARCHIVES AND ARCHIVAL FONDS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ABBREVIATIONS
EDITORS’ NOTE
INDEX OF NAMES
INDEX OF LOCALITIES

Citation preview

Economic History Franz Steiner Verlag

Company Towns of the Bat’a Concern History – Cases – Architecture

Edited by Ondrˇej Ševecˇek and Martin Jemelka

Company Towns of the Bat’a Concern Edited by Ondrˇej Ševecˇek and Martin Jemelka

Company Towns of the Bat’a Concern History – Cases – Architecture Edited by Ondrˇej Ševecˇek and Martin Jemelka

Franz Steiner Verlag

This book was written within the scope of grant project no. P410/10/1995 “Company Towns of the Bat’a Concern” of the Czech Science Foundation. It was published with the support of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.

Cover: View of the Bat’a family quarters of Podvesná and Zálešná in Zlín, CˇSR. [CˇR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín]

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über abrufbar. Dieses Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist unzulässig und strafbar. © Franz Steiner Verlag, Stuttgart 2013 Druck: AZ Druck und Datentechnik GmbH, Kempten Gedruckt auf säurefreiem, alterungsbeständigem Papier. Printed in Germany. ISBN 978-3-515-10376-3

Table of Contents

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface ...............................................................................................................

9

I. Introductory Remarks 1. 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 1.5. 1.6. 1.7.

Ondřej Ševeček The Case of Company Towns of the Baťa Concern .............................. Introduction ........................................................................................... Reflecting on the topic of period discussions, their second life, and the current state of understanding ................................................... Company towns of the Baťa concern in the coordinates of contemporary research ...................................................................... The Baťa concern – character of growth, structure, and its transformations........................................................................... On the genesis of the Baťa model of company towns: conditions and circumstances, premises and influences ........................ “The ideal industrial town” – on the systematization of the concern’s program at the end of the 1930s .................................. Conclusion .............................................................................................

15 15 16 26 33 36 39 45

II. Reflecting on Baťa’s History 1. 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 1.5. 1.6. 2. 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4.

Martin Marek, Vít Strobach Identity, Discipline and Order in the Baťa Concern .............................. The employee – selection, records, control ........................................... Body and character ................................................................................ Moral decline and its treatment ............................................................. Images and metaphors. The Baťa collective…...................................... … and its enemies.................................................................................. Epilogue .................................................................................................

51 53 54 55 56 58 60

Zachary Doleshal Imagining Baťa in the World of Tomorrow: The Baťa Company, Czechoslovakia, and the 1939 New York World’s Fair ......................... Historiography ....................................................................................... Baťa’s Place in The World of Tomorrow ............................................... A Fair after Munich?.............................................................................. The Orphan Pavilion..............................................................................

61 63 65 71 74

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Antonie Doležalová Baťa’s Search for Social Reconciliation in the Changing World of Social Justice ..................................................................................... 3.1. Introduction ........................................................................................... 3.2. Baťa’s concept of social reconciliation.................................................. 3.3. Baťa and his era ..................................................................................... 3.3.1. The era of the Habsburg monarchy ....................................................... 3.3.2. The First-Republic era ........................................................................... 3.4. Baťa’s sources of inspiration ................................................................. 3.4.1. Life experiences ..................................................................................... 3.4.2. American experiences............................................................................ 3.4.3. The socioeconomic theories of the time ................................................ 3.4.3.1. The origins of Czech economic thinking ............................................... 3.4.3.2. Cooperative ownership .......................................................................... 3.4.3.3. Laboretism ............................................................................................. 3.4.4. Social concepts of the time .................................................................... 3.5. Conclusion ............................................................................................. 3.

83 83 84 85 85 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 95 96 99

III. Baťa Towns – Case Studies 1. 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 1.4.1. 1.4.2. 1.5. 1.6. 1.7. 1.8. 2. 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4. 2.5.

Martin Jemelka Ottmuth (Otmęt): A German Outpost of Batism?.................................. Establishment of the company Deutsche Schuh-Aktiengesellschaft Bata, Berlin (1928–1930) ...................................................................... Deutsche Schuh-Aktien Gesellschaft Bata, Ottmuth A.G. (1930–1938)........................................................................................... OTA Schlesische Schuh-Werke Ottmuth A.G. (1938–1945)................. Economic development of the companies Deutsche Schuh-Aktien Gesellschaft Bata, Ottmuth and OTA, Schlesische Schuh-Werke Ottmuth, A.G. (1930–1945)................................................................... Footwear sales network ......................................................................... Footwear production at the Ottmuth factory ......................................... Construction development of the factory premises (1931–1945) ......... Bata-Siedlung ........................................................................................ Postwar development and OTA’s position in the Polish economy ........ Conclusion .............................................................................................

114 114 115 118 121 124 128

Tobias Ehrenbold Putting Möhlin on the Map: The Swiss Baťa Town as an Integral Part of the Company’s National Image ............................... A crisis-ravaged village ......................................................................... A colorful bouquet of enemies............................................................... Baťa’s road to the status of a Swiss product .......................................... Möhlin as a new center .......................................................................... Baťa applies an imageological bricolage...............................................

129 130 132 133 134 136

103 103 105 110

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2.6. 2.7. 2.8. 2.9. 2.10. 2.11.

What days should one celebrate?........................................................... What language should one speak? ......................................................... What advertising should one use? ......................................................... What occasions should one support? ..................................................... From expansion to production stoppage................................................ Conclusion .............................................................................................

136 138 139 140 143 144

3.

Oľga Kvasnicová Baťa in Ponitrie: On the development of the Slovak company towns of Velké Bošany and Baťovany (today Partizánske)................... 147

4.

Božena Malovcová The Establishment and Development of the Baťa Factory in Svit (1934–1945) ............................................................................... 157

5.4.

Elisabeth van Meer Modernity on “Brabant’s Heath”: Building Batadorp in the Netherlands, 1933–1959 .............................................................. North-Brabant before Batadorp: Consumer Goods Production and an Export-Oriented Infrastructure, 1800–1932 ............................... Dutch Company Towns before Batadorp: The Modernity of Agnetapark, Heveadorp, Philipsdorp and Drents Dorp, 1880–1932 ............................................................................................. Batadorp in North-Brabant: Becoming a Catholic Parish with a New Neighbor, 1933–1959 ......................................................... Postscript: Batadorp Today ....................................................................

6. 6.1. 6.2. 6.3. 6.4. 6.5. 6.6. 6.7. 6.8. 6.9. 6.10. 6.11. 6.12.

Eric J. Jenkins “A Bit of Europe in Maryland”: The Baťa Colony in Belcamp ............ Introduction ........................................................................................... Raison d’être .......................................................................................... Location ................................................................................................. Town Design .......................................................................................... Construction........................................................................................... Factory Buildings .................................................................................. Community Center or Společenský dům ............................................... Houses ................................................................................................... School Building ..................................................................................... Postwar Belcamp ................................................................................... Organized Labor and American Labor Laws......................................... Conclusion .............................................................................................

7.

Deborah Woodman Batawa: A Canadian Company Town Not Quite Like the Others ......... 189

5. 5.1. 5.2. 5.3.

165 166 169 175 177 179 179 179 180 182 183 183 184 185 186 186 187 188

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Michal Novotný Jaroslav Fragner and the Unrealized Project of an Industrial Town in Kolín-Zálabí ................................................... 201

IV. Architecture and Urbanism 1. 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4. 1.5. 1.6. 1.7. 1.8. 1.9. 1.10. 1.11. 1.12.

Theresa Adamski Baťa’s Zlín – Space for the Individual Collective? ............................... Family houses – a new type of housing................................................. The women’s role in the family houses ................................................. Mechanization of the household ............................................................ Making architecture scientific ............................................................... Transformation of the floor plans .......................................................... The new pattern – aesthetics .................................................................. Competition within the collective.......................................................... Work collectively, live individually ....................................................... Visibility ................................................................................................ Public – private ...................................................................................... The factory as role model ...................................................................... Conclusion .............................................................................................

2.

Kimberly Elman Zarecor Zlín and the Invention of the Panel Building ........................................ 249

3.

221 225 226 228 229 231 235 236 238 241 242 244 247

Alena Kubová Baťovany / Partizánske: A Contribution to the Concept of the Functional City ............................................................................ 259 Markéta Březovská The Role of Brands in the Production of Space: The Urban Footprints of Baťa, Nike, and Volkswagen............................................ Volkswagen town ................................................................................... Niketowns .............................................................................................. Baťa Towns ............................................................................................ The Baťa town of Batanagar.................................................................. Conclusion .............................................................................................

263 264 265 267 269 278

List of Authors .................................................................................................... Bibliography ....................................................................................................... List of Archives and Archival Fonds .................................................................. List of Illustrations .............................................................................................. Abbreviations ...................................................................................................... Editors’ Note ....................................................................................................... Index of Names ................................................................................................... Index of Localities ..............................................................................................

281 283 293 295 299 301 303 309

4. 4.1. 4.2. 4.3. 4.4. 4.5.

Preface

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PREFACE The business activities of the Baťa concern have not been afforded due attention in the historiography of economic and social history thus far, despite the fact that the individual companies of the Baťa concern which operated during the interwar years in many countries around the world undoubtedly ranked among the pioneering enterprises of a new industry based on mass production of consumer goods. The attention that these progressive enterprises attracted in their time was not based merely on their economic success, but mainly on the very specific quality of their development and on the comprehensive business model which gradually took shape at the Baťa concern. This model consisted not only in introducing modern organizational and production processes, but also in the widespread use of new methods in the area of management and employee welfare. Moreover, the concern’s business strategy vis-à-vis its employees was directed at creating a remarkably comprehensive industrial way of life and work that was incorporated into the framework of the towns built by the company. These towns can be considered a certain highly modernist version of the exemplary factory settlements (i.e. communities striving to achieve social reconciliation between industrial capital and the workforce) which have appeared in various forms and permutations since the initial phases of industrialization. In the context of the period, it is possible to consider this a type of industrial arrangement inspired by the practices of large American enterprises developing the model of welfare capitalism, in which employees were to be compensated for certain negative effects connected with the introduction of rationalized production (assembly lines) through better conditions in the social sphere. In the case of the Baťa concern, this basic orientation was also supported by more traditionally based paternalism, and followed a long tradition of reform-oriented business policy which was very often connected with the construction of housing estates for workers. Starting in the interwar period, a distinctive form of housing environment was systematically built around the Baťa production operations where the industrial innovations of Fordism and Taylorism were applied near-comprehensively and became socially established. At the very center of the ideological world of these housing estates’ creators was the “Fordist factory.” Not only was it viewed as a substantive element of the modern economic system, it was also considered the main entity upon which the entire project of modern progress and the associated new industrial culture were based. Thus, this was not just about implementing changes in the areas of technology and management; it was also an exceptionally interesting attempt to create a particular model of industrial life and culture that would be in harmony with Fordist production practices. Baťa towns can therefore be considered one of only a few manifestations of a private-capitalist vision of a “Fordist industrial city” during the interwar years, and in this sense they are also a completely unique enterprise in the area of planned industrial towns in the first half of the twentieth century. Consequently, the topic of

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Martin Jemelka and Ondřej Ševeček

this book undoubtedly also has more general relevance with respect to certain questions and issues addressed by the contemporary historiography of this period, and which transcend the history of enterprise in the narrow sense. The concept of the “industrial town” is also an important point of departure for research on the history of the Baťa concern, as it is in a certain sense symptomatic of the core of the Baťa industrial model, and is one of the substantive interpretive frameworks which can fundamentally contribute to our understanding of the topic. At the same time, it also offers an extraordinarily interesting perspective on certain very topical questions and challenges facing contemporary society in Europe and North America (and other regions, of course) with respect to the deindustrialization of a range of localities traditionally associated with industrial production. It is evident from the description outlined above that the topic of this book extends at its very foundations beyond the scope of economic and social history or the history of enterprise, the perspectives of which are accentuated by the editors in their own research. In view of this fact, another of its aims is therefore to present the contributions of scholars in different fields and research specializations, in order to provide a space for applying various perspectives on and approaches to the topic. In addition to economic and social historians, these are in particular researchers in historical and contemporary industrial architecture and urbanism, which has been the dominant (and best-elaborated) perspective on the topic thus far, but is also still defining it in substantive respects. Another of the goals of this book is thus to attempt to open other substantive lines of investigation, transcending the framework of interpretations influenced by exhibition projects of past decades which were devoted mainly to architecture and urbanism, and which rediscovered the topic for international audiences. A limiting factor in this effort, however, is the fact that the case of Baťa towns has not been a subject of systematic investigation thus far. We therefore also assume that this volume’s open conception will make it possible to evaluate more objectively the current state of understanding of the issues – both from the point of view of the relevant research fields and topics, as well as from the perspective of reflection and the extent to which the topic has been examined in certain countries. At this point, we must also mention that the book does not have a systematic structure. It is essentially an anthology which offers a view into the “research workshops” of seventeen authors from various countries and working in various scientific fields and specializations. It is basically an initial probe which synopsizes the current state of research on the topic and outlines possible prospects for further research. The book is divided into four main sections. In the introductory section (I), Ondřej Ševeček outlines the current state of understanding of the topic and presents existing investigations of the Baťa concern’s history. He then focuses his attention on three very topical areas of research in contemporary economic and social historiography (the defined concepts of “company towns,” “Fordism,” and “multinational corporations”), the results of which seem to be highly relevant and useful for grasping the topic. He synopsizes current knowledge on the Baťa concern’s method of expansion, the character of its growth and the related transformations of its structure. He also devotes attention to the background against which the specific type of

Preface

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industrial arrangement (a Fordist company town) emerged at the Baťa concern, and on a review of the main traits of the concern’s program at the end of the interwar period. At the end of this introductory section, possibilities and directions are suggested for further research on Baťa company towns. The second section (II), divided into three chapters, gives space to three historical expositions which also demonstrate various approaches taken by current investigations of this topic. The first chapter (1), by Martin Marek and Vít Strobach, is devoted to the issue of identity, discipline and order in the Baťa concern. It identifies the possibilities of investigations with such a focus within the scope of the study of Batism and the social history of the Baťa concern in general. In the second chapter (2), Zachary Doleshal addresses in its broader contexts the Baťa concern’s notable presentation at the New York World’s Fair in 1939. In this “exemplary example,” he reveals not only one of the important milestones of the concern’s history, but also the background of its relationship to then Czechoslovakia and its political elites. In the next chapter (3), Antonie Doležalová focuses on capturing the basic characteristics of the Baťa social concept against the broader backdrop of contemporary views on social justice, social reconciliation and their transformations. The third section (III) of the book is devoted to the development of selected localities (company towns). It is organized into eight chapters containing (1) a case study by Martin Jemelka on Ottmuth, Germany (Otmęt, now in Poland), (2) Tobias Ehrenbold on Möhlin, Switzerland, (3) Olga Kvasnicová on the Slovak localities of Veľké Bošany and Baťovany (today Partizánske), (4) Božena Malovcová on Batizovce, Slovakia (now Svit), (5) Elisabeth van Meer on Batadorp, Best, in the Netherlands, (6) Eric J. Jenkins on Belcamp in the United States, (7) Deborah Woodman on Batawa, Canada, and finally (8) Michal Novotný on the unrealized project for a Czechoslovak industrial town in Kolín-Zálabí. In this connection, it must be emphasized that in a range of cases this is this first rather systematic presentation of these Baťa localities. Even against this background, however, the lacunosity of the current state of knowledge on the topic and the gaps to be filled in by future research are clearly outlined. The topic of the fourth section (IV) is Baťa architecture and urbanism. Its first chapter (1) is introduced by Theresa Adamski, who focuses her attention on the space of the town of Zlín, and endeavors to treat its architecture and urbanism in the broader context of technological and social development. In the second chapter (2), Kimberly Elman Zarecor addresses the development of prefabrication, standardization, and typification in Czechoslovakia after the Second World War, and points to the quite extraordinary significance of the Baťa concern’s activities for the genesis of postwar mass development. In the third chapter (3), Alena Kubová focuses on urbanism in the company town of Baťovany (today Partizánske) and the work of architect Jiří Voženílek. She sets his plan for Baťovany in the context of period debates on urbanism and the planning of industrial towns. In the last chapter (4), Markéta Březovská addresses the relationship of multinational corporations to urban space, illustrating its transformations in three examples – Volkswagen town, Niketowns, and company towns of the Baťa concern (specifically the locality of Batanagar, India, which is currently undergoing transformative development accompanied by the destruction of the original settlement structure).

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Not only do the Baťa towns have their history, but so does this book. Its emergence is connected with the “Company Towns of the Baťa Concern” international conference, which was held at the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic on March 24–25, 2011. This was the working platform which stands at the inception of this publication. Therefore, in this connection, we would like to thank all the institutions and persons without whom it would not have been possible to organize this event. First of all, it is necessary to mention four main organizers – the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava, the Centre for Economic and Social History at the University of Ostrava, and the Thomas Bata Foundation in Zlín. We are very glad that the conference was personally supported by Mrs. Sonja Baťa, whom we would also like to thank here. With respect to the publication’s topic, its research development was made possible by a grant from the Czech Science Foundation for the “Company Towns of the Baťa Concern” project, whose principal investigators we became in 2010. The project focuses on researching European company towns built by the Baťa concern. From a chronological point of view, the focal point of the research is set in particular on the constitutive phase of their development, roughly circumscribed by the years 1930–1950. In view of the topics and issues under discussion, the research is divided into four main areas. The first area focuses in particular on clarifying questions connected with the genesis of the specific residential and social model which became an integral part of the Baťa concern’s business activities. The second area concentrates on addressing specific questions and issues connected with economic and social conditions, as well as with those pertaining to the organization of production, which led the concern’s management to establish company towns domestically and abroad. The primary focus of the third area is to trace the development of individual localities and to describe their specifics. Finally, the fourth area aims to compare Baťa’s Zlín, as a referential model of development, with the other company towns under examination. The main output of the project will be an extensive monograph which is expected to be published in 2014. This book, to which seventeen authors contributed, thus emerged as one of the planned outputs of the Czech Science Foundation project “Company Towns of the Baťa Concern (registration number P410/10/1995).” Its publication was also supported by the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. In addition, the final form of the book was influenced by a range of other collaborators. Here, we would like to thank in particular Evan Mellander for proofreading the manuscript and for translating certain texts. Special thanks are also due to the employees of the State District Archives in Zlín, who administer the unique fonds of the Baťa concern and who sought out and made available a range of period photographs which provide another important dimension to this book’s contents. Martin Jemelka and Ondřej Ševeček

Preface

I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

13

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Martin Jemelka and Ondřej Ševeček

1. The Case of Company Towns of the Baťa Concern

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1. THE CASE OF COMPANY TOWNS OF THE BAŤA CONCERN Ondřej Ševeček 1.1. INTRODUCTION In the interwar years, the footwear industry was vigorously confronted with revolutionary changes and processes similar to those connected with Henry Ford in the automobile industry. Their major vehicle became the originally very modest enterprise of the Baťa siblings, which, during the first half of the twentieth century, grew into a gigantic concern with global reach. Today, the Baťa concern can undoubtedly be counted – and not just with respect to the forms and method of its expansion – among the textbook examples of a “modern business enterprise,” which (from the perspective of business history) was analyzed and treated in the pioneering work of Alfred D. Chandler.1 The principles constituting large modern enterprises were applied in the environment of the Baťa concern with unprecedented thoroughness, and thus a very progressive and comprehensive business model gradually took shape there. Its substantive components included not only production, technological, and managerial elements, but (in areas reaching beyond the enterprise sphere) also social rationalization supported by a vision of a new industrial culture which seemed to be inseparably linked to a new concept of organizing human labor. A substantive part of the concern’s program became the establishment of company towns. These were built starting in the 1930s not only in Czechoslovakia, but also in a range of other countries in Europe, the Americas, and Asia. The Baťa concern’s company towns involved very comprehensive projects, in their time representing the pinnacle of private capitalist planning. The reference model for their development became the city of Zlín; the enterprise was established here in 1894, and until the Second World War (which was a fundamental turning point for the concern’s further development) its main headquarters were located here as well. It was precisely in the space of this inconsequential rural town that a specific model of industrial organization took shape in the first three decades of the twentieth century. This model was closely linked to the construction of model “company towns,” which – like the company’s other products – were exported to a range of countries around the world. Moreover, in the second half of the 1930s, the concern’s needs relating to its accelerated expansion abroad also led to an explicit formulation of its 1

Especially in: Alfred D. Chandler, Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1962); Id., The Visible Hand. The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1977).

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own concept of the “industrial town.” Thus, among others, the concern elaborated the expansive manual Průmyslové město [Industrial town] (1939),2 which sizes up experience garnered during the transformation of the Zlín space as well as during construction of other company towns. In this conception, the process of planning an “industrial town” is comprehensively interlinked with the development of the factory in question. Thus, it comprises construction designs as well as urban planning, and above all the given locality’s expected economic and social development (here, the planning process is bound by a range of control mechanisms, primarily of an economic nature, which introduce often even fundamental corrections during the process of realization). It is a unique record of the new approach to urban planning, and of course it also documents a significant change in the conception of the work of architects and urban planners integrated into the structure of large industrial organizations. The case of company towns of the Baťa concern can thus be understood as an experiment (of a sort), in which many significant modernization processes of the first half of the twentieth century and their influence on the urban space and society (from the sphere of housing, to factory work, to new technologies, communication methods, and media) can be modeled. It seems that in investigating this case (and through its specifics) one can grasp and interpret many substantive aspects of the dynamics of the social, economic, and cultural processes which large industrial organizations set into motion during this period. Generally speaking, these also concern, among other things, the highly relevant relationship of the multinational enterprises then taking shape to the urban space, against the backdrop of the developing transnational economy and the changing methods of organizing production. 1.2. REFLECTING ON THE TOPIC OF PERIOD DISCUSSIONS, THEIR SECOND LIFE, AND THE CURRENT STATE OF UNDERSTANDING3 The Baťa concern and its gradually expanding business activities around the world received relatively significant attention already in the interwar years. The Baťa system (commented on and followed throughout very similarly albeit not as intensively as the activities of Henry Ford) became, thanks in part to its economic suc2

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This 616-page handbook is deposited in the State District Archives in Zlín. In addition to this compendius publication, the Baťa, a.s., Zlín fonds contains a range of other documents as well as plans for industrial towns and production units. Among the most important are: Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, Státní okresní archiv ve Zlíně, Baťa, a. s., Zlín (hereinafter ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa), I/4, rec. no. 69, inv. no. 30, “Politická strategie v administrativním osamostatňování továrních měst – Hugo Vavrečka”; I/4, rec. no. 70, inv. no. 33, “Poznámky šéfa ke knize „Ideální průmyslové město“ ze dne 29. srpna 1939”; V, inv. no. 1–5, 11–23, 25–28, 51, “Různé podklady pro pokusné jednotky a průmyslová města”; XV, rec. no. 21, inv. no. 34, “Ideální průmyslové město budoucnosti.” Martin Marek’s study “Stav baťovského bádání: od meziválečných publikací po současné odborné studie,” Časopis Matice moravské 128 (2009): 413–443 summarizes in greater detail the

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cess, the subject of a range of discussions and polemical debates even in the international context. From the beginning, it managed to polarize the actors of the discussions. On the one hand, in the eyes of many of Baťa’s contemporaries, it manifested period views of the ideal of modern industrial organization; on the other hand, for many of its critics (especially among the left-wing intelligentsia, the union movement, and purposefully also Baťa’s competitors), it represented the embodiment of capitalist despotism. Also, the method of expansion, involving not merely the sale of Czechoslovak products on foreign markets but increasingly also the relocation of production abroad, provoked in many places tempestuous reactions and was often the target of mass campaigns of various types and aims. Moreover, these did not play out within individual states; rather, in certain moments even in Europe they led to the emergence of an anti-Baťa movement of a transnational character.4 Certain more scholarly works dating from the 1930s and 1940s notice the system’s ambivalent effect of the lives of workers as well as companies. At the center of attention during this period were often topics concerning the social impacts of the Baťa system on industrial employees, the method of adapting employees to a new conception of work, or their integration into the environment of a rationalized industrial organization.5 Discussions thus often related precisely to the social frame-

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current state of research and individual authors’ approaches to the issue. For supplementary information, one can also consult Marek Tomaštík’s study “Historie zkoumání fenoménu Baťa,” in Tomáš Baťa, doba a společnost. Sborník příspěvků ze stejnojmenné zlínské konference, pořádané ve dnech 30. 11. – 1. 12. 2006, ed. Marek Tomaštík (Brno 2007), 11–18; or the relevant passages of Ondřej Ševeček’s book Zrození Baťovy průmyslové metropole. Továrna, městský prostor a společnost ve Zlíně v letech 1900–1938 (České Budějovice and Ostrava: Veduta and Ostravská univerzita, 2009), 16–24. A useful research aid for orienting oneself in the large number of publications on the topic is the ever-expanding (currently consisting of approximately one thousand items) bibliography accessible through the website www.tomasbata.com. Anne Sudrow demonstrated this in her paper “Fighting ‘Slavic Expansionism’ in Western Europe: A Transnational European Movement against the Baťa Company during the Interwar Years” presented at the Company Towns of the Baťa Concern conference held in Prague on March 24–25, 2011. Campaigns waged against the Baťa concern in interwar Germany – which are very relevant in this connection due to their nature – are addressed by Eduard Kubů’s study “Die Bata-Gefahr: Antibaťovská propaganda a bojkotové akce v Německu na přelomu 20. a 30. let 20. století,” in Pocta Janu Janákovi, Předsedovi Matice moravské, profesoru Masarykovy univerzity věnují k sedmdesátinám jeho přátelé a žáci, eds. Bronislav Chocholáč and Jiří Malíř (Brno: Matice moravská, 2002), 527–539. Of these period studies, one can mention e.g.: Anketa o radu firme „Bata“. Jugoslavenske tvornice gume i obuće D. D. Borovo (Zagreb: Epoha, 1936); Camilla Burstyn-Tauber, Betriebswirtschaftliche Auswirkungen und Persönlichkeitswert der Berufsausbildung „Jünger Männer und Frauen“ in den Baťa-Werken in Zlín. (Bern – Leipzig: Verlag Paul Haupt, 1939); Paul Devinat, Die Arbeitsbedingungen in einem rationalisierten Betrieb. Das System Baťa und seine sozialen Auswirkungen. (Berlin: Internationale Arbeitsamt Genf-Berlin, 1930); Hyacinthe Dubreuil, L’exemple de Baťa. La libération des initiatives individuelles dans une entreprise géante (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1936); Hugo von Haan, Die Arbeitsbedingungen in der rationalisierten Schuhfabrik Baťa in Borovo, Jugoslawien (Genf: Internationales Arbeitsamt, 1938); Heinrich Huber, Kritik der Studie des Internationalen Arbeitsamtes über das Unternehmen Baťa. (Schaffhausen, c. 1930); Stanislav Jandík, Železní tovaryši. Sociologická reportáž o zro-

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work of Baťa company towns as a specific way of life, which should (or could) – according to the position or worldview of whoever happened to be commenting on the issue – legitimize or repudiate this system. The topic of Baťa enjoyed and enjoys a very interesting and intense second life in Czechoslovakia (or, since the division of Czechoslovakia in 1993, in the Czech and Slovak Republics, respectively). This is mentioned briefly mainly because the level of its elaboration in Czechoslovak (or Czech and Slovak, respectively) historiography continues to be of fundamental importance for the current state of the topic’s understanding.6 In connection with the change in societal relations in the period after the Second World War, a current of critical literature emerged on Baťa topics. The illustrious Baťa concern and its business system became a thorn in the eye for the incoming Communist regime. Literary production drawing on so-called “Batism” – which was generally viewed during this period at one of the most refined forms of capitalist exploitation – spanned the fringes of many genres, from “political” novels (e.g. Svatopluk Turek’s reworked and republished novel Botostroj [The shoe machine], which first came out in 1933 and led to a court case between the author and the Baťa company), to vulgar diatribes against the Baťa family (such as Svatopluk Turek’s book-form pamphlet Zrada rodiny Baťovy [The betrayal of the Baťa family]), which were used as Communist propaganda to justify the policy of nationalization, to various pseudo-scientific writings dating from the 1950s (e.g. the publications Batismus v kostce [Batism in a nutshell] and Pravá tvář batismu [The true face of Batism] by the agile Svatopluk Turek, Batismus – Ideologie sociálfašismu [Batism – thee ideology of social fascism] by Bohumil Kučera, and Batismus a baťovci [Batism and the Baťamen] by Eva Dvořáková).7 The period of the 1950s also includes the first historical studies on the history of the Baťa factories from the pen of Bohumil Lehár (articles such as “Příspěvek k revolučnímu hnutí zlínského dělnictva v roce 1918” [A contribution on the revolutionary movement of the Zlín proletariat in 1918] in 1958 and “Ke stávce dělnictva Baťových závodů v dubnu 1919” [On the workers’ strike at the Baťa factories in April 1919] in 1959), which culminated in 1960 with the publication of the author’s monograph on the history of the Baťa concern from 1894 until 1945. Bohumil Lehár is also the author of a study tracing the company’s economic expansion between 1929 and 1938 (“The Economic Ex-

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zení nového věku. (Praha: Volná myšlenka, 1938); Albrecht Miesbach, Die Baťa-Werke: ihre Entstehung und Grundsätze. (Zlín: Tisk, 1945); Heinz Silbermann, Aufbau und Arbeitsbedingungen der Schuhfabrik Baťa in Zlín (Tschechoslowakei), sowie die Stellung ihrer Filialleiter nach deutschen Recht. (Engelsdorf – Leipzig: C. u. E. Vogel, 1934). This is due in particular to the language barrier, among other things. The key documents and relevant literature on the enterprise’s development are in Czech, which thus far has posed a significant obstacle to systematic research by foreign scholars. Svatopluk Turek, Botostroj (Praha: Svoboda, 1946); Id., Zrada rodiny Baťovy. (Gottwaldov: Svit-Tisk, 1949); Id., Batismus v kostce. (Gottwaldov: Tisk, 1950); Id., Pravá tvář batismu. (Praha: Státní nakladatelství politické literatury, 1959); Bohumil Kučera, Batismus – ideologie sociálfašismu (Gottwaldov: Krajské nakladatelství, 1959); Eva Dvořáková, Batismus a baťovci (Gottwaldov: Krajské nakladatelství, 1960).

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pansion of the Baťa Concern in Czechoslovakia and Abroad, 1929–1938”), which was published in 1963.8 Not only in the selection of topics, but also in the historicalmaterialistic methodology and the overall approach, these studies by Lehár manifested a conception symptomatic of the so-called “history of factories,”9 which begins to establish itself in the mid-1950s according to the Soviet model in many Eastern Bloc countries. In this context, it must be mentioned that certain other formerly Baťa (prior to nationalization) companies in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia also saw their history elaborated before the fall of the iron curtain. Of these expositions, however, only the 1971 book Borovo. Jugoslavenski kombinat gume i obuće, on the development of the concern’s extraordinarily successful Yugoslav company, approaches Lehár’s abovementioned monograph with respect to the level of its elaboration.10 After the cannons had silenced in the reality of Normalization11 during the 1970s and 1980s, the topic of Baťa became less interesting in a certain sense, and none of Czechoslovakia’s renowned historians ventured into the highly politicized arena of the Baťa concern’s history. Nevertheless, it is important to mention that the topic never completely disappeared from public or scholarly debates. It surfaced in 8

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Bohumil Lehár, “Příspěvek k revolučnímu hnutí zlínského dělnictva v roce 1918,” in Zprávy Krajského vlastivědného ústavu v Gottwaldově, no. 3–4 (1958): 45–54; Id., “Ke stávce dělnictva Baťových závodů v dubnu 1919,” in Zprávy Krajského vlastivědného ústavu v Gottwaldově, no. 1 (1959): 1–11; Id., Dějiny Baťova koncernu (1894–1945) (Praha: Státní nakladatelství politické literatury, 1960); Id., “The Economic Expansion of the Baťa Concern in Czechoslovakia and Abroad, 1929–1938,” Historica 5 (1963): 147–188. With respect to content, the “history of factories” is basically limited to the history of the workforce (it was even supposed to be written, according to the thesis of writer Maxim Gorky, by the workers themselves with the help of historians). It thus accentuated the social position of the workforce, its political activity, and its role in the social struggle. It also emphasized the function of the Communist Party in organizing class struggles at the factory. On the other hand, it neglected e.g. the personalities of the industrialists, the role of technological development, etc. Despite the fact that Bohumil Lehár’s works bear the substantive characteristics of this ideologically narrowed view of history, his monograph on the history of the Baťa concern is one of only a few works of its time which attempts, within the limits of the possible, to approach the standards of Western European and American historiography of that time. For more on the overall context of the study of business history in Czechoslovakia during this period, see Milan Myška, Problémy a metody hospodářských dějin. Část 1: Metodické problémy studia dějin sekundárního sektoru (Ostrava: FF OU, 1995), 136–139. Kemal Hrelja and Martin Kaminski, Borovo. Jugoslavenski kombinat gume i obuće. (Slavonski Brod: Historijski institut Slavonije, 1971). Among the other publications, which for today’s needs are difficult to use, one could mention e.g. these: for Hungary, Hegedus Kálmán, Tisza Cipőgyár Martfű (Szolnok 1974); for Slovakia, Autorský kolektiv, 120 rokov garbiarstva v Bošanoch. (Bošany 1977); for Poland (respectively, Germany, until 1945), Władysław Piechota, ed., Historyczny zarys powstania i rozwoju Śląskich Zakładów Przemysłu Skórzanego Otmęt v Krapkowicach (Krapkowice, 1984). In the Czech context, the term “Normalization” in the broader sense is understood as the period following the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact forces in August 1968 until the fall of Communism at the close of 1989 (i.e. the period of violent suppression of the democratization process initiated by the so-called Prague Spring, and from this point of view of the consolidation – or normalization – of conditions modeled after the Communist regime in the Soviet Union).

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particular in discussions on issues and problems of the planned economy and the management of socialist enterprises – e.g. in the second half of the 1980s during the period of perestroika. The fall of the iron curtain and the subsequent transition to a market economy meant a fundamental renaissance for Baťa as a research topic in Czechoslovakia, and thus the number of items in the Baťa bibliography has grown significantly over the past two decades. Unfortunately, however, upon critical scrutiny of the scholarly quality and contribution of these numerous publications, it must be stated that only very few of them truly advance the level of current understanding or relate in a relevant manner to the results of foreign research in one of the substantive areas for the given issue. A distinctive feature of a range of new publications which have emerged in the Czech environment during the last two decades is that they have the character of opinion journalism or border on the genre of literary nonfiction.12 They thus accommodate the elevated public interest in a previously suppressed set of issues. Moreover, they often take a near-mythological approach to the concern’s history and to the personalities of its founders. It is significant for the overall context that the meta-narrative created after the fall of Communism around this national entrepreneurial icon has not yet been corrected by a relevant treatment of the Baťa concern’s history – i.e. through systematic elaboration which would meet the standards of contemporary historiography. The most attention during the last two decades has evidently been devoted to the study of Baťa architecture and urbanism. This perspective has been accentuated at several international conferences13 and exhibition projects.14 On the topic of Baťa architecture, there exists, among others, an extensive monograph by Pavel Novák 12

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For example: Miroslav Ivanov, Sága o životě a smrti Jana Bati a jeho bratra Tomáše (Vizovice: Lípa, 1998); Jaroslav Pospíšil, Světla a stíny v životě Baťova ředitele Ing. Františka Maloty (Zlín: Kniha Zlín, 2011); Pavel Hajný, Marie Baťová, první dáma Zlína (Zlín: Nadace Tomáše Bati, 2010). Publications from international conferences: Zlínský funkcionalismus – Funktionalismus von Zlín: sborník příspěvků sympózia pořádaného u příležitosti 100. výročí narození Františka Lydie Gahury a 90. narozenin Vladimíra Karfíka (Zlín: Státní galerie ve Zlíně, 1991); Kulturní fenomén funkcionalismu: sborník příspěvků konference – The cultural phenomenon of functionalism: the conference proceedings. (Zlín: Státní galerie, 1995); Katrin Klingan and Kerstin Gust, eds., A Utopia of Modernity – Zlín: revisiting Baťa’s functional city. (Berlin: Jovis Verlag, 2009). These include in particular the following catalogs and publications accompanying exhibitions: Vladimír Šlapeta, Baťa: architektura a urbanismus 1910–1950 (Zlín: Státní galerie ve Zlíně, 1991); Die Bata-Kolonie in Möhlin (Basel: Architekturmuseum in Basel, 1992); Rostislav Švácha, ed., Miroslav Lorenc, Jaromír Krejcar: zlínská moderní architektura a pražská avantgarda. (Zlín: Státní galerie, 1995); Ludvík Ševeček and Ladislava Horňáková, Satelity funkcionalistického Zlína: projekty a realizace ideálních průmyslových měst – továrních celků firmy Baťa / Satellites of the functionalist Zlín: projects and construction of ideal industrial towns – Baťa company’s factory complexes and residential quarters (Zlín: Státní galerie, 1998); Zlín 1900–1950: une ville industrielle modèle – model industriálního města (Creusot – Montceau: Ecomusée du Creusot-Montceau, 2002); Partizánske: réinventer la ville fonctionnelle – znovuobjavenie funkčného města (Bratislava: Vydavatelstvo Spolku architektov Slovenska, 2005); Ladislava Horňáková, František Lýdie Gahura 1891–1958: projekty, realizace a sochařské dílo (Zlín: Krajská galerie výtvarného umění, 2006); Ladislava Horňáková, ed., The Baťa phe-

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entitled Zlínská architektura 1900–1950 [Zlín architecture 1900–1950],15 the contribution of which can be seen rather in its documentary value (in the organization and publication of period photographs and blueprints), however, rather than in the area of the author’s treatment of the topic or its interpretation. For partial studies of Zlín urbanism and architecture, it is important that their conclusions can be confronted with expositions which place certain aspects of the topic in a qualified manner into the general framework of the development of modern architecture – and not only in the Central European context (such as in the 1998 Czech synthesis Dějiny českého výtvarného umění (IV/1) 1890/1938 [History of Czech fine arts (IV/1) 1890–1938]), but in the global context as well (Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture: A Critical History, 2004).16 It is certainly significant that Baťa Zlín was conceived by a leading theoretician of modern architecture, Jean-Louis Cohen, in the concept of an exhibition tracing American influences in European architecture between 1893 and 1960. The exhibition was accompanied by a voluminous publication bearing the name Scenes of the World to Come: European Architecture and the American Challenge 1893–1960 (1995). The Zlín topic was also treated in an interesting context in the synthetic work Factory by British opinion journalist and historian Gillian Darley which came out in London in 2003. The book, which addresses the architecture of factory buildings and approaches to their construction in the broader context from the first examples in the early industrialization period to the present day, describes Baťa Zlín as a noteworthy case of the development of a modern model of a factory, and places it alongside such colossal works of the modern industrial era as the Highland Park Ford Plant in Detroit and the Fiat Lingotto factory in Turin, Italy. British historian Helen Meller also devotes a chapter to Zlín in her book on European cities between 1890 and 1930 European cities 1890–1930s: history, culture, and the built environment (2001). In the book – which approaches the material from the perspective of Planning History – the town is treated as a quite extraordinary example of a modern repercussion of the garden cities movement.17 Even in this area, however, a range of “blank spots” and research challenges can be found. In addition to a multitude of unaddressed topics of a component nature (such as the designs of certain architects working for the Baťa concern, and the architecture and urbanism of certain localities, etc.), these concern first and foremost the absence of a systematic and comprehensive view of Baťa architecture and urbanism – a view which would be able to cope with the aesthetics as well as building and technical aspects of the given issue on the one hand, but would also include

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nomenon: Zlín architecture 1910–1960 (Zlín: Regional Gallery of Fine Arts in Zlín, 2009); Winfried Nerdinger, Ladislava Horňáková, and Radomíra Sedláková, eds., Zlín: Modellstadt der Moderne (Berlin: Jovis Verlag, 2009). Pavel Novák, Zlínská architektura 1. 1900–1950 (Zlín: Pozimos, 2008). Dějiny českého výtvarného umění (IVI/1) 1890/1938 (Praha: Academia, 1998); Kenneth Frampton, Moderní architektura: kritické dějiny (Praha: Academia, 2004). Jean Louis Cohen, Scenes of the World to Come: European Architecture and the American Challenge 1893–1960 (Montreal: 1995); Gillian Darley, Factory (London: Reaktion Books, 2003); Helen Meller, European cities 1890–1930s: history, culture, and the built environment (Chichester: John Wiley, 2001).

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the broader contexts of the concern’s program in its substantive technological, economic, and social coordinates on the other. It seems that to meet such a challenge would necessarily mean attempting to reinterpret research results in this area in at least a few historical disciplines and specializations. In recent years, there has been increased interest in studying the Baťa factory localities abroad as well. Investigations of these entities are stimulated by current questions relating to the issue of monument preservation and protection of industrial heritage, among other things.18 In many countries, these localities are under monument conservation, or such protection is under consideration. In the context of discussions on the possibility of contemporary use of the Baťa concern’s standardized residential units, of interest is the sociological research of Barbora Vacková and Lucie Galčanová, which they conducted in Zlín’s residential districts.19 A very inspirational perspective on the problem is offered by Annett Steinführer’s paper “Stadt und Utopie. Das Experiment Zlín 1920–1938” (2002), which, using the example of Zlín, attempts to interpret the Baťa concern’s settlement program in the context of the history of utopian thought. After conducting an analysis which the author was forced to perform due to the lack of studies which would have enabled her to anchor her theses empirically in the urban social reality, it is rather through theoretical reflection on the phenomenon that she conceives Zlín as a “social” experiment which emerged during a period when the intellectual climate was strongly affected by collectivist ideologies of various provenience. A particularly important role in its composition is played by the fact that it emerged in a place where societal influences (i.e. strong representation of various interest groups, urbanity as the embodiment of typically urban opportunities of choice, a critical public, etc.) usually functioning as a corrective (an agent equilibrating the extremes) lacked a tradition, and where the forceful jump to modernization together with the Baťa company’s activities resulted in pressure to accommodate as well as increasing collective prosperity. For Steinführer, Zlín is thus something more than just a town, but at the same time also something less. It was initially an unintended – and later intentionally planned – attempt to realize the vision of one man in economic, social, and political respects, as well as with regard to the planning and building of the town.20 Among the more recent works which can be mentioned in this context is, for example, Henrieta Moravčíková’s paper “Social and Architectural Phenomenon of the Batism in Slovakia. (The example of the community Šimonovany – 18

Of the range of such documents, one can mention, for example, these: Analýza a vyhodnocení vybraných částí městské památkové zóny Zlín (Zlín: Odbor strategického rozvoje, Útvar hlavního architekta města Zlína, 2001); Anna Hudecová and Mária Dvončová, Funkcionalistický urbanisticko – architektonický celok. Územie Baťovej architektúry v meste Partizánske. Návrh na vyhlásenie za pamätihodnosť mesta (Partizánske: 2004); Joanna Smith, East Tilbury, Essex. Historic Area Appraisal. Research Department Report Series no. 21 (2007). 19 Barbora Vacková and Lucie Galčanová, “The Project Zlín. Everyday Life in a Materialized Utopia,” Lidé města/Urban People 11, no. 2 (2009), URL: http://lidemesta.cz/index.php?id =605. 20 Annett Steinführer, “Stadt und Utopie. Das Experiment Zlín 1920–1938,” Bohemia 43/1 (2002): 33–73.

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Baťovany – Partizánske),” published in 2004, which is devoted to urbanism, architecture and the social environment of the Slovak company town of Baťovany (now Partizánske). The same locality is also the subject of Slovak architectural historian Mária Topolčanská’s 2005 paper “Consistency of Serial City: Batovany (Slovakia) designed by Architects of Bata Co.”21 French syndicalist and historian Alain Gatti, in his voluminous book Chausser Les Hommes Qui Vont Pieds Nus. Bata-Hellocourt, 1931–2001 (2004), sizes up the Baťa system with the example of the Lorraine company town Hellocourt, which the concern operated in France for exactly seventy years.22 Various aspects of the Baťa concern’s international expansion have also been addressed recently in several historically-focused works. An eminent position among them is occupied by the extensive monograph Der Schuh im Nationalsozialismus. Eine Produktgeschichte im deutsch-britisch-amerikanischen Vergleich (2010) by German historian Anne Sudrow, which addressed the history of footwear (production as well as consumption) during the era of National Socialism in broad contexts and comparative perspective. This book is not only important because it explicitly treats the development of the Baťa concern in several passages and in substantive contexts, but also (and in particular) because it is the first work to systematically capture many substantive processes forming the footwear sector in the first half of the twentieth century.23 A significant and hitherto unelaborated chapter in the conern’s history is the subject of Tobias Ehrenbold’s book Bata. Schuhe für die Welt, Geschichten aus der Schweiz (2012). In it, the author traces the concern’s activities in Switzerland, although contexts narrowly transcending the scope of Switzerland and in many regards determinative for the development of the concern as a whole do not escape his attention either.24 An interesting context of the company’s expansion into France is the paper “La «famille» du cuir contre Bata: malthusianisme, corporatisme, xénophobie et antisémitisme dans le monde de la chaussure en France, 1930–1950” (2005) by French historian Florent Le Bot, which addresses the reactions of the French environment to the Baťa concern’s penetration onto local markets during the unsettled period impacted by the Second World War.25 Among the most recent production of Czech historiography, it is necessary to mention works by three authors who have contributed to the understanding of the 21

22 23 24 25

Henrieta Moravčíková, “Social and Architectural Phenomenon of the Bataism in Slovakia. (The example of the community Šimonovany – Baťovany – Partizánske),” Sociológia. Slovak sociological review 36, no. 6 (2004): 519–543; Mária Topolčanská, “Consistency of Serial City: Batovany (Slovakia) designed by Architects of Bata Co.,” DC. Revista de crítica arquitectonica, núm. 13–14 (2005): 182–191. Alain Gatti, Chausser les hommes qui vont pieds nus : Bata-Hellocourt, 1931–2001: Enquete sur la memoire industrielle et sociale (Metz: Serpenoise, 2004). Anne Sudrow, Der Schuh im Nationalsozialismus. Eine Produktgeschichte im deutsch-britischamerikanischen Vergleich. (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2010). Tobias Ehrenbold, Bata. Schuhe für die Welt, Geschichten aus der Schweiz. (Baden: hier + jetzt, 2012). Florent Le Bot, “La « famille » du cuir contre Bata: malthusianisme, corporatisme, xénophobie et antisémitisme dans le monde de la chaussure en France, 1930–1950,” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 52–4 octobre-décembre (2005): 131–152.

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topics in question. In this context, one must mention Ondřej Ševeček’s book Zrození Baťovy průmyslové metropole. Továrna, městský prostor a společnost ve Zlíně v letech 1900–1938 [The birth of Baťa’s industrial metropolis. The factory, urban space and society in Zlín in the years 1900–1938] (2009), which addresses the development of the town of Zlín – the environment in which the model of industrial organization in question was gradually constituted (in reaction to a range of locally specific and situational factors, among others). The book attempts to capture – from a micro-analytic perspective on particular parts of the “urban totality” – certain important aspects of the formation process of the town of Zlín during a key stage of its development from the advent of industrialization (i.e. the turn of the twentieth century) until the end of the First Czechoslovak Republic. The approach used to address the subject (inclining toward selected topics and methods of modern urban history) attempts to avoid certain clichés which accompany existing reflections on development in Zlín, while at the same time pointing to the substantive contexts, mechanisms, and principles which consequentially led to the emergence – in many respects – of a unique urban environment which served as a reference model for constructing additional company towns in Czechoslovakia and abroad. Yet within the scope of attempting to shed light broadly on the course, circumstances, and peripeties of Zlín’s industrial urbanization it also searches for answers to a range of questions and problems: How, specifically, and under what circumstances did an industrial town emerge that was considered by part of the expert public to be a model example for building an industrial settlement of the modern type; to what extent was it really possible in the Zlín environment to limit and neutralize the negative consequences of the dynamic development of factory production on the reproductive sphere in society; how, specifically, was the fundamental transformative process manifested within the urban microcosm; what kind of social and economic constellation contributed to the establishment of a specific method of urban planning; how effective was the attempt on the part of the Baťa concern’s management to direct and regulate Zlín’s urbanization in reality; and the like. Thematically, this book focuses – in the context of an effort to anchor in research on the topic of Baťa company towns a hitherto overlooked socio-historical discourse – on tracing the town’s economic development with a view to its social and technological contexts, addressing in detail the material and social transformations of the urban space, as well as changes in the area of urban housing. Marked emphasis in the work is also placed on clarifying the population background of Zlín’s urbanization.26 In the context of our research aim, a very substantive dimension of the issues in question is also investigated in two papers by Petr Szczepanik, “Mediální výstavba průmyslového města. Síť médií v Baťově Zlíně 30. let” [The media development of an industrial town. The media network in 1930s Baťa Zlín] (2005) and “Modernität, Industrie, Film. Der Verbund der Medien in der Firma Baťa und in der Stadt Zlín in den 1930er Jahren” (2007), devoted to analyses of the relationships of the factory, the town, and the concern’s newly formed network of media. It is evident that the Baťa media created the necessary conditions not only for efficient 26

Ševeček, Zrození.

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production operations, but also for socially noncontentious development of the urban space forming around the multinational concern. In addition to identifying a highly topical and insufficiently elaborated research segment, Petr Szczepanik’s contributions are also substantive in that they endeavor to provide a truly systemic analysis of the questions at hand and are oriented toward capturing the chosen topic in its substantive connections and contexts.27 Last but not least, several papers by Martin Marek, which emerged within research project “Řízené přesuny zaměstnanců Baťova koncernu do zahraničí v letech 1938–1939. Strategie, rozsah, preferované destinace” [Directed transfers of Baťa concern employees abroad in the years 1938–1939. Strategies, extent, preferred destinations], during the years 2009–2010, must also be mentioned.28 These papers focus on the hitherto unresearched area of the Baťa concern’s business activities at the end of the 1930s. They analyze the strategy of its expansion and the main directions of investments in an uncertain and very complicated international situation, paying significant attention in particular to the forms and extent of employee transfers to localities abroad. Despite a range of high-quality papers and other works in recent years, however, serious efforts to address the phenomenon of company towns of the Baťa concern continue to run up against a fundamental problem relating to the current state of understanding of the topic. The history of the Baťa concern has not yet been elaborated in an appropriate manner within the scope of economic and social history – a field which is absolutely essential for understanding the topic. Despite the fact that for modern business history the Baťa concern represents an extraordinarily interesting case study in many respects, at present no modern synthetic exposition of its history is available, and in many key areas the necessary component studies on substantive aspects of the development of the concern’s business activities are lacking as well.29 It need not be emphasized that without an understanding of the 27

Petr Szczepanik, “Mediální výstavba průmyslového města. Síť médií v Baťově Zlíně 30. let,” in Kinematografie a město. Studie z dějin lokální filmové kultury (Brno: FF MU, 2005), 18–60; Id., “Modernität, Industrie, Film. Der Verbund der Medien in der Firma Baťa und der Stadt Zlín in den 1930er Jahren,” in V. Hediger, Filmische Mittel, industrielle Zwecke. Das Werk des Industriefilms. (Berlin: Vorwerk 8, 2007), 250–281. English version: Petr Szczepanik, “Modernism, Industry, Film: A Network of Media in the Baťa Corporation and the Town of Zlín in the 1930s,” in Films that Work. Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2009), 349–376. 28 Martin Marek, “Podnikatelské aktivity Baťova koncernu na konci třicátých let,” Studia historica Brunensia 2, no. 1 (2010): 49–63; Id., “Projektování transferu baťovských jednotek,” Acta historica Universitatis Silesianae Opaviensis 3, no. červenec (2010): 163–178; Id., “Strategie Baťova koncernu v letech 1938–1939,” Hospodářské dějiny – Economic History 25, no. 2 (2010): 167–197; Id., “Z baťovského Zlína do světa: Směry transferu a kvalifikační kritéria přesouvaných baťovských zaměstnanců v letech 1938–1941,” Moderní dějiny 19, no. 1 (2010): 157–197. And also the joint study by Martin Marek and Vít Strobach, “Batismus, urychlená modernita a průkopníci práce. Personální politika Baťova koncernu a řízené přesuny zaměstnanců v letech 1938–1941,” Moderní dějiny 18, no. 1 (2010): 103–153. 29 The fact that the Baťa topic has not received adequate treatment (that is, a treatment that would approach the modern monographs on the history of enterprises which we know from other countries) in Czech (or Czechoslovak) historiography – which remains key for its understanding – has three main causes: (1) the political and societal developments between 1948 and

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company’s interests and economic imperatives, any exposition on its social or public engagement will barely scratch the surface of the issues under investigation, or will be very susceptible to generalizing or quite inappropriate conclusions. This basic deficit concerns all areas of research, and unfortunately it must continue to be reckoned with. 1.3. COMPANY TOWNS OF THE BAŤA CONCERN IN THE COORDINATES OF CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH In an attempt to relate this set of issues to the results of existing research, and to find a relevant approach to their elaboration, one cannot overlook at least three areas of investigation which have taken shape in recent decades in historiography (but also in certain other disciplines) and whose findings seem to be of particular relevance in this case. These are investigations of “company towns,” “Fordism,” and, last but not least, “multinational corporations.” It seems that precisely at the intersection of these current research directions one can find much of significance for interpreting the phenomenon of company towns of the Baťa concern, as well as for placing this set of issues in a broader interpretive framework and in the context of substantive processes influencing the nature of the twentieth century. Already from the terminology used, it is evident that the case of the Baťa towns can be classified as a special type of industrial settlement built and administered by one corporate enterprise – that is, a type of “company town” – or, more precisely in this case, “model company town” – which has been known since the initial phases of industrialization.30 It is evident that in connection with research results heretofore it is possible to consider the substantive features of Baťa towns as well as their specifics, which are distinctive especially as compared to the efforts of other enterprises. Many substantive aspects of the case in point fundamentally correspond to this typological classification (model company town). Also, practically everything in Baťa towns is closely connected to the plant, and the overwhelming majority or all property and real estate is owned by the enterprise. The localization of these settle-

30

1989, which were of course also significantly reflected in Czechoslovak historiography; (2) it seems in this case that the general focus of Czech historiography – which has deeper roots in the tradition of this field in the Czech context – has had an influence as well (which of course is linked to the selection of topics traditionally preferred in Czech historiography, and which tends to overlook business history); (3) at the opportune time after 1989, no historical research facility emerged which would have addressed the topic competently and systematically. Traditionally, these were established mainly by reform-oriented or paternalistic industrialists, and are considered one of the characteristic residential types of the industrial era generally. Their existence is not restricted to the capitalist form, however; In socialist countries, too, there exist planned industrial towns connected with a dominant factory. Of the extensive literature on this topic, one can mention e.g.: John S. Garner, The company town: Architecture and society in the early industrial age (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Margaret Crawford, Building the Workingman’s Paradise: The Design of American Company Towns (London & New York: Verso, 1995).

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ments has a rational basis; they are geographically relatively small, and the number of residents is directly proportional to the size of the plant (normally on the order of thousands of residents). They usually reach a larger size (sometimes even on the order of tens of thousands of residents) if they develop in conjunction with an original settlement, or if they are able to include additional functions in their structure (e.g. administration, education, transportation, or functions in the area of services). The greatest development is manifested in originally Baťa company towns in socialist countries following nationalization, where centrally directed and planned economies together with socialist land-use planning created conditions which were in many respects opportune for their expansion. In the area of town planning, the concern moved toward comprehensive planning of company towns prior to their establishment. In view of the social characteristics of Baťa towns, it is necessary to mention the specific industrial subculture which is formed in them. The vehicle of social order and the guarantor of social reconciliation here is the enterprise, which, moreover, endeavors to realize the vision of a harmonic “society of work,” integrating the interests of capital and labor without mutual conflicts (there is no place for conflicts in the concern’s ideology because it assumes these interests to be identical). In the political-administrative realm, there is an effort to establish a special political and administrative status for the company town, or – after the Zlín model – to exercise fundamental influence on (or control over) the local government under which the given company town falls. Local politics is thus subordinate to the enterprise’s interests (here, too, the thesis of joint interests and goals of the plant and town is presumed, according to the motto: “What is good for the plant is also good for the town and vice versa”). Thus, in political life, the dimension typical for modern urban life – a public space reifying the political ideal of a heterogeneous public – is marginalized. In order to characterize the case in point in greater detail, which among other things would make it possible to distinguish it more expressively and qualitatively from the efforts of other industrialists building model settlements around their enterprises, it seems difficult to dispense with the concept of Fordism. This concept has been elaborated notably during the past decades31 – in the historiography of economic and social history, among other areas – and it turns out that it can be used to capture many significant aspects of the dynamics of the social processes forming not only the enterprise sphere, but also a range of other areas in the life of the industrial society.32 In this context, company towns of the Baťa concern can be treated as 31

32

Synoptic information of the current state of research in this area can be found in a thematic issue of the journal Zeithistorische Forschungen: Adelheid von Saldern, Rüdiger Hachtmann, Jan-Holger Kirsch, eds., Fordismus/Fordism. Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History, Online-Ausgabe, 6 (2009), H. 2, URL: http://www.zeithistorische-forschungen. de/16126041-Inhalt-2-2009. In connection with this concept, emphasis is now placed in particular on its multilayeredness and systemic comprehensiveness, analogous to how comprehensively the large industrial organizations formed on its basis affected the modern industrial society. In this context, it is clearly significant that the cognitive possibilities of this concept are not exhausted in contemporary social science merely by tracing processes at the enterprise-internal level (such as production

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an idiosyncratic model case of an environment in which a private capitalist enterprise of the Fordist type could realize its vision without significant resistance. On the other hand, however, it must be emphasized that the model company town created by the concern was also characterized by a range of special features influenced by various situational factors and circumstances which entered into the game during the construction of these towns. This was thus in no way the simple adoption of a pre-existing – or, if we wish, e.g. American – program, although in many respects the concern most certainly based it on American practice and models. Thus, for the case in point, certain general principles and trends which can be interpreted through this conceptual framework become more significant. First and foremost is the role of the technological schema (or, perhaps more precisely, a method of thinking strongly bound to technical and technological premises). If we were to search for a keystone of the concern’s program, this determinative feature cannot be missed; it is reflected not only in ideas about the arrangement, composition, and functions of the urban space, but also in its societal and cultural characteristics. In trying to interpret the events in question, it is necessary to take into consideration the fact that Baťa towns were primarily production technology projects.33 Moreover, the nature of the model was influenced markedly by and unfailing belief in the possibilities of planning (to paraphrase Zygmunt Bauman, it is the substantive Fordist credo: The future can be planned and produced). Thus, in this case, too, detailed planning is not merely a constitutive element of a new production method; rather, it gradually becomes part of an ambitious project which also encompasses other substantive areas of the construction, functioning, and life of an industrial town.34 Another important component of the system is social engineering and the related intensive intervention into the structure of the workforce, but again also into the urban space and the method in which life within it is organized. The composition of the workforce reflecting the social dimension of the enterprise’s rationalization also brings with it a fundamental division in the composition of industrial work with respect to the age,

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processes and work procedures, methods of organizing work, personnel, etc.), but are also important for studying aspects extending fundamentally beyond the scope of the enterprise sphere (frequent topics in this connection are e.g. the scientifically conceived organization of time, space, and urban planning, social engineering, influences on culture and their expressive forms, as well as a certain model of macroeconomic organization based on the permanent circulation of wage growth and a growing supply of goods, contributing to the growth of a consumer society). Ibid. The key question of the relationship between the technological schema and the economy remains. It seems that in market conditions the technological schema was subordinated to the economy in certain substantive respects. During the 1930s (also in connection with the changes in the concern’s management following the death of its founder, Tomáš Baťa, in 1932), the concern’s projects became more universal – they transcended the borders of the town, intervened in regional planning, and visions were even elaborated addressing e.g. the further direction of interwar Czechoslovakia and its position in the world economy. In this connection, for example, one can mention a 1937 book by the concern’s new head, Jan Antonín Baťa (1898–1965), entitled Budujme stát pro 40 000 000 lidí [Let Us Build a State for 40,000,000 people]: Jan Antonín Baťa, Budujme stát pro 40 000 000 lidí (Zlín: Tisk, 1937).

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gender, and position of women and men in the worlplace. Unmarried women are broadly represented in the enterprise’s operations, primarily as workers performing routine work operations on assembly lines. In this context, one must at least mention the influence of scientifically conceived personnel management (psychological tests, among other things, which became an integral part of hiring employees)35 accompanied by a comprehensive social policy (Welfare Capitalism36), many other management actions (including motivational compensation), and, last but not least, the use of a sophisticated system of monitoring and disciplining employees – not only in the workplace, but also in private life. These are at least an ambivalent element of the Baťa system, and it is here that its critics focus their attention. Finally, the influence of Fordism on lifestyle can be considered. In this regard, the following facts in particular seem to be of key importance: The Baťa concern did not limit its ambitions to merely organizing the daily cycle of workers, but endeavored to disseminate its specific enterprise culture as broadly as possible among its employees. It seems that the orientation of values accompanying the enterprise culture was internalized relatively more intensively among core employees. This was surely buttressed by the fact that the company’s values (as part of a broader societal vision) influenced its actions and construed a relatively clear and internally consistent world view, and that their dissemination was supported by a broad spectrum of concern media. At the same time, the cultural contents communicated during the interwar years basically corresponded to the company’s goals, structure, and business practices, and were legitimized by its phenomenal economic success, which established their credibility. An integral component of this all was the space of the company town and its architecture, which created out of this aspect a clearly construed framework for the new lifestyle, which in turn affirmed the concern’s vi35 36

The issue of personnel management in the Baťa factories is treated in greater detail in Marek Tomaštík’s dissertation: “Personální management firmy Baťa, a.s. Zlín do roku 1939,” (PhD diss., Tomas Bata University in Zlín, Faculty of Management and Economics, 2008). This term is used to refer to the policies of large American enterprises providing employees an extensive and comprehensive system of social care. In addition to higher wages, enterprises engaging in this type of socially oriented employee policies usually also offered a share of profits and various nonmonetary forms of compensation and bonuses, in particular in the area of health care, housing, and support for leisure activities. The aim of these efforts was mainly to minimize the risk of industrial conflicts, to improve employees’ work ethic, and to strengthen their loyalty to the company. This approach was intended to result in (and often did result in) higher labor productivity and e.g. lower noneconomic fluctuation of employees. For our interpretation, it is significant that these reform efforts became more prevalent at the same time that new technologies were being introduced, accompanied by organizational changes in production (a classic case in this area is precisely the Baťa factories). There are many works on the topic of social capitalism, from overview treatments (such as e.g. Stuart D. Brandes, American Welfare Capitalism, 1880–1940 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976) to very inspirational and interesting case studies – of particular relevance in our context are studies by Gerald Zahavi on American footwear company Endicott-Johnson: cf. Gerald Zahavi, “Negotiated Loyalty: Welfare Capitalism and the Shoeworkers of Endicott-Johnson, 1920–1940,” The Journal of American History 70, no. 3 (Dec. 1983): 602–620; Id., Workers, Managers, and Welfare Capitalism. The Shoe Workers and Tanners of Endicott-Johnson, 1890–1950 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988).

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sion and anchored it in lived reality. In many places, of course, the concern’s program did not manage to develop fully and establish itself societally as had been imagined. The question of acceptance and the level of internalization by the employees of the values framework and the way of life, is very complicated. It seems that the concern’s headquarters in Zlín occupied an eminent position in this respect during the interwar years. A fundamental turning point with respect to the concern’s interwar vision, the possibilities of realizing it, and the hiring of employees came with the Second World War. Of the general features, one must also emphasize the expansion of the “Fordist model of the family”37 and the support for consumption (workers became consumers of the mass-consumption goods which they themselves produced). To summarize: It is evident that being a “Bataman” in the interwar years meant in every case something more than mere work. It was not just a connection with the employer, but certainly also a “way of life.” In this connection, one probably cannot overemphasize the fact that the space of the model company towns was one of the pillars on which the concern’s program rested. If we are to consider the way of life, it must be understood in its continuous transformations (or, perhaps more precisely, in its developmental dynamics, which were influenced by a range of internal as well as external factors). At the same time, we must also consider how the changing way of life was related to the company’s spatial organization, and whether – and to what extent – this was or was not manifested in the environment of company towns. The individual enterprises of the concern structure tried very systematically and methodically to put into practice the abovementioned set of fundamentals and principles, which contributed to shaping the concern’s program during the interwar years. In so doing, they ran up against a range of obstacles and problems relating to the overall conditions and to the context in which they operated. Nevertheless, it can be asserted that the basic technological schema, planning processes, and related methods of organization which stood at the foundations of the concern’s program managed to measure up to their universal ambitions. The most significant deviations can be found – depending on situational factors – in the implementation of social rationalization, which was also one of the main pillars constituting the effectiveness of the system as a whole. The German company town of Ottmuth, built at the beginning of the 1930s in Upper Silesia, is in certain respects an extreme example of the boundaries and limits of implementing the concern’s program in this area. Upon more detailed examination, it becomes clear how significant the obsta37

It was established to emphasize family life (in the ideal case, the recognition of women’s work in the household was reflected in the wage of the man, as the family’s breadwinner; the wife was thus to stay at home and take care of running the household). The role of family life, elevated by company managers, was aimed on the one hand at worker activity in the workplace (the ideal of family life brings a new identity to the man/worker and a new ethos to men’s work, which in this model is stimulated toward great achievements in the workplace), and on the other at worker behavior outside the workplace (in the best case, the family was to replace workers’ clubs, professional associations, and even unions – i.e. institutions which played a fundamental role in the lives of qualified workers in the nineteenth century and which were an integral part of their identity).

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cles were with which the concern’s program was confronted in this regard in the environment of Nazi Germany – especially in the key areas of personnel and social policy, where the state as well as the Nazi Party and its affiliated organizations intervened with increasing boldness.38 Similar trends can be observed in the concern’s nationalized enterprises in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc. In the context of these considerations bearing on a conceptualization of the topic from the perspective of Fordism, one must mention in closing a few facts which seem to be significant for illuminating certain specific features of the concern’s program. It was noticed already in period commentaries (correctly, it seems) that the so-called “Baťa system” went much further in the social sphere than did American enterprises (period commentaries often referred in particular to the Ford plants). Also, compared to the Ford plants, this societal vision can be characterized as more collectivist. Its reflection was precisely this way of life of the company town, where the worker would again meet his foreman or supervisor after work and together they would share a range of important life situations. It is thus a vision which in a certain sense constitutes the form of the Baťa company town of the 1920s and 1930s. This trend as well as its motivation can be interpreted variously, of course (e.g. through the concept of paternalism or from the perspective of disciplining and control, etc.) – especially if we take into account its developmental dynamics and transformations. From this point of view, it is also clearly significant that the model of organizing company towns emerged in the context of an industrial organization which required a relatively high degree of human intervention and flexibility in the production process. The quality of production outputs here was not primarily a result of the level of the technologies – these were more of a prerequisite for high efficiency throughout the organization – but mainly of the quality and productivity of human labor. In one text, Baťa concern board member Dominik Čipera (1893–1963) expressed this situation as follows: Today, the production of shoes is basically hand production. The machines which have been invented – and perfected over time – are not automatic units which perform certain work by themselves; they are tools, often complicated and ingeniously designed, which require human skill in order to perform certain work. The quality of the final product thus depends on individual human traits.39

Under these circumstances, it is obvious that relationships between employees and the enterprise – if they were to function with the necessary expedience (given the conditions under which the enterprise operated in the interwar period) – could not be based merely on the mechanical application of the concept of authority and obedience (Taylorism), but had to encompass certain social and psychological aspects 38

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This case is examined in greater detail in the following studies: Martin Jemelka and Ondřej Ševeček, “Německé podnikání koncernu Baťa: studie k hospodářským a sociálním dějinám hornoslezského továrního města Ottmuth (Otmęt) I,” Slezský sborník/Acta Silesiaca 111, no. 1–2 (2013); Martin Jemelka and Ondřej Ševeček, “Německé podnikání koncernu Baťa: studie k hospodářským a sociálním dějinám hornoslezského továrního města Ottmuth (Otmęt) II,” Slezský sborník/Acta Silesiaca 111, no. 3–4 (2013). Dominik Čipera, Ve službách práce a lidu. Soubor úvah, projevů a vzpomínkových poznámek 1919–1944 (Zlín, 1944), 24.

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of industrial work. It is for this reason that the model of the “social person,” sensitive to the work climate and environment, met with greater acceptance. Company practice was based on the assumption that through a certain arrangement of conditions in the workplace and employees’ home environments it was possible to achieve the necessary commitment and loyalty (or rather identification on the part of employees with the goals defined by the organization). New rules in the area of work were thus elaborated into a formula which the company attempted to integrate societally and culturally. This gradually led to the emergence of a highly complex system which aimed to legitimize societally even certain negative costs which accompanied the new world of mass production. If we attempt to distinguish Baťa towns from other cases of company towns known from previous phases of industrialization, and thus to define their specific features, then we cannot overlook the issues of the formation of multinational corporations and economic globalization generally, which form an important explanatory framework for the case in point. In this context, we must mention the fact that, from the beginning, individual Baťa towns developed and took shape within the concern’s structure with global ambitions and strategies. Therefore, many aspects of their functioning cannot be understood without taking into consideration the broad spectrum of ties and dependencies which connect them to other companies of the Baťa concern. The emergence of this worldwide network was linked to a particular model of expansion specific to its time, which was gradually overcome during the course of the twentieth century, among other things thanks to the rapid removal of barriers to world trade after the Second World War and the accelerating processes forming the transnational economy. The Baťa concern’s strategy, which led to establishing the network of company towns, emerged at a time when most shoes were produced and consumed within national economies (in 1936, for example, shoe imports to the United States accounted for just 2% of annual consumption; in Germany before the economic crisis at the end of the 1920s, these had reached roughly 6% of the annual production volume).40 World trade in this commodity was very limited and restricted by developed protectionist policies. This substantive limitation on world trade also fundamentally influenced the character of the Baťa concern’s expansion, which in certain cases went in the direction of multiplying the model developed in Czechoslovakia and endeavored to transfer it to other countries accessible only with great difficulty through direct exports (including economically developed countries with established footwear industries, higher wage costs, and distinct conditions in the labor-law and social areas which under different circumstances would have constituted export markets for the concern). The strategy enabled the concern to circumvent customs barriers and various other protectionist measures, and to introduce its products on local markets as domestic goods. It was thus a period-specific method of economic expansion, which profited significantly from cooperation with the concern’s individual enterprises (in particular, from their connection to the parent company Baťa, a.s., Zlín), but due to existing restrictions and barriers (and of course also to dominant national economies) did not take full advantage of the pos40

Sudrow, Der Schuh, 123–146.

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sibilities of the transnational division of labor and global distribution of production capacities as we know them in particular from the final decades of the twentieth century and the present. It seems that this model of a network of distributed production units and company towns, although progressive in its day, became a relatively substantial burden for the concern over the course of time. 1.4. THE BAŤA CONCERN – CHARACTER OF GROWTH, STRUCTURE, AND ITS TRANSFORMATIONS From its very beginnings, the Baťa enterprise developed and transformed very dynamically. Like every private capitalist enterprise, it interacted continuously and very dynamically with its surroundings: markets, political systems, as well as the changing social and cultural environment. If we were to characterize the enterprise’s development until the end of the Second World War (i.e. the period on which this exposition is focused), it could probably best be conceived as “change management.” There were significant milestones, such as (if we mention just the most important ones): the First World War, the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and the emergence of Czechoslovakia, the Great Depression, and of course the Second World War. What brought the Baťa brothers’ originally very modest enterprise to the apex of the footwear industry was the ability to react with great flexibility to problems that arose, while at the same time successfully changing strategies – in production and distribution as well as in the company’s organization and management. These, of course, were not merely passive reactions to environmental changes, but often shaped worldwide trends in the sector. If we want to at least approach an answer to the question of what role company towns played in the Baťa concern’s expansion and business activities, we cannot overlook a fundamental issue, namely the character of the economic growth experienced by the Baťa factories in Zlín, and the related transformation of their structure. It seems, however, that this transformation was not influenced primarily by planning; rather, it formed gradually (step by step) in response to various situational factors. On the other hand, the practices of certain successful large enterprises (particularly American ones) evidently served here as a model. These enterprises were able to exploit advantages resulting from size – which Alfred Chandler has called the advantages of “SST-economies.”41 41 According to A. D. Chandler, SST-economies (Scale, Scope, Transaction-cost) are made up of three components: 1) economies of scale utilize mass production (larger production volume lowers unit prices and gives the enterprise an advantage over its competitors); 2) economies of scope rest on synergetic effects through the joint production and distribution of related products; 3) transaction-cost economies exploit the advantages of internalization – the vertical integration of suppliers and marketing services – to control materials and outlets. Of course, the question remains whether, and if so to what extent, the abovementioned components were present in the case of the Baťa concern. This concept is interpreted in greater detail and in a broader context in his books: Chandler, Strategy and Structure; Id., Scale and Scope. The dynamics of industrial capitalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1990).

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The expansion of the Baťa factories in Zlín, which in a certain sense culminated with the establishment of company towns at home and abroad, was initially based in particular on the principle of vertical integration. This was to ensure the fastest and most fluid value chain flow – from deliveries of raw materials, to production, to sales. The company thus gradually internalized activities connected with procuring a range of basic raw materials, built an extensive complex of auxiliary production (this was the basis for the emergence of the first newly constructed company town in Otrokovice, near Zlín), and also developed an extensive distribution organization with its own retail chain at its core. The company’s geographical expansion played an increasingly important role as well in the environment of the limited market of interwar Czechoslovakia. This involved not only the sale of products on foreign markets, but increasingly also investments by the company abroad – initially mainly by establishing its own trading companies and retail chains. With the onset of the Great Depression and the strengthening of protectionist policies, however, the company also began to develop its own production enterprises, and under certain conditions company towns as well. In the 1930s, the company – a joint stock company from 1931 – increasingly diversified its activities: It expanded production to related product ranges (in particular to those product ranges for which it could efficiently utilize raw materials used in its main production lines or similar technology and production equipment). In the 1930s, due to stagnation and slow growth in sales of major footwear products, the company increasingly expanded into completely new areas of production (artificial fibers, gas masks, tires, bicycles, airplanes, etc.), and increasingly augmented its key activities abroad. To summarize the reasons for the concern’s extensive foreign investments, we must mention in particular: (1) the need to find new markets (from the beginning, the limited market of interwar Czechoslovakia was a very important factor in the company’s investment strategy); (2) also significant were increasingly strengthening protectionist policies (the company sought ways to circumvent various protectionist measures, from protective tariffs and import quotas to the prohibition of imports and the introduction of currency measures); (3) with the approach of the Second World War and growing instability throughout the region, the management consciously divided the company’s activities among various locations in order to offset the risks arising from economic and political crises. In connection with the concern’s foreign expansion, we could pose a range of related questions (we could attempt to explain the concern’s reasons for investing where it did, for selecting specific organizational forms, and so on and so forth). While these questions are no less important, they must be left aside for now.42 Last but not least, in connection with the Baťa concern’s enormous growth during the interwar years, we must also mention a form of horizontal integration. This becomes important in particular during the economic crisis and subsequent economic stagnation, when the company strengthened its position on the domestic market by buying up competing companies which lacked capital (for example, the BUSI footwear factory in Třebíč and the tanneries in Veľké Bošany, Nové Zámky, 42

Two substantive contributions in researching these questions are Lehár, “Economic Expansion,” and Marek, “Strategie Baťova koncernu.”

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and Třebíč). This resulted in a de facto monopoly of the domestic market. Consider this: At the end of the 1930s, the concern produced more than six-sevenths of total footwear production in Czechoslovakia, and nine-tenths of leather footwear exports. Moreover, its total export volume made Czechoslovakia the world’s leading exporter in the 1930s.43 By 1945, the following company towns – in addition to Zlín – had been established on the basis of the concern’s strategy outlined above, and had become the nodal points of Baťa business activities (they are ordered by the date of commencement of production): Baťov, Otrokovice, in Czechoslovakia, today the Czech Republic (1930), Veľké Bošany in Czechoslovakia, today Slovakia (beginning of 1931), Borovina, Třebíč, in Czechoslovakia, today the Czech Republic (4/1931), Borovo in Yugoslavia, today Croatia (7/1931), Ottmuth in Germany, today Poland (11/1931), Chełmek in Poland (2/1932), Möhlin in Switzerland (8/1932), Bataville, Hellocourt, in France (9/1932), East Tilbury in Great Britain (7/1933), Batadorp, Best, in the Netherlands (1934), Batanagar in British India, today India (end of 1934), Napajedla in Czechoslovakia, today the Czech Republic (1935), Batizovce (today Svit) in Czechoslovakia, today Slovakia (2/1936), Zruč nad Sázavou in Czechoslovakia, today the Czech Republic (5/1939), Baťovany (today Partizánske) in Czechoslovakia, today Slovakia (7/1939), Batawa in Canada (8/1939), Belcamp in the USA (10/1939), Sezimovo Ústí, in Czechoslovakia, today the Czech Republic (end of 1939), and Martfű in Hungary (summer 1942). In all of these localities, the concern endeavored to apply its system comprehensively, and their development was planned based on the concern’s concept of the “company town.”44 The methods and forms of the Baťa concern’s expansion are outlined here for two main reasons: The first is that it provides a basic overview of why and in what economic context company towns were built, as well as what general strategic motivations led the concern to establish them.45 The second – and from this point of view 43 44

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Lehár, “Economic Expansion.” In addition, dozens of other smaller production enterprises and operations emerged in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America, the development of which was not accompanied by an extensive and comprehensive housing program, however, and for this reason they are not listed here. It is also necessary to point out that this list reflects the author’s current knowledge of the issue, and thus it is possible that it will be expanded to additional localities based on further research. In this context, a special chapter (although also outside the referential scope of this study) is represented by the settlement process in Brazil orchestrated during the Second World War by Jan Antonín Baťa, who had the following settlements built: Batatuba (São Paulo), Batayporã (Mato Grosso do Sul), Mariapolis (São Paulo), and Bataguassu (Mato Grosso do Sul). If we were to continue along this line of investigation, it would surely be possible to classify the Baťa towns into a few basic categories, and subsequently to compare them in detail. To at least illustrate this point here, I would like to identify one interesting group of company towns which are distinct from the rest in a certain substantive respect: These were company towns built around factories that the Baťa concern took over from its competitors. In a certain sense, these localities stand in opposition to the prevailing principle of establishing company towns in areas lacking a strong industrial tradition. Just in passing, the locality of Třebíč-Borovina occupies quite a unique position among them; here, the Baťa company culture was at odds with the specific local industrial tradition, resulting in a phenomenon that could be called a “clash of cultures.”

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more significant – reason is that it demonstrates that the path of vertical integration on which the Baťa concern embarked was also a significant factor in the genesis of its specific model of company towns – or rather, that a certain (and, it seems, not insignificant) analogy can be traced in these processes. I would like to return once more to the work of Alfred D. Chandler, this time to his groundbreaking 1977 book The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business, which concentrates on the rise of the modern business enterprise and its managers. In it, Chandler presents in great detail the changing forms of organization of purchasing, production, and distribution at large American business enterprises. He reveals the internal logic of these changes, intended to ensure the fastest and smoothest possible interconnection of these three segments. He concludes that these companies transcended the coordinating function of the market thanks to an effective management structure, and in so doing the “visible hand” of professional managers replaced at multiple levels the coordinating role of the “invisible hand” of market forces.46 It seems that this propensity toward internalizing and directly managing a range of activities essential for the company’s operations was one of the important motivating factors which led the dynamically expanding Baťa enterprise (in the locally specific circumstances of Zlín) to a certain form of internalization of the town. In this respect, a substantive role was played by social and personnel policies, which (in this labor-intensive sector) were intended to ensure smooth operations and high efficiency in production. Thanks also to these motivations, the town of Zlín during the interwar period became (with certain limitations) the Baťa concern’s first company town. Of course, the logic of economic processes is merely one interpretative level of the problem. There exist other very significant cultural and social factors which must be taken into consideration as well. Here, we should surely mention once again the Baťa concern’s strong corporate culture, as many aspects of its development can only be explained in these terms. 1.5. ON THE GENESIS OF THE BAŤA MODEL OF COMPANY TOWNS: CONDITIONS AND CIRCUMSTANCES, PREMISES AND INFLUENCES Generally, it can be stated that the enterprise’s interventions into the social sphere, and later increasingly into the urban space, progressed “step by step” in the Zlín environment, where the originally very modest family enterprise was founded in 1894, mainly in response to various situational factors. At the same time, one must consider the fact that, from the beginning, the enterprise developed in the environment of a small rural town (Zlín had approximately three thousand inhabitants when the enterprise was established) characterized by a preponderance of the crafts, small trading, and agriculture. It was a relatively backward environment, without a significant industrial tradition or the needed residential infrastructure. In these locally specific conditions, the issue of creating an appropriate social and residential 46

Chandler, The Visible Hand.

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framework was existentially critical for the further development of the enterprise – then expanding onto world markets. It seems that, from the very beginning, the main impetus for the enterprise’s interventions into the urban space was the unimpeded development of production. These interventions began to strengthen after it had become clear that the municipality was not able to react adequately to rapid industrial development and the situation was increasingly unsustainable. In this respect, the turning point came during the First World War. At the time, Zlín was experiencing enormous industrial growth due to large military contracts, but also an extreme housing shortage, an overburdened urban infrastructure, and increasing social and sanitation risks. The enterprise began to address the town’s problems systematically only at the beginning of the 1920s, however, when it embarked on a path of intensive rationalization of production according to American models, which led, among other things, to the introduction of assembly-line production and a range of other progressive management measures and programs. It was during this period that the enterprise’s relationship to the town underwent a transformation, culminating in the success of its candidate list headed by Tomáš Baťa in the 1923 communal elections. Following the victory, Tomáš Baťa became mayor, and the town’s development was henceforth planned in close connection with the strategic planning of his factory. It was precisely in this situation that the enterprise completely controlled the town, and gradually began to make Zlín into its first “company town” – a company town that during the 1930s would become not only the headquarters of the Baťa shoe empire, but also its showcase. It is precisely the space of Zlín – transformed in the interim into a major international production center with forty thousand residents – by which the entire Baťa system is most frequently evaluated publicly. It is possible to enumerate many reasons and motivations for why the Baťa company embarked upon such a pronounced and fundamental engagement in Zlín’s urban space – ranging from the purely pragmatic, to the absolutely essential, to the conceptual. It seems, however, that the essence of its engagement in the town was always the relationship to the company’s employees and its transformations. During the interwar years, however, there was more at stake than the elementary social stabilization of the workforce (e.g. by providing company housing or securing basic life essentials) or workplace and political discipline; rather, after acceding to the new production model it increasingly involved workers’ integration and true identification with the enterprise and its town, with the aim of bringing their lives in line as much as possible with the order created by the factory. It is difficult to try to reveal the specific influences and premises from which this model of industrial organization drew, and the search for possible models which significantly influenced the enterprise’s diverse activities or its direction seems to be an even more complicated task. But this is not due to a mere lack of information or sources. In any considerations along these lines, one must take into account the fact of the rapidly (and internationally) expanding breadth of viewpoints of individuals in the company leadership as well as the gradual involvement of other experts and consultants in various areas of activity. It was also significant for the enterprise’s operations that every new finding or element which was to be put into

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practice or to influence the enterprise’s program was always empirically verified. It was thus often the case that the enterprise ultimately reached its own, different solution to a problem – even based on an adopted model – which better suited its objectives and needs. If, however, we consider certain general premises and sources influencing the nature of the emergent model in Zlín, we must surely mention (1) American influences, (2) examples of building industrial settlements as well as paternalistic housing estates, and (3) the specific life experience of the concern’s founder and many of his close collaborators, upon whom the world of preindustrial Zlín left a significant imprint. It seems that the specific model took shape at the intersection of these seemingly incompatible premises and influences, among other places, carried by unceasing optimism for developing a modern industrial society and for the possibilities of new technologies. It was evidently American influences which found the broadest application at the Baťa factory. Yet these concerned not only the practices of the most developed American factories (methods of organizing production or sales, management, personnel and social policies, etc.), but also, for example, the enthusiastic adoption of America’s work ethic and values. The significance of these influences is even documented in the first trip by Tomáš Baťa and his Zlín colleagues to the United States in 1905, which can be considered one of the important milestones in the enterprise’s development. Immediately upon his return, Tomáš Baťa had the first modern factory building built for his enterprise according to an American design – blueprints which he had obtained in America for 100 dollars – and introduced a range of progressive organizational measures. At least from this moment onward, the enterprise followed events in America practically without interruption.47 Similarly, in formulating ideas about possible future shapes of Zlín, it is difficult to overestimate the role played from the very beginning by examples of planned towns and settlements known from industrial tradition as well as contemporary practice (a range of major industrial centers and towns were also familiar to people in the company’s management from their numerous business trips). For the area of architecture and urban planning, however, a decisive factor was the fact that the enterprise was able to recruit architects with international insight – and often also experience – for its projects, who of course were also able to conform to the strict terms of the contract in respect of the budget and frequently also the technologies and approaches used. The significance of the local (Zlín) environment and its cultural and social influences on the enterprise’s vision and direction can be demonstrated, for example, in the person of Tomáš Baťa, who undoubtedly was one of the key actors of the whole process. This is how Tomáš Baťa later recalled the societal ideals of his twenties: 47

In the years preceding the First World War, Tomáš Baťa evidently visited the United States one more time, in 1911. Shortly after the end of the First World War, his longing for innovations brought him there yet again, in 1919. At that time, in Lynn, Massachusetts, he even established his own experimental shoe factory, which soon closed, however. Baťa also travelled to the United States e.g. in 1926. Vojtěch Křeček and Zdeněk Pokluda, “První americká cesta Tomáše Bati,” Zlínsko od minulosti k současnosti 17 (2000): 57–68.

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My head burned with ideas back then about human society, the ideas of my twenties about life, read from the books of Tolstoy, from the poems of Svatopluk Čech, and all of our literature about the Czech Brothers, but most of all from the people who surrounded me. I was a collectivist and something like a communist, but decidedly a socialist. I considered contemporary capitalist society to be good only for bad people like blackmailers and loafers. I dreamed of Tolstoy’s simple life. After I’d paid off my debts – actually my brother’s debts – and earned a bit extra, I’d buy a small country manor and sow only what I needed for myself and my family. Towns existed only to enslave farmers and factories to enslave workers; merchants to live like parasites from the work of others. If I needed a spade and tools, they would be made in a communal socialist factory, as depicted by Zola in his Travail.48

Tomáš Baťa, of course, soon turned away from his initial agrarian-socialist ideas – or, rather, he transformed them into a new form.49 After visiting major industrial centers in Europe and America, the Fordist factory came to be increasingly at the forefront of his thoughts – not merely as the essential element of a new economic system, however, but also as an entity establishing a certain new form of sociality. Without this quintessence, Zlín’s further development is difficult to imagine. 1.6. “THE IDEAL INDUSTRIAL TOWN” – ON THE SYSTEMATIZATION OF THE CONCERN’S PROGRAM AT THE END OF THE 1930S If we examine in greater detail the designs of the Baťa concern’s company towns from the 1930s and 1940s, it is evident that they involved more than simply architectural and urbanistic solutions to the housing question. These were very complex economic, technological, and social projects which built on the concern’s experience from the previous decades. The structure of new company towns always respected local conditions in certain respects; they emerged gradually and were regulated by a range of control mechanisms, primarily of an economic nature. With a certain amount of simplification for clarification, it would be possible (and surely also beneficial) to treat company towns of the Baťa concern as complex projects arising through the gradual integration of a range of functional subsystems. From this perspective, if the genesis of the model of company towns were treated in a truly systematic manner and in the relevant problem context, it would be necessary to trace the development of the individual components of the concern’s program, as well as that of the intentions and visions with which they were integrated into it (or which were abandoned). It is not possible, of course, to provide such a systematic treatment here. Attention will thus subsequently be focused on the idea of the ideal industrial town, which the concern reached at the end of the 1930s based on its ex48 49

Quoted from Tomáš Baťa, Úvahy a projevy (Praha: Institut řízení, 1990), 25. Emphasis added in the relevant passage by O. Š. For example, his very first design for a workers’ colony, which he commissioned in 1915 from renowned Prague architect Jan Kotěra, envisages the creation of a sort of economic collective centralized in two courtyards, where free-time farmers from among the ranks of the factory workers inhabiting this factory settlement would provide draught animals and tools – to all collectively. There is a question of the extent to which this vision was influenced by extant difficulties in procuring food supplies during the First World War. Ševeček, Zrození, 141–143.

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perience, and which was elaborated in detail in particular in the 1939 book Průmyslové město [Industrial town]. At the outset, it is necessary at least to take note of the method in which the concern approached the compilation of this book, as well as its considerations on how to make use of it. As it seems, even these facts point to something substantive. Despite the very detailed elaboration, to which many people from various areas of the concern’s activity contributed, it is not a plan for a specific town. Rather, it is a construct (a rational schema) elaborated on the basis of the enterprise’s current practice, which was to be modified during the process of realization (interacting with a range of situational factors) for a project’s specific conditions, and adapted to its actual needs – which it was assumed would change (and not only as a function of time). If such an approach to planning is incorporated by part of the literature into the context of urban utopias, it seems necessary to pose the question “In what sense can Baťa projects be considered utopian?” When Friedrich Georg Jünger, in a passage of his book The Perfection of Technology, contemplates the question “What is actually utopian about utopia?” the issue appears to him in such a way that “utopian” consists “in joining the incompatible, in transcending borders and in unjustified conclusions based on conflicting assumptions.”50 Yet in the modern technical world which he is most interested in, he asserts that there is never a technical schema by itself; it always involves – whether real or not – the area of technical organization and its possibilities. An idea becomes utopian, he believes, only when the utopian abandons the technical schema in which it is couched, and joins it in a utopian manner with something else, something unfitting, which could never develop from this schema. It seems that if, in the case of Baťa, we take this route and focus on places where the constructors of company towns transcended the confines of this schema – which consists of the foundations of their industrial organization – we will elicit certain utopian components of the Baťa program. In principle, of course, this is the very founding of the concern’s program, which basically assumes a smooth and fluid extension of this schema to the urban sphere. Or, stated differently, it is a conception of the “town” which in substantive respects is merely an extension of modern industry.51 The book Průmyslové město is itself conceived in Jan Antonín Baťa’s introduction as the concern’s partial contribution to solving the substantive problems of industrial society, mainly by finding a suitable organizational form for modern industry. At the center of all considerations about these problems should be man and the basic needs of his happiness. These are mainly (in accordance with the ideals of the Enlightenment) the satisfaction of those material and physical needs which ensure corporeal bliss. Here, happiness is also placed in the context of the happiness of a specific human society (thus, it also corresponds in certain respects e.g. to the ideas 50 51

Quoted based on the Czech translation: Friedrich Georg Jünger, Perfektnost techniky, trans. Milan Váňa (Praha, Academia: 2012), 14. Consciously left completely aside here is the highly important and complicated relationship between the company ideology (but also the utopian imagination which developed around this empirically tested schema) and the environment of company towns themselves (i.e. how things appear or should appear, and how they are).

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of utopian socialists, who based their notions about reforming the industrial society on an analogous concept). Further, the main principles on which the concern’s program was to be based are mentioned here. First and foremost, this is the (allegedly empirical) thesis that industry built in large cities did not measure up, since the form of society necessary for developing modern industry does not arise in this environment. To the contrary, the placement of industry in a large city leads to social dysfunction and the creation of crowds of individuals who do not (and cannot) possess the necessary level of appreciation for industrial cooperation. The ideal industrial town is a settlement on a smaller scale (with ten to twenty thousand residents), with one enterprise, and with one main industrial product. It is a socially synoptic community, reminiscent in certain respects of – if we may indulge in a metaphor – an ocean liner; everyone knows where his place is, what is propelling the ship, who the captain is, and where the common destination lies. According to Jan Antonín Baťa, this special type of industrial town – despite the fact that in the book it is constructed in accordance with the concern’s production program as a specialized town, based on industrial production of shoes and related items – can be considered a type with universal ambitions. In its other, basically technical, parts, the book addresses in detail specific questions and problems relating to the building and functioning of such a company town. Not only does it broach various issues relating to its localization, but it also addresses all of the components of the specific enterprise program (construction, production, purchasing, sales, electricity, transportation, common activities and administration, services for employees, social policy, and urban infrastructure) as well as the development of specifically urban institutions and services. Even these, of course, are considered essentially departments of the enterprise. In addition to very detailed construction, technological, and organizational plans, at the heart of the schema are also very thorough and comprehensive economic and demographic calculations. It is not possible to devote attention to all the important aspects of these projects, so we will mention at least a few of them (also in the context of the questions addressed above). In addition to a company town’s specific localization, a range of specific steps and measures – aimed at public authorities and state administration as well as organizational and personnel areas – contributed to the achievement of its projected development. With respect to the main principles of localizing company towns, these concerned mainly their establishment in economically less developed, rural regions (sufficiently distant from large cities) with the necessary labor force. At the same time, these should be localities with inexpensive and available land of a suitable size and quality, i.e. not only with appropriate transportation links (a navigable river and a railway), but also sufficient raw materials and resources (in particular construction materials, and potable and service water). Significant importance is placed on relationships with public authorities at all levels. Prior to the actual establishment of a company town, not only should the inclination of authorities toward the enterprise’s program be ensured (e.g. by naming influential functionaries – of the state government, region, district, municipality – to the enterprise’s supervisory board), but the substantive strategic framework for further development should be

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agreed with the government of the relevant country. The organizational side involved, among other things, the rapid establishment of a sales network, as well as auxiliary departments providing the most urgent services for employees (first of all a shopping center, factory kitchen, laundry and baths). Personnel issues were considered meritorious. This did not involve merely the company’s own selection of personnel (an integral part of the plan was the service of Czech instructors – fifty of them were expected to acquire local citizenship and to settle permanently in the country), but also the development of further education, community, and sports activities, and the creation of its own employee organization (the Baťa syndicate). Wage levels also played an important role in employment policy. Wages should be higher than the average wage of workers in a given field – in the enterprise’s surroundings and in the given country in general. The extent and comprehensiveness of Baťa planning are also demonstrated, for example, by the detailed calculations of the structure of expenses for employee wages which were an integral component of the overall financial projections for a company town’s economic development.52 A direct link from the Baťa concern’s urban planning and architecture to a certain technological schema and economic assumptions can also be demonstrated on one of the substantive principles of constructing an “industrial town.” Namely, that all buildings were understood to be in principle temporary. During their construction, it was reckoned that all buildings would be technologically obsolete in roughly 40 years (hospitals in just 30 years), and would need to be demolished and rebuilt according to current needs. Building costs were thus calculated in such a way so that the investments for their construction would be amortized before they would be surpassed by technical and technological progress.53 Construction of housing for workers was contemplated at the concern in the same manner as the production of other industrial products. This approach was necessarily reflected not only in the method of organizing construction, the technologies and procedures used, the character of residential districts, and their architecture, but also in the work of architects itself.54 It was characteristic of the factory housing construction sector with respect 52

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To illustrate, the following structure of expenses was calculated for employee wages: housing 7%, lighting 1%, heating 2%, food 40%, clothing, shoes, linens 20%, entertainment 4%, training 3%, travel 3%, sick leave 5%, insurance 2%, savings 10%, other expenses 3%. It was evidently based on circumstances in Zlín. Průmyslové město, 573. The specific line of consideration which significantly formed the concern’s program in this area can be documented in a 1931 speech by Tomáš Baťa: “Every person not living in a large city should have his own house, providing him with healthy living according to the needs of modern life. It should be a house which can be built for on year’s income from his work. At present, we build houses in this country to last 500 years and to choke and stifle future generations just as the houses built by our ancestors stifle us. It is natural that a house built for 500 years should cost more than a person can earn in 20 years. And this is why most of the nation lives in holes during their most beautiful years and when they are raising children. And who can free them from these holes? Only they themselves, and such a school where they learn to draw flush toilets and bathrooms not for the wealthy top ten thousand but for all people.” Tomáš Baťa, Úvahy a projevy, 113. In one of his papers, Architect František L. Gahura pointed, for example, to the significance of the economic limits of the concern’s housing construction, when he wrote: “[The financial as-

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to the budgeting of individual projects that the goal of rationalizing construction work was not to maximize investor profit (in general a 10% profit was calculated from rent), but to maximize the number of units built – and, if possible, units of an appropriate residential standard and sufficient construction quality. The economic model assumed that expenditures on rent should not exceed a certain percentage (set at 5–7%) of employee wages, since these expenditures affected the calculations for production itself: The more an employee had to pay for housing, the greater his wage had to be, which thus increased production costs and the price of products. Ideally, the factory housing sector would concentrate all employees in rental apartments or dormitories. Accommodation was provided to them based on a supplement to the employment contract (the concern made use of the in reform circles often-criticized wage-rent ratio). It was not assumed in the plans for Baťa towns that workers would have any ownership rights to real estate.55 Despite broad promotion of family housing in garden districts, much more widespread in terms of numbers of workers housed were collective housing in boarding houses, dormitories, and hotels for unmarried workers.56 While factory apartments in family houses

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pects of building residential districts in Zlín] … was a serious question for us. You have to consider that given the need for apartments before and during construction of the residential districts, and which was so great that the savings from one door here meant CSK 20,000 over 40 apartments, which meant being able to build one apartment more.” Quoted from František L. Gahura, “Malý byt v oblasti průmyslové,” in Sborník VII. konference preventivního lékařství v Karlově Studánce ve Slezsku 20.–23. března 1937. Praha, 22–24. This principle was an important component of the company’s policy toward workers. This was justified not only by the abovementioned economic and social premises, but also by a range of other circumstances connected mainly with work performance and labor efficiency, with a certain living standard (comprising in this conception not only economic and social indicators, but also e.g. sanitary and health aspects of life), with the possibility for activity outside of work, and, last but not least, with control over workers’ private lives. Cf. Průmyslové město, 447. Based on investigations thus far, however, it seems that a 100% level of concentration of workers in the factory housing sector was never achieved. In Zlín in 1940, for example, the situation was as follows: Only 63.2% of workers were housed in the factory housing sector (43.2% in mass dormitories and 20% in family apartments); 36.8% of workers were housed outside the factory housing sector (19.4% commuted to work, 14% lived in apartments owned by other landlords, and 3.4% had their own house). Ševeček, Zrození, 258. The factory housing sector was clearly structured, and within it there existed several qualitatively different types of housing. Apartments in family houses were intended for married employees. Despite the fact that family districts were distinctive at first sight because of their obvious architectural uniformity, which in a certain sense also signaled social homogeneity, even here there existed social inequality – although this arose rather on the basis of a different position in the corporate hierarchy than on the basis of complex social differentiation. Even in a uniform housing estate, however, a certain social gradation of the residential space could be found, which was manifested in the individual types of residential buildings (for unmarried workers in particular: boarding houses, dormitories, and hotels for unmarried workers; for married workers: quarter-detached, semi-detached, detached houses, and small villas), as well as in a tendency to separate certain groups of workers (mainly unmarried workers from married workers, as well as a strict separation of unmarried women from unmarried men). For example, boarding houses were intended for the young generation of factory workers (the so-called “young men” and “young women,” who in addition to working in the factory also visited the

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can thus be considered a mass phenomenon, they were never built for the masses of employees, which again had a significant impact on total construction costs and on the economy of constructing a company town thus conceived. This arrangement was of course also closely connected to the Baťa concern’s business strategy, markedly accentuating the area of social rationalization and focusing on maximally efficient exploitation of human resources, which in a certain sense is indicative of the core of the Baťa conception of the industrial enterprise. The concern’s recruitment strategy was in significant part focused on selecting young, unmarried workers – often without previous work experience – who were best able to adapt to the enterprise’s management, the required level performance, and the specific living and working conditions of a company town. Also in connection with the above, a design for an industrial town for 3,500 employees reckoned with the following composition its workforce, which had a direct influence on the construction program and the selected types and numbers of standardized residential buildings: some 40% of the plant’s workforce were to be women (37% single, approximately up to age 25, and just 3% married – this model barely reckoned with employing married women). Men made up 60% of the total number of workers, although even among them unmarried men predominated (it was assumed that unmarried men would account for two-thirds of the male workforce). That even these basic indicators were not merely plans or ideas is evidenced, for example, by the demographic composition of the population of Zlín in the 1930s, which reveals a range of sociologically and demographically extreme features (a very large proportion of unmarried persons, and persons aged 15 to 30 accounting for almost twothirds of the population, among others).57 It is important to take account of the fact that the book Průmyslové město, systematizing the concern’s practice in the construction and administration of company towns, emerged on the eve of the Second World War – a period which marked a fundamental turning point for its future development. Thus, despite the obvious ambitions of this unique work in urban planning, it is more of a retrospective look at the 1920s and 1930s or – perhaps better stated – a fossilization of the fundamentals of the concern’s program in a very unsettled period. It is also interesting to observe that their implementation became a topic of discussion already at the time, and in certain areas alternative conceptions were even defined. Yet this involved more than the mere designing of towns (the principle of open development was challenged, for example, and the issue of how the “centers” of newly constructed towns should be composed was broached in an interesting way, etc.); it also

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Baťa School of Work). In addition to a very low living standard (truly only the most basic amenities in rooms and a high housing density) these were also characterized by a high degree of social control, manifested in strict rules for residents and a stringent daily regimen, among other things. Dormitories, intended for older graduates of the Baťa School of Work offered an indisputably higher living standard and were also characterized by a lower level of social control. So-called hotels for unmarried workers were intended for unmarried employees who had not gone through the Baťa School of Work, etc. The demographic characteristics of Zlín and the development of its key indicators are treated in detail in the seventh chapter of Ondřej Ševeček’s book, Zrození, 263–333.

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entailed, for example, the form of their political administration58 and criticism of a certain “island mentality” influencing the conception of the concern’s program (the economic sphere was marked e.g. by an effort to achieve the maximum possible level of autarchy, and by an aversion to cartels or any agreements with competitors). These discussions become more interesting precisely in the context of development during the Second World War as well as in the postwar period, when – despite qualitative changes – there is further development in the localities in question. 1.7. CONCLUSION To overlook the history of company towns of the Baťa concern during the turbulent and revolutionary twentieth century appears to be just as difficult as trying to capture the substantive moments of the century itself. It is obvious that in the last decades of the twentieth century the industrial tradition which constituted these settlements became part of the past, and the Baťa towns entered a new phase of their development under various conditions and circumstances. Their ability to cope with the rapid advance of deindustrialization, affecting mainly localities in Europe and North America, met with varying degrees of success depending, among other things, on whether a given Baťa town managed to reorient itself to a different economic sector or to integrate other functions and services into its structure. This is merely the concluding scene, however, which opens a broad spectrum of very topical questions and problems. It was necessarily preceded by transformations in the global economy, methods of production and marketing, and other accompanying processes defining the direction of development in the footwear sector. Based on the current state of our understanding, it is only with great difficulty that we can arrive at any definitive conclusions or a formulation of clearer contours of the processes which were the essence of the Baťa towns’ transformations during the twentieth century. Our conclusion is thus nothing more than fragmentary indications of several questions, problems, and perspectives which possible future investigations should not overlook. In studying company towns of the Baťa concern, it becomes increasingly important from the perspective of urban historiography that these towns existed and functioned not only in different social and cultural conditions and historical contexts, but also in various political and economic systems. The issue of how they functioned under the totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century seems to be of particular importance – especially the Nazi and Communist regimes. These were quite special conditions, where totalitarian power endeavored to create not only a new social order and a “new man,” but also a specific economic system accentuating (in both cases) elements of central direction and planning of the economy. It is 58

Also interesting in this context is e.g. the opinion of director Hugo Vavrečka on Jan A. Baťa’s letter dated August 24, 1939, on company towns acquiring political independence, addressing this principle. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, I/4, inv. no. 30.

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evident in this regard that the most significant intervention into the concern’s structure was brought about by the geopolitical changes which followed from the Second World War, which resulted in a significant portion of the Baťa towns coming under the tutelage of Eastern Bloc countries – and for several decades. In this connection, one must mention that under socialism these towns prospered unprecedentedly – it is here that they achieve their greatest expansion. The entire postwar shoemaking industry in countries like Hungary, Poland, and Yugoslavia was essentially constituted based on them. Further investigations should thus concentrate, among other things, on these questions: In what respects is it possible to consider the continuity or discontinuity of the Baťa urban model which emerged in the 1920s and 1930s under various circumstances? Can polyvalent elements be found beyond the basic developmental milestones? How was the further development of company towns different in capitalist and socialist environments after the Second World War? Etc. It seems that if the perspective of the social vision and the specific lifestyle formed by a new industrial culture and its products which constituted the concern’s program in the interwar years is accentuated in tracing the further development of the Baťa towns, a number of interesting conclusions can be reached. This is a vision of the company town where the worker would again meet his foreman or supervisor after work and together they would share a range of important life situations. It soon became obvious, however, that this way of life – which is truly the quintessence of the concern’s urban program in the 1920s and 1930s – had acquired significant cracks in its further development. Surprisingly, this came first from those very employees who had been expected to be the most loyal to the established order – from the ambitious and increasingly significant echelon of professional managers. It was they who were the first to leave the factory family districts with their families (already at the end of the 1930s in Zlín, we see a rapid expansion of their own individual housing). They thus ushered in already at the end of the interwar period a trend that would continue in the rapidly developing and prosperous societies of Western Europe after the Second World War. While in Zlín in the 1930s, up to fourfifths of the enterprise’s employees lived in the company town, a sociological investigation undertaken at the beginning of the 1960s in the Baťa company town of East Tilbury, England, shows that at the time fewer than one-eighth of the employees of the local factory lived there. In such a situation it is obviously very difficult to conceive of a company town in the sense of the societal vision which led to the emergence of these localities. It is evident that many substantive questions are opened for further investigations when focusing our attention on the internal dynamics of the model, which are also interestingly reflected in the transformations of lifestyle. A hitherto almost completely unknown chapter is the development of Baťa company towns in developing countries – despite the fact that events there became more important in the context of the accelerating trans-nationalization of the economy in the second half of the twentieth century – and the processes connected with the relocation of footwear production from Europe and North America to these regions. In addition to case studies on individual localities (a treatment of the Indian

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company town of Batanagar, for example, where the concern has operated since the 1930s, could serve as a model), it would definitely be desirable to conduct comparative studies. In the longer term, these could focus, for example, on the substantive aspects of the concern’s program in selected Asian, European, and North American localities.

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Preface

II. REFLECTING ON BAŤA’S HISTORY

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Martin Jemelka and Ondřej Ševeček

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1. IDENTITY, DISCIPLINE AND ORDER IN THE BAŤA CONCERN Martin Marek, Vít Strobach Relatively frequently these days we encounter the view that interwar Zlín became a place where the ideals of an industrial society and the cultivation of the “new man” were achieved. It is supposed to be a prototype of a successful social experiment consisting of an equal relationship between entrepreneur and worker, employer and employee, man and capital, etc. – simply put, a model specimen of successful social reconciliation in a capitalist society.1 The project’s progressiveness was recognized by certain political elites even during the First Czechoslovak Republic. What model of society did Batism represent? Who was a Baťaman, a Baťa pioneer, and how was the image of man and society “according to Baťa” transformed in the interwar period? We would at least like to make a few remarks on this topic in order to follow up on it more broadly in the future.2 We should understand Batism in context; it was not an outlandish or unusual phenomenon. The whole conception reflects the possibilities of governance, and of the political and economic system of the period. Its ideological roots must be sought after in the mechanized environment of factory production and in the ideas of a scientific method of managing society. Batism “merely” empowered these ideas and 1

2

Not only economists (cf. texts by A. Glogar, S. Kašpárková, R. Lešingrová, M. Zelený and others; these are mostly rather promotional manuals than analytical works in the true sense of the word), but also historians and other scientists have written on the success of the Baťa experiment and its possible application as a model for addressing the maladies of globalization. Among the more coherent and more conceptual works which present Batism as “an exemplary system,” cf. Karel Kouba, “Baťa’s Zlín in Czechoslovakia 1918–1938 – A Model of a High Modernist City” (paper presented at the Midwest Slavic Conference, The Ohio State University, Columbus, March 3–5, 2005). In addition, there exist works which take a more critical approach to Batism. Those close to our research are in particular the following: The relationship between the modern concept of labor and social control (also) in the example of Baťa’s Zlín is briefly albeit inspiringly addressed by Petr Mareš, cf. ibid., “Od práce emancipující k práci mizející,” Sociologický časopis 1–2 (2004): 37–48. The Baťa media are addressed from a standpoint close to ours by Petr Szczepanik, cf. ibid, “Mediální výstavba ‘Ideálního průmyslového města’. Síť médií v Baťově Zlíně 30. let,” Sborník prací Filozofické fakulty Brněnské univerzity. Řada filmologická 2 (2005): 23–66. Stanislav Holubec’s text (ibid, “Silní milují život. Utopie, ideologie a biopolitika baťovského Zlína,” Kuděj 11, no. 2 (2009): 30–55.) requires further specification in many places, but we nevertheless consider it to be an important contribution generally to the topic and a precursor to this work. This brief contribution, or rather comment on the margin, is an extract from a monograph currently in preparation. Given the space limitations of the present article, however, we must reduce the detailed references to archival sources. Also the methods of the new reading of the sources can only be hinted at here rather than described in detail.

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provided them with very explicit expression. The illusion of the project’s perfection and coherence was created in the Zlín press from the 1920s until the 1940s, in promotional materials from poster advertisements to commercial spots, and even in directors’ instructions, enabling the direction not only of the enterprise, but also of the family, the municipality, the state and the whole of human society. The idealized goals of Batism were to be achievable through human labor, behind which stood a norm of performance and the related concepts of (individual) honor and responsibility. All these categories formed the axis of Baťa texts on which the evaluative structure of the entire discourse was based. At this point, we would like to focus our attention on certain disciplinary practices of the given regime in connection with shaping the Baťa employee’s collective and individual identity. Disciplinary power as conceived by Michel Foucault replaces the traditional exercise of sovereign power – instead of exemplary cases and the “spectacle” of the violated body of the condemned, modern punishment is “hidden” behind the walls of institutions. At the same time, they punish continuously – not for the sake of repression in its own right, as was formerly the case, but in order to normalize people as useful subjects. Disciplinary power is absolutely “non-discreet;” it does not leave aside any area of the system in which it operates (it even oversees the overseers). But at the same time it is “discreet” in that it continuously labors in silence. Its typical environment is a pyramidal organization, which, although it has its own “leader,” also produces power in and of itself, and deploys its individual components – objects of surveillance – within itself. In the ideal case, it is possible to remove any part from the power hierarchy without the whole machine jamming.3 The exercise of disciplinary power is not “politically neutral,” however; it is directly linked to capitalist relationships, structures of the bourgeois society, and its social inequalities, which it attempts to cover behind a veil of naturalness. Batism, as a quasi-autonomous discourse operating in the environment of the Zlín concern, shaped the identity of Baťa employees, and established an ideal yet normal member of the enterprise collective according to laws and the rules of the “free market.” During the 1920s and 1930s, the Baťa factories – and by extension Zlín itself – became a place where a very refined set of controls, continuous testing, and surveillance mechanisms were applied. The goal of the relationship cultivated between the employee and the company was primarily to develop the individual as a subject fulfilling the requirements of increasing performance. The ideal employee had to adopt an exact schedule of daily activities (including free-time activities), learn automatic movements on the assembly line, and adapt his body to the precise dispositions of factory operations – which in the case of the Zlín concern extended far beyond the walls of the factories themselves. The Baťa employee became an obedient subject, an individual adapted to the routines, rules and regulations which constantly surrounded him and were constantly applied to him.

3

The following paragraph and concept of disciplinary power is based on Foucault’s book Discipline and Punish. Michel Foucault, Dohlížet a trestat: kniha o zrodu vězení, trans. Čestmír Pelikán (Praha: Dauphin, 2000).

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1.1. THE EMPLOYEE – SELECTION, RECORDS, CONTROL The hiring process commonly included psycho-technical tests, which were intended to limit subjectivity in the selection of candidates and replace it with the assumed objectivity of scientific management. They were to assess the typical employee and any deviations with scientific precision. The stylized hiring materials/forms as well as employees’ personal files persuade us that alongside official qualification criteria, such as education, language ability, and various types of professional knowledge and skills, information about candidates’ personal lives was also gathered during the hiring process. This information was then expanded and continually tracked over the course of the employee’s career at the factory; its validity was continuously verified, and values were tested. In this context, it is important to mention the activity of the Personnel and Social Departments.4 These departments concentrated all available information about individual employees and subjected it to a whole range of scientific disciplines (economics, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, education, etc.).5 They categorized and recorded their lives in the company town, collected new findings and further applied this information in practice. Officials of these departments were able not only to monitor employees in the workplace and on public premises (cafeterias, entertainment facilities, pubs, etc.), but they also entered into their intimate domestic environment. The main objective, however, was not to provide support to newly hired employees integrating into Zlín’s factory environment, as it is interpreted to this day even in certain scholarly publications, but to split their work and intimate lives into as subtle parts as possible, and to fill the record card indexes with the greatest amount of information possible, in order to perfect and expand available knowledge and to enhance the possibilities of control and surveillance.6 If an employee’s personal life was not deemed “untainted,” his professional advancement could be halted or he could even be dismissed. As is evidenced by numerous entries in personal files and records of dismissals, such events took place regardless of whether the worker in question was a qualified employee or an untrained laborer. This practice was not without purpose, of course; it tracked – as has already been indicated – mainly the employee’s usefulness and performance. The abovementioned departments performed their duties in order to determine how an em4 5

6

Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, Státní okresní archiv ve Zlíně (hereinafter ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín), fond Baťa, a. s., Zlín (Baťa), especially sign. II, II/1 – II/5 and II/9 – II/11. A relatively holistic overview of this knowledge in the popular form of theses and edification, and accompanied by a systematic classification of interventions, is provided by “instructional manuals” published by the Social Department for its social officials (Vedení osobního oddělení and Výběr a výchova průmyslového člověka, Zlín, undated, the first publication includes the Study Institute handbook Základní poznatky. Z úvodu do praktické psychologie a vychovatelství). If this was really about “civilizing” Wallachian villagers ignorant of urban (Zlín) housing standards, as certain contemporary authors explain these surveillance practices, those employees coming to the enterprise from urban environments would have been spared the interventions of the Social Department. This was not the case, of course.

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ployee’s ability to meet to enterprise’s performance requirements would develop. For this purpose, investigations were conducted on each employee with the help of so-called appraisals. If there was stagnation or even a decline in performance, the Baťa social policy would search for the reason for this phenomenon in the intimate cohabitation of partners, among other places, and tried – in the form of interviews, incentives and threats – to bring it into line with the company’s own view of normal family relations. Surveillance was also simplified for the departments concerned – and effective resistance on the part of the “objects” of their interest blocked – by the applied wage-rent relationship. The “wage” concept expressed the employee’s relationship to the employer, while the “rent” concept expressed the employee’s relationship to enterprise housing.7 An employee who refused to permit surveillance could be dismissed practically immediately. 1.2. BODY AND CHARACTER In order to shape the identity of a member of the Baťa collective, the ideal of the pioneer / Baťaman (or factory man, self-made man, etc.) was created for purposes of emulation. This figure is characterized by his optimism, openness to new experiences, focus on the future, and absolute faith in scientific management of the economy as well as society – able to perfectly handle any situation that may arise, yet also capable of thinking in the temporally distant horizons of economic plans. In handling everyday as well as multi-year tasks, it had to be endowed with an appropriate dose of self-confidence, toughness and firm will, in order to withstand the complications occurring in the struggle for the company’s business interests. Apart from character qualities, the physical form of this ideal did not escape notice either. Physical activities were to strengthen the body to achieve greater performance, while competitiveness – another of the fundamental attributes of normal employee behavior – was to motivate employees to attain success and profit. Physical education activities thus became part of everyday practice: The Young Men and Young Women (apprentices) started the day with exercise, and free-time activities were dominated by various tournaments and sports competitions. This all was intended to prepare employees for the work itself, although even experienced, trained employees continued to improve themselves through competition and physical exercise. This involved more than just the requirements of physical fitness, which was supposed to have the secondary effect of reinforcing character; there also existed requirements for the aesthetic quality of an employee’s body (for example, hair and beard length, dental quality, and general physiognomy were subjected to standardization), and violating the norms of appearance usually resulted in penalization.8 7 8

On this, cf. Ondřej Ševeček, Zrození Baťovy průmyslové metropole. Továrna, městský prostor a společnost ve Zlíně v letech 1900–1938 (České Budějovice and Ostrava: Veduta and Ostravská univerzita, 2009): 235–236. The Young Men, for example, were evaluated on a point system for the orderliness of their clothing, shaving, etc.

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The ideal employee was continually described by the Baťa press – and contrasted with deterring examples of disorderliness and inefficiency. Already during the company’s hiring process, candidates underwent a comprehensive medical examination. Based on the findings, they were divided into several groups, which automatically predetermined the frequency of further examinations. Records can be found in the personal card indexes documenting cases of repeat hires at the parent company (e.g. following a return from active military service, a work stay at one of the foreign subsidiaries, etc.) where the candidate’s trial period was conditioned, among other things, on treatment of his damaged teeth.9 In discourse (Batism), an employee’s attitude toward health and his state of health itself ceased to be a private matter of the individual, and instead became a subject of “public interest.” On this level, too, the body became an object of discipline and a spectacular place for applying Batism and fulfilling its notion of the ideal employee. Baťovci were also to become acquainted with the idealized figure of the Baťaman at public festivities (May Day celebrations, Carnival, but also during awards ceremonies for selected employees, and celebrations of inventors and selfmade men – first and foremost Thomas A. Edison). This ideal was honored in a characteristic manner at a magnificent public celebration in the early spring of 1939. The celebration was organized to mark the arrival of Baťa employee Miloš Fabián. Fabián was selected for this purpose by virtue of his willingness to put his own life at risk while defending the company’s interests in Shanghai, China, at a time when the city faced attack by Japanese forces. “I am not aware that I or my colleagues working in the East did anything special,” Miloš Fabián is reported to have declared with humility before the assembled workers on Labor Square. “They sent us there. We went. We built a store, earned money and created positions for ourselves. We did not do anything but our duty.”10 As can be seen, Fabián emphasized in his speech above all the “certainty of success,” which every member of the Baťa collective could achieve under certain circumstances. The method of interlinking words about moral duty toward the factory and work as a first-order virtue with responsibility for one’s own success is typical. 1.3. MORAL DECLINE AND ITS TREATMENT It is typical for the Baťa discourse to designate the post-war economic crisis as well as the global depression a decade later as a moral crisis, from which could also be derived the so-called crisis of work performance of man, the nation, and all of civilization. “It is inflation (decline) of morals,” remarked Tomáš Baťa with indignation on one of the political decisions to rescue banks, “and it is strange how correct the observation is that inflation of morals is followed by economic inflation, and thus 9 10

For example: ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, sign. II/2, kart. 1121, inv. č. 87, poř. č. 16 and 19 or ibid., kart. 1024, inv. č. 14, poř. č. 23; Even employees’ family members were subjected to health checks on certain occasions (transfers abroad). Jan Antonín Baťa, Těžké časy (Krásná Lípa: Marek Belza, 2008): 208.

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also currency inflation. It is clear from the slow but steady decline in our country’s exports that our administration lacks the spirit to arouse the moral economic strength to create values.”11 The collapse of the economic system was also attributed to the “irresponsibility” and declining morality of individuals. This individualization and moralization of the causes (each is responsible for himself and must rise from his own moral impoverishment) and the accompanying socialization of the necessary measures (everyone must live within their means during the crisis and, as “coworkers” in solidarity, work all the harder for it) characterizes Batism as a discourse eliminating the symbolism of social conflict (concepts like exploitation, dominion, etc.), and re-writing it into the language of identity and the moral obligations of personal honor and performance. “Curative means” were deployed to suppress the symptoms of crisis phenomena. Society, which was viewed as a living machine, was to be resuscitated by means of scientific management, the rationalization of capitalist enterprise activity, and at the same time greater involvement of new patterns of society and identity. 1.4. IMAGES AND METAPHORS. THE BAŤA COLLECTIVE… The uniqueness of the Baťa system consists first and foremost in its comprehensiveness. This coherence was manifested not only in the effort to shape the identity of each of the concern’s individual employees, but also in attempts to define and categorize the Baťa collective as a whole (of course these two levels are very closely interconnected internally). The Baťa collective identity was shaped and confirmed at various levels and on a broad range of occasions. We have mentioned some of these (May Day celebrations, welcoming ceremonies for work heroes, etc.). There was also substantial opportunity for identification with Baťa values on occasions like elections, political demonstrations in support of the Baťa municipal slate, but also e.g. at Tomáš Baťa’s funeral, at the celebration of T. G. Masaryk’s birthday, and on the occasion of a visit by Edvard Beneš. On these and many other occasions, the company generally organized parades, celebrations, and public speeches which involved public pronouncements of loyalty to the company leadership (and to the municipal leadership under its control by means of the Baťa candidate slate) as well as rituals confirming the collective identity of the Baťa “coworkers.” The Baťa collective was not a clearly defined entity, however. Rather, it was a repeatedly reconstituted and re-designated group of employees and their families (the narrower form), and, in view of the concern’s development and the issues at hand, other participating groups as well (Zlín residents as well as sympathizers from throughout Czechoslovakia, i.e. the broader form12). At the beginning of the 1920s, 11 12

Tomáš Baťa, “Sanace bank,” Sdělení, May 8, 1926. This broader group was commonly referred to as the working people, which led to the disqualification of their adversaries as the purveyors of ideas and demands that were unbeneficial and inexpedient for society.

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the designation of the Baťa collective in its narrower form was based on the relatively conservative “family model;” during this period, the Baťa collective was compared in the Zlín press to a well-functioning family. For example, the bus which the company purchased for Sunday excursions was designated by the metonym “Baťa’s children,” which was printed on its body.13 This concept even made its way into the rhyming news in the press. A description of conditions in the blessed household of worker Vodák reads: “Frantík, the oldest / is one of Baťa’s children, / through his own work / he eases his father’s burden.”14 The use of this metaphor was connected to the very success and prosperity of this “family business.” On the occasion of the first “Baťa” May Day festivities in 1924, Tomáš Baťa spoke to those who had assembled “[...] not like workers, masters, supervisors, administrators, and directors, but like one family participating in the same work, a family drawing its lifeblood from the same spring.”15 The collective address of members of the Baťa family was somewhat ambivalent from the beginning. Self-identification among employees with the substance of the baťovci proceeded gradually. At the very beginning, this term was used by critics of the Baťa enterprise who identified it with the derogatory designation Baťa’s stable boys and Mamelukes.16 Obviously, this too contributed to the time that passed before employees adopted the designation. The better-known term “coworkers” took hold only in the second half of the 1920s. At the time of Tomáš Baťa’s death, however, it was already so established that in the posthumous edition of his speeches in 1932 various original forms of address were displaced by this word. Concepts like family and coworker express emphasis on a certain quality of social relationships. In both cases, the use of the symbolism of solidarity and belonging re-designates a potentially conflicted social space which has given rise to a scale of “performance categories” and sharp boundaries between various rewarded layers of workers and employees. In the symbolism of family, we can also decipher connotations with more traditional patriarchal patterns. Metaphors in this semantic area are to represent the fixed structure of society: here, the head of the family (father – “boss” – Baťa) and his children (employees – workers). By contrast, “coworker” is a significant designation for the abstract order of equal opportunities and rewards; it serves to create a notion of society created by individuals not only with the same interests but also the same opportunities and likelihoods of success. It is characteristic of “coworkers” in the Baťa environment to replace the “family” to a certain extent in the 1930s, i.e. during a period when not only further differentiation of the company occurred, accompanied by greater differences between various income categories of employees, but also in connection with the general economic 13 14 15 16

“Our latest attainment will be an excursion automobile … The proud emblem ‘excursion vehicle of Baťa’s children’ correctly expresses its mission.” “Tovární hlídka,” Sdělení 16, August 13, 1921. “Nejstarší z nich Frantík patří / mezi „děti Baťovy“, / pomáhá již svojí prací / ulehčovat tátovi.” “Požehnaná rodina,” Sdělení, October 1, 1921. Tomáš Baťa, “Dělníci!,” Zvláštní vydání Sdělení 18a, May 7, 1924. For more on the external (negative) definition of Baťa employees, cf. “’Baťovci,’” Sdělení 5, February 4, 1922.

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crisis, rising insecurity among line employees, and fears for one’s job. The “coworker” thus offers “certainty” of identity as a replacement for the (“excluded”) social conflict and struggle for recognition of specific (worker) interests on a “flexible” and very uncertain labor market. While the two identity models mentioned above dominate in texts, this does not mean that other concepts were not used as well. According to the situation, the language of Batism supplemented additional terms reflecting its palette of values: leader (a strong individual excelling over the masses thanks to the characteristics of a pioneer), self-made man (a virtuous man distinguished by his independence and ability to stand on his own two feet), etc. 1.5. … AND ITS ENEMIES Related to construing the ideal employee and the collective (Baťa) identity was the construction of a negative figure, an enemy of the Baťa society designated by negative attributes (characteristics). We can again trace this type of designation on the individual as well as the collective level.17 The images of the enemy repeated and, using certain stereotypes, formulated those elements which were topical in the given situation. In so doing, they completed the fantasy of the idealness of the system and the common interest of the Baťa collective, threatened and disrupted from outside by a common enemy. The expansive social conflict which Zlín society encountered at the beginning of the 1920s influenced not only the concern’s subsequent activities and strategies, but also the creation of a negative identity. During the conflict, in which certain factory competitors and left-wing critics joined forces against Baťa, the Baťa candidate slate managed to take control of Zlín’s municipal offices. This step made it easier for the concern’s planners to shape the ideal arrangement of the town and its population.18 We can observe a tendency to exclude from within its borders subversive elements, divergent opinions on organizing the town, and their purveyors. Breaching the order – for example by participating in a meeting with a political adversary or supporting persecuted political opinions and their purveyors – meant risking exclusion from the Baťa collective. If it was an employee (narrower form of the collective), he was – depending on the severity of the offense – either sanctioned with a “punitive vacation” or dismissed from employment with forfeiture of company housing and removal to his place of permanent residence, if located outside Zlín. Members included in the broader version of the Baťa society could be 17 18

Categories of “the other” were even projected into the written agenda. For example, the texts of orders from the directorate contained a simple distinction by means of a dichotomy of the type “friend – enemy.” The means for fulfilling the Baťa social project also included the establishment of a company education system and extensive development of company housing, which changed Zlín’s social and urban design structure from its foundations. For more on the assessment of the Zlín experiment as a utopia, cf. Anett Steinführer, “Stadt und Utopie. Das Experiment Zlín 1920– 1938,” Bohemia 43/1 (2002): 33–73.

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sanctioned with exclusion from socioeconomic contacts (e.g. through targeted boycotts of a particular merchant or trader). In Zlín’s small-town environment, implementation of the leadership’s aims was assisted by the Baťa press. From the beginning of the 1920s, it named adversaries and published information about (satisfied) relatives employed in Baťa factories and/or relatives dependent on commercial relationships with Baťa employees; these could serve as a threat against rebellious behavior or criticism of Baťa activities.19 All in all, it was not mimicry, but a completely open approach. In the same periodical, texts were published referring to the opinions of earlier opponents besieged by an economic boycott. The rhetorical figure of “the excluded” was commonly mentioned in the press with a phrase like “he is no friend of our work who …,” and made into something at odds with the concern’s business aims and plans, and (often also) the positive moral values of Batism. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, one of the first-order enemies was the communist and the communist party. The figure of the communist bore typical negative designations – it was a person loathsome of work, an immoral and destructive element.20 Communism was designated as a non-order, a manifestation of immorality leading people into perdition and civilizational backwardness. The backwardness and barbarism of communism was expressed not only through ideological criticism, but also, for example, through the use of Russianisms and by describing the crudeness, drunkenness, and mental retardation of the Bolsheviks.21 This image of communism changed at first sight with the onset of Stalinism in the USSR. Above all, the country’s industrialization received praise, but Stalin too was evaluated positively as he (e.g. alongside Napoleon and Mussolini) fit into the idea of the Baťa “pioneer” – a strong, victorious man who know how to impose order.22 At its core, this was not a reevaluation of the view of communism as a divergent political discourse, but an appreciation of those elements of dictatorship which suited Batism. On the semantic level of the Baťa discourse, the “communist” was close to the “unionist.” The meaning and contents of certain less-established designations of enemies – such as “political entrepreneurs” – took shape gradually during the 1920s and 1930s, but there is no space here for a more comprehensive analysis of the Baťa company’s enemies. 19

20 21 22

At one protest against Baťa’s business activities, for example, among the named competitors was also “factory owner Reichsfeld from Uherský Brod, brother of Mrs. Weinstein, spouse of prominent Zlín merchant Weinstein.” Reichsfeld’s relatives served as the Baťa editor’s hostages, by means of whom he tried to keep his opponent in check: “We never placed a haulm across factory owner Reichsfeld’s path, and it can also be judged from the prosperity of the business of his relative, Mr. Weinstein, that they are doing splendidly in Zlín. If Mr. Reichsfeld’s reproaches are to mean that the Weinsteins find it unpleasant that Zlín citizens and our employees shop with them, this unpleasantness can be eliminated quickly and easily. There are plenty of merchants in Zlín who themselves or whose relatives not only don’t denounce the work of their customers, but who, to the contrary, are able to get along with and talk to their customers in a friendly manner.” A. C., “Milionáři a Mikulíček v jedné frontě. Zlínští konkurenční továrníci obuvi proti naší práci,” Zlín 37a, September 14, 1931. Cf. e.g. Tomáš Baťa, “Občané!,” Sdělení 18, May 3, 1924, 1. Cf. e.g. “Těžký sen senátora Pikulíčka,” Zlín (volební příloha), September 25, 1931. For more on this topic, see Holubec, “Silní milují život.”

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1.6. EPILOGUE This paper, based on a more extensive analysis of disciplinary mechanisms of the Baťa system, has attempted to identify a direction in which our understanding of the historical phenomenon in question can be expanded. If 25 years ago the adoration of the Czechoslovak Communist Party’s “leading role” – in the case at hand its heroic resistance and class awareness among workers in the Baťa factories – stood in the way of a critical investigation, today it is essential first and foremost to deal with the fantastic production of panegyric treatises on the Baťa model of rational management inspiring its imitation. Behind this fascination, the deeper level of meanings of words and concepts such as “social policy,” “coworker,” etc. are lost, as are possibilities for understanding the system that was applied so broadly in interwar Zlín.

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2. IMAGINING BAŤA IN THE WORLD OF TOMORROW: THE BAŤA COMPANY, CZECHOSLOVAKIA, AND THE 1939 NEW YORK WORLD’S FAIR Zachary Doleshal Our (pavilion) humbly cowered next to the mighty Soviets’. Humbly is an understatement. But we had just been absorbed and impoverished by Hitler, and the majority of our exhibitions did not make it across the sea. The architecture was not resourceful, and the ground was poor... Inside were some Škoda products, a little glass, and then Baťa, Baťa, and Baťa. I forgot the rest, probably because there was nothing else worth talking about, not even one gimmick.1

Edvard Valenta’s description of his visit to the Czechoslovak Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair 1939–40 (hereinafter NYWF) raises important questions about Baťa’s role in the politics and society of Czechoslovakia during the crisis years of 1938–40. For while the fair asked its participants to imagine themselves in the utopian future of “The World of Tomorrow,” by the time the gates opened, Czechoslovakia’s future was very much in doubt. Officials had been replaced, exhibits seized, and funds cut off. The state ceased to exist. Yet because a group of American sympathizers and Czech and Slovak dissidents forming a government-in-exile stepped in to finish the exhibit, the state maintained a place within one of the grandest celebrations of modernity the world had ever seen. And the Baťa company was at its center. Why? Why did Baťa come to have over 30 percent of the entire Czechoslovak exhibition in “The World of Tomorrow?” What was the substance of the display? How did the company’s relationship to the state change after the political upheavals of 1938 and 1939? Finally, did the company remain representative of the goals of the government-in-exile and vice-versa? Valenta was traveling as a part of Jan Baťa’s entourage, brought to document the shoe magnate’s international trip that was part vacation, part business, and part escape. The men arrived in New York in June 1939. It was a time of uncertainty; their country had been occupied for three months by the Nazis, and their company’s future was in doubt. German authorities had briefly detained Jan in November, the German wing of Baťa had separated from its parent company, and the German press had begun suggesting to its public Jan’s possible Semitic heritage. After the invasion, it was a smart guess that the Nazis would take control over the factories in Zlín.2 In the chaos, Jan moved his family to London at the end of March and began preparing plans for a new factory town and headquarters. Company heads decided on an area around Belmont, Maryland. In May, Jan assembled an entourage of as1 2

Edvard Valenta, Žil jsem s miliardářem (Brno: Blok, 1990), 110–111. All translations are the author’s, unless otherwise noted. “Bata Held by Mistake,” The New York Times, November 21, 1938.

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sistants, artists, and family to leave for New York. The Baťa group entered the country through tourist visas, granted them to see the NYWF. When they arrived, the Czechoslovak pavilion had already become the first of several pavilions orphaned in the wake of Nazi aggression, and the pavilion they were supposed to spend the majority of their time in was not particularly impressive to them.3 Instead, like the majority of visitors, they spent most of their time at the more amusing parts of the fair, reveling in the extravagance of Billy Rose’s Aquacade and the modern utopia of GM’s Futurama. And yet, the Czechoslovak pavilion was not so out of place in this futuristic milieu. For amid GM’s Futurama, the Fair’s own Democracity, and Ford’s Motor City, Baťa’s progressive vision stood at the center of the nation’s display, with a stunning wooden model of Zlín, and a giant painted-glass panorama of company founder Tomáš’s life. It was also there that the Baťa company, after the dismemberment of the Czechoslovak state, became unhinged from the future of Czechoslovakia. For already in May of 1939, Jan was looking to make a new start in the United States, deeply interested in the American public and losing his influence in Czech politics. For Jan’s personal rivalry with Edvard Beneš, his company’s long-running feud with the communists, his ill-timed support of U.S. Senator Millard Tydings, his refusal to accept State Department requests that he publicly denounce the Protectorate, and the collective ill-will of the New England Shoe Manufacturers’ Union would all soon conspire to push Baťa headquarters out of the United States and out of Czechoslovakia. Baťa’s once-dominant voice in the making of Czechoslovakia was drowned out by the vicissitudes of the Second World War. Its saga on the east coast of America from 1938–41, in which the NYWF played a sizable role, dramatically altered the future of the company and guaranteed that future generations of Americans would have little to no knowledge of Baťa. The NYWF, therefore, marked both the high and low tide of the company’s political and social significance in the United States and Europe. The story of Baťa at the NYWF reveals a detailed look at how and why the Baťa vision lost its traction in the opening stages of World War II. I describe the Baťa company’s foray into “The World of Tomorrow” in three stages. The first, from the summer of 1937 to October of 1938, sees a company interested in expanding its market share in the United States and introducing its welfare-capitalist model to Americans, a model not especially aligned with the goals of the First Republic of Czechoslovakia (ČSR). The second stage, corresponding to the short-lived Second Republic of Czecho-Slovakia, suggests that Batism, or the company’s operating system, became closely aligned with the goals of the state. During this stage company executive and long-time proselyte of the Baťa philosophy Dominik Čipera became minister of public works and organized labor camps in a fashion similar to the ones advocated by Baťa chief Jan a year earlier. Baťa’s share of the GDP grew significantly. So too did its voice in the NYWF. Indeed, during the Second Republic the company became the dominant voice of the pavilion, its floor space becoming one-third of the entire building. The third stage, from March 15, 3

Valenta, Žil jsem s miliardářem, 115.

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1939 to the close of the NYWF in the fall of 1940, traces the near-total loss of control the company experienced in relation to the pavilion. We see Baťa’s vision becoming a palimpsest behind nationalist rhetoric and themes of victimization. Furthermore, the third stage reveals a company uprooted, fragmented, and ultimately at odds with the United States’ federal government, which expelled Baťa chief executive Jan from the United States in 1940. Thus, the Baťa company’s dreams, much in line with the overall style and message of the NYWF, became orphaned by both the country of their origin and the country of their destination. For it seems that while company founder Tomáš’s progressive confidence about the future was on display in New York, American and Czech commentators and organizers turned Czechoslovakia’s exhibition into a symbol of a fearful present and a longed-for past. 2.1. HISTORIOGRAPHY World’s fairs have been approached by historians from a variety of angles in order to shed light on the ways in which gender, race, nation, and class have intersected in these grand presentations of modernity. Mostly, historians have mined the fairs of the 19th century to ask questions about the makings of modern society.4 Of those who have looked at interwar fairs, most present foreign pavilions as singular manifestations of a national identity. And while the best of their work provides insights into how elites imagined their communities on a global stage, explores technology, or compares one national exhibit to another, few focus on the internal and often messy politics that occurred within national exhibits.5 Similarly, scholarly work on the NYWF has delved into the mindset of the fair’s design board and excavated the contents of its foreign pavilions’ national narratives, but has shown little interest in the ways in which internal structures and meanings of exhibits changed over their short lifespans.6 Still, historians have found the Czechoslovak pavilion at the NYWF a fascinating subject. Two articles cover Czechoslovakia at the NYWF of 1939, and both have made significant contributions to our understanding of the subject. Marco Duranti’s “Utopia, Nostalgia, and the World War at the 1939–40 New York World’s Fair,” finds a fundamental change between the utopian spirit of 1939 and the nostal4

5 6

Of the many articles on world’s fairs, perhaps the more influential are Julie K. Brown’s Contesting Images: Photography and the World’s Columbian Exposition (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1994). Astrid Böger, Envisioning the Nation: The Early American World’s Fairs and the Formation of Culture (Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 2010). Christopher Robert Reed, “All the World Is Here”: The Black Presence at White City (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2000). For example, Cristina Della Coletta, World’s Fairs Italian Style: The Great Exhibitions in Turin and Their Narratives, 1860–1915 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006). David Nye, “Ritual Tomorrows: The NYWF of 1939,” History and Anthropology (June 1992). Nicholas J. Cull, “Overture to an Alliance: British Propaganda at the New York World’s Fair. 1939–1940,” Journal of British Studies (July 1997): 325–54. Anthony Swift, “The Soviet World of Tomorrow at the New York World’s Fair, 1939,” Russian Review 57, no. 3 (1998): 364–79.

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gic bent of the fair in 1940, arguing that with the outbreak of war, the so-called orphan pavilions of Czechoslovakia and Poland led to an inherent conflict between the “Theme Committee’s linear conception of time” and the “Czech and Polish prophecies of national resurrection.”7 For Duranti, the Czechoslovak pavilion “undermined the utopian promise of the 1939 Fair’s forward-looking theme.” Therefore, Duranti finds the Czechoslovak pavilion a haunting reminder of the cruel world; a nightmare on an imaginative dreamscape. Yet, as Duranti is not interested in the contents of the pavilion or in its development, his conception of the Czechoslovak Pavilion ignores that, unlike other foreign pavilions, original plans called for Czechoslovakia to be in step with the American futurism on display in New York. Duranti entirely leaves Baťa out, effectively flattening the complicated story of how elites imagined Czechoslovakia. Still, Duranti’s original insights are crucial to understand why and how the Fair changed over time from utopianism to amusement, and his useful conception of the tension between the NYWF’s theme and the orphan pavilions is central to the argument that Baťa lost its place in the imagining of Czechoslovakia in the world of tomorrow. The other, slightly less provocative but solidly written piece on the Czechoslovaks at the NYWF is from Slovak historian Slavomír Michálek.8 Michálek traces the financial side of the pavilion in order to follow the often complex story of its making. He finds that the pavilion came to be taken over after the Nazi invasion in March of 1939 by Americans of Czech and Slovak descent, high-ranking American officials, and a handful of defiant Czechs and Slovaks. Interestingly, while following the money used to design, build, and operate the pavilion, Michálek does not mention the pavilion’s largest exhibitor, nor does he spend much time on the reception of the exhibits. Baťa again is left out. Thus, both of the only historical accounts of the Czechoslovak pavilion leave out its central exhibit. Similarly, in the scholarly literature on Baťa there is a void as to how the company propagated its message through exhibitions around the world as well as a hole in our understanding as to how and why the company transitioned into the Americas at the start of World War II.9 In addition, little has been done to connect Baťa to other high-modernist projects that were happening around the world at the time.10 The NYWF, then, allows us to see both the relative influence of Baťa in Czechoslo7 8 9

10

Marco Duranti, “Utopia, Nostalgia and the World War at the 1939–40 New York World’s Fair,” Journal of Contemporary History 41, no. 4 (2006): 663–683. Slavomír Michálek, “Československo na svetovej výstave 1939 v New Yorku,” Historický časopis 52, no. 4 (2004): 631–652. Of the recent studies which have come out, Martin Marek and Vít Strobach’s “Batismus, urychlená modernita a průkopníci práce. Personální politika Baťova koncernu a řízené přesuny zaměstnanců v letech 1938–1941,” Moderní dějiny 18, no. 1 (2010): 103–153 is the most informative as to how the company made decisions about sending large groups of employees abroad. Recent provocative studies into batism and its place in its context include Stanislav Holubec’s “Silní milují život. Utopie, ideologie, a biopolitika baťovského Zlína,” Kuděj 11, no. 2 (2009): 30–55, Martin Marek and Vít Strobach’s “Batismus, urychlená modernita a průkopníci práce,” Katrin Klingan and Kerstin Gust, eds., A Utopia of Modernity – Zlín: revisiting Baťa’s functional city (Berlin: Jovis Verlag, 2009).

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vakia in a time of crisis, how Baťa came to America, as well as how the grand modernist project on Flushing Meadows fit in with the grand modernist project in Zlín. 2.2. BAŤA’S PLACE IN THE WORLD OF TOMORROW By the time news of the NYWF made its way to Zlín, which was at least as early as November 1937, the Baťa company had exhibited their products as well as their social message at exhibitions around the world for over a decade. In fact, in just the five years from 1934 up to 1939, the company funded 19 major displays, ranging from airplane trade shows to a massive poster project in the Moravian countryside.11 And while the purpose of these exhibits was surely to increase brand-name recognition and impress customers, the company was equally interested in propagating its philosophy, which it increasingly saw as a solution to the world’s economic and political problems. Perhaps the centerpiece for the company’s drive to infiltrate Czechoslovak politics in the late 1930s was Jan Baťa’s “Budujme stát pro 40 000 000 [Let Us Build a State for 40,000,000]”, which essentially laid out Baťa’s political platform calling for lower taxes, a more motorized society, better railways, more air links to the outside world, technical and administrative reforms, business school reforms, and reforming the “Old Tradesman’s Council.”12 Jan’s book corresponded with a much publicized trip around the world, where he became quite taken with Mussolini’s fascist Italy.13 Rumors began to circulate about a potential run for the presidency. Accompanying Jan’s increased national presence, the company put on two exhibits the next year in Prague and Zlín to convince Czechoslovaks of the wisdom in the Baťa system. “Baťa’s Plan for an Ideal City” consisted of a large-scale model of the factory complex of Zlín and accompanying slogans and brochures on the Baťa way of life. The exhibit was accompanied by a lengthy, and curiously unpublished, book, “Ideální průmyslové město budoucnosti” (The Ideal Industrial Town of the Future), which has received considerable attention from scholars of the Baťa phenomenon for its comprehensive vision of Batism. Batism was a brand of industrial paternalism along the lines of Fordism, where workers were given relatively good wages, health care, education, and housing, in 11

12 13

The nine major exhibits were as follows: Baťa Exhibit at Prague’s Spring/Fall Trade Fair, 1934–39; World Fair of Posters in Zlín, 1935; Brno Provincial Fair, 1935; The National Airplane Fair in Prague, 1937; World’s Fair, Paris, 1937; Trade Fair, Cairo, 1938; Slavic Exhibition in Uherské Hradiště, 1937; NYWF 1939–40; May semi-permanent exhibition in Zlín, 1938–39. Records of the Baťa company’s foray into all of these exhibitions can be found in the Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, Státní okresní archiv ve Zlíně (hereinafter ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín). Jan Antonín Baťa, Budujme stát pro 40 000 000 lidí (Zlín: Tisk, 1937). The clearest evidence of Jan’s fascination with fascist Italy can be found in Jan’s articles in the newspaper Zlín, in March 1937. He apparently received a good deal of criticism for these remarks, and they may have been the reason he never ran for elected national office. For rumors about his political ambitions see Ivan Brož, Chlapi od Baťů: Osudy baťovců v době, kdy šéfoval Jan Baťa (Praha: Epocha, 2002).

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exchange for loyalty and obedience. (Baťa also borrowed extensively from the practices of the American shoe company Endicott-Johnson). As was common to industrial utopias, Batism held that technology was teleological. Machines were to eventually overcome all of modernity’s problems. Furthermore, the ideal city was to be thoroughly rationalized; every section of the city would be planned from above by urban planners and city officials. Work, as embodied by the factory buildings, was central. All other aspects of life were to emanate outward from the factory complex along broad, well-paved streets. Nationalism would fade as men organized around economic competition. Time management, popularized by Frederick Winslow Taylor, was a foundational goal, not only at work but at all times. Indeed, modern life was to be organized down to the second.14 In addition to its commitment to Fordism and Taylorism, the Baťa biopolitic was informed by the Protestant abstinence movement, Italian fascism, and the Soviet cult of the working-class, especially the Stakhanovite movement.15 All of these principles, of course in the muted tones of reality, were on display in the Baťa world headquarters of Zlín and its satellite towns where competition was essential to work and life, the leader’s will was unquestioned, and modern man supposedly lived out a highly rational life. And at least to the company men, these principles were bringing about a new, improved, way of living and were the solution to the deleterious effects of modernization. Consider chief company propagandist Antonín Cekota’s article “Zlín’s Work and Sport” written during the height of the Great Depression: Today, when all the world is uncertain, unsatisfied and on edge, our Zlín stands like an island from another world. An island which crowds of visitors wander so that they may witness with their own eyes the truth of our reputation and the bounty of our work, which brings wealth and satisfaction [...] Assertiveness, determination, the taste for work, the battle for first place, the competition for the best result, this is not a slogan but a fact which directly charges the air of Zlín.16

Thus, for the Baťamen, the future’s success depended on the expansion of the Zlín model throughout the world. And while Batism changed over time, one of its constants was futurism, with Tomáš Baťa’s maxim in 1931, “The future will be better than the present, but only for those who have confidence in the future,” still a key component of the philosophy in 1939. With this in mind, the designers of the NYWF and the Baťa company held strikingly similar mentalities. Consider the fair’s central exhibit, the great Perisphere and its Democracity, and the Baťa company’s plans for greater Zlín. Inside the Perisphere’s hollow ball was Democracity, where visitors sat in a rotating auditorium to watch a six-minute performance about Centerton, a “perfectly integrated garden city of tomorrow.” Here urban planning had brought order and simplicity to 14

15 16

There are several excellent resources for the student of batism, and undoubtedly the best way to access this philosophy is a thorough reading of the company and town’s main newspaper, Sdělení (later to become Zlín), where company elites routinely publicized their visions for the future. See, for example, “Baťovi mladí muži roku 1974,” Zlín, May 21, 1934. For a very good discussion of the Baťabiopolitic see Stanislav Holubec, “Silní milují život. Utopie, ideologie, a biopolitika baťovského Zlína.” Antonín Cekota, “Zlínská práce a sport,” Zlín, August 20, 1934.

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the everyday lives of a million people.17 Indeed, an article written at the opening of the fair by one of its chief designers Robert Kohn claimed that the goals of the fair were to show “laymen” the interpenetration of science and art into all the “functions of modern life,” and by so doing have them embrace the progressive theme of the fair.18 Much like Kohn and the other designers of the NYWF, the Baťa company envisioned a highly ordered garden city to connect all parts of modern life. František Lydie Gahura’s city plan for Zlín held the same characteristics as the NYWF’s Democracity. The two plans looked strikingly similar. This shared vision suggests the internationalism, as James C. Scott has argued, of the high modernist mentality. Baťa was a key corporate player in the attempt to rationalize everyday life, a project that knew no national boundaries.19 It is little surprise, then, that Baťa executives took an early interest in the NYWF. In 1937, the chief designer of the Baťa exhibit inside the proposed Czechoslovak industrial pavilion, Dr. Josef Černovský, wrote a list of requests to the commercial-political section of the Central Union of Czechoslovak Industry, which was originally responsible for the Czechoslovak exhibit. He requested 350 square meters of space inside of the industrial pavilion, and a place for Zlín in all of the exhibits concerning education, advertisement, printing, medicine, housing, urban areas, photography, and art. Clearly, Baťa imagined its company town as a centerpoint for all of Czechoslovakia. And yet Černovský also requested that Baťa be granted permission to construct and occupy its own pavilion if it so chose. This request suggests that though yearning to be representative of the state, the company would have little problem on its own, as a representative of Batism rather than First Republic democracy.20 This last request was rejected by the Československý výbor výstavní (hereinafter ČVV, Czechoslovak Exhibition Committee, formed in January 1938) which had to abide by World’s Fair regulations that did not allow foreign companies free-standing structures. In addition, the idea of putting Zlín and Baťa in nearly every display unsettled several key members of the planning committee. Ladislav Feierabend in particular worried about allowing any one company too strong of a voice.21 Yet while unable to obtain its own pavilion, and unlikely to be able to place Zlín in all cultural and social displays, the company did receive its requested space in the industrial pavilion. Thus, it seems that while Baťa wielded considerable influence on government elites, the diversity of interests in the ČSR held in check its desire to be the conceptual underpinning of the state. 17 18 19 20 21

The Perisphere was designed by Henry Dreyfuss. See Barbara Cohen, Steven Heller, Seymour Chwast, 1939 New York World’s Fair: Trylon and Perisphere (New York: Harry Abrams, 1984). Robert D. Kohn, “Social Ideals in a World’s Fair,” The North American Review 247, no. 1 (Spring, 1939): 115–120. Scott defines “high-modernism” in James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (Yale, 1998). Národní archiv (hereinafter NA), fond Světová výstava: New York (hereinafter SV-NY), Karton 1, Letter from Černovský to Ústřední svaz československých průmyslníků, November 9, 1937. NA, SV-NY, Karton 5, Minutes from March 15, 1938 meeting at the Central Union for Czechoslovak Industry.

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Undeterred, Černovský along with his assistant Karel Astra and architects Robert Forster and Josef Polívka began designing the Baťa exhibit. They had two goals: to sell shoes to Americans and to promote Baťa’s social program.22 We have to get as much prestige for the company name as possible, to use the press and public’s interest in solutions to social questions. It is necessary to counteract the propaganda that depicted Baťa factories as unsocial and their products as being dumped onto the market.23

They divided the exhibit into two parts; one would be the “Culture of Footwear,” where American visitors could see the progress made from “the hard footwear of the worker 50 years ago to the comfort of today.”24 In this first part, there would be displays on the progress of Czechoslovakia’s footwear and on civilization’s “reliance on footwear.” For the planners, the most important part of the “Culture of Footwear” would display the standard of footwear in the Republic of Czechoslovakia and the United States. Here, there would be a mannequin of a “fashionable American lady” looking at “at least 30 pairs of shoes.”25 If the first part was to sell Baťa shoes to Americans, the designers created the second section to export Baťa’s social program. For American politicians and bureaucrats the most important problems of today are questions of social welfare. We have to recognize this in order to show that Baťa in the Czechoslovak Republic is the most advanced company in regards to social issues [...] We have to see to it that, should the American press refer to issues of social welfare, they find that Baťa is the most progressive in social issues in the Republic.26

To do so, the men proposed a model of Zlín, similar to the models already being made for the exhibits in Prague and Zlín, built out of rare woods from around the world. In addition, they hatched an idea to show Tomáš Baťa’s life, and the development of Zlín, in a stained glass panorama. Portraits of Jan and Tomáš were to hang on the walls. Pamphlets about life in the company towns and Baťa’s social mission would accompany the displays, and efforts were made to plant favorable stories in the American press.27 As the men sat down to design the exhibit, the company’s role in the fair increased substantially when one of its own general managers, Hugo Vavrečka, was elected as chief commissioner of the Czechoslovak exhibition for the NYWF. Vavrečka’s nomination came on the heels of a heated debate between government officials over the purpose of world’s fairs. Two issues in particular stood out: the design of the building and the role of folk costumes. Through both, we see why Vavrečka – and why Baťa in general – found themselves well suited for the NYWF. At one of the first planning meetings of the ČVV, the Czechoslovak building at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris drew considerable criticism from the 10-member 22 23 24 25 26 27

NA, SV-NY, Karton 1, Josef Černovský, “Návrhy pro Baťovu exposici v New-Yorku”. NA, SV-NY, “Návrhy pro Baťovu exposici v New-Yorku,” Baťa’s Collection. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

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committee.28 Jaroslav Preiss, the director of Živnostenská banka (Tradesmen’s Bank), former minister of finance – and wealthiest banker in the country – was one of the primary sources of the “many complaints about the Paris exhibition.”29 According to Preiss, the Paris exhibit was supposed to harmonize business with the state, but its design fragmented displays, causing visitors to lump together in isolated sections of the building. His solution was to make the Czech pavilion “have the appearance of one whole picture.”30 Ladislav Turnovský, a government minister who had signed the contract with the NYWF, added, “The Czechoslovak pavilion in Paris was architecturally very beautiful, but it was difficult to arrange. … [For New York] we need a pavilion that is actually concerned with the exhibits and not with architectural games.”31 The ČVV therefore decided to hold a restricted contest for the pavilion, and the architectural committee selected the design of Kamil Roškot in August 1938. Roškot had worked on the Czechoslovak pavilions in Milan in 1928 and Chicago in 1933. One of his main influences was the high-modernist Le Corbusier, and his defining style was a monumental modernism of massive volume and clean lines. The Baťa company too had looked to the architect, as well as Le Corbusier, for their own projects. In fact, while working on the pavilion, Vavrečka commissioned Roškot to design apartment blocks in Zlín.32 Roškot’s design assured that the building in New York would be within budget and easy to organize, as it was specifically tailored for the purpose of easy assembly and deconstruction. Four stories tall, the building was to be 2,800 square meters, with 2,000 square meters allotted to industry, 500 to agriculture, and 300 for tourism. Working with the New York firm of Hegeman and Harris, Roškot used iron, glass, and concrete as the principle building materials. The front of the building would have a flat concrete wall, 50 meters high and with the Czechoslovak seal on its facade. The north side the building would curve in a glass oval. There would be two floors and four major halls – one entrance hall and three halls for each of the areas of Czechoslovak commerce.33 Another point of contention occurred over folk costumes. Both Turnovský and Preiss, though supportive of a functionalist building, wanted the pavilion’s interior to satiate an anticipated American public’s interest in picturesque folk customs and

28

29 30 31 32 33

Nevertheless, the pavilion had at least drawn international attention, which was in stark contrast to the Czechoslovak pavilion at Chicago’s “A Century of Progress” exposition in 1933, a relatively simple multistory structure that was easy to negotiate but received no architectural prizes. For an account of Preiss’s intriguing relationship to the Castle, see Andrea Orzoff, “The Literary Organ of Politics: Tomáš Masaryk and Political Journalism 1925–1929,” Slavic Review 63, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 275–300. NA, SV-NY, Karton 5, Minutes from March 15, 1938 meeting at the Central Union for Czechoslovak Industry. Ibid. This was Roškot’s first commission for the Baťa company. František M. Černý and Vladimír Šlapeta, Kamil Roškot (1886–1945): architektonické dílo (Praha: NTM, 1978). NA, SV-NY, Karton 5, Výstavní Výbor, Letter from Jan Suchard, Secretary of the Czechoslovak exhibit, to Vavrečka, March 18, 1938.

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dress. “We don’t have to fear that they will think we go to the ministries from tents in our folk costumes. … we have to have folk exhibits because Americans are very interested in them.”34 Yet their enthusiasm for folk exhibits was seen by many to be out-of-step with the streamlined style that the NYWF was promoting. V. J. Rott, chairman of the Prague Chamber of Commerce, warned against appearing too “primitive” at the World’s Fair. “Czechoslovakia should show the world its major industries and not focus on anything too folkish.”35 Though folk exhibits were a staple at World Fairs, Rott and several other members of the ČVV wanted Czechoslovak folk exhibits subsumed by the image of a modern Czechoslovakia ready to do business on a global level. Rott’s opinion prevailed at a meeting in July 1938 when the ČVV elected Hugo Vavrečka as general commissioner for the Czechoslovak exhibition. Vavrečka stressed the importance of the pavilion conforming to the modern style of the NYWF: “It has to be a collective and not an individual fair.”36 Hence, folk displays would be subordinated to bigger and more dominant displays of industrial modernity and progress. For Vavrečka and other members of the business elite like Rott, “The World of Tomorrow” as envisioned by its American designers, shared the goals of Czechoslovakia, and they wanted their exhibit to show how Czechoslovakia fit into an American future. Given Vavrečka’s position in the Baťa company, his opinion was hardly surprising. And yet the business elite did not have carte blanche over the decision-making process in the early planning stages. For the ČVV’s focus on industry created another tension between it and Výstavní kulturní rada (hereinafter VKR, Exhibition’s Cultural Council). The VKR, a collection of artists, architects, and professors, issued a letter of protest against what they saw as a wrongheaded approach to displaying the Republic. For the artists of the VKR, what the American public needed was “to be informed above all about the comprehensive cultural endeavor of Czechoslovak democracy.” The VKR composed an overarching theme for the Czechoslovak pavilion: “the State that brought democracy to central Europe.”37 The VKR wanted political achievements to be tied to industry and export, attempting to smooth the inherent conflict between democratic plurality and rationally planned paternalistic welfare programs like Baťa’s. Thus, doing business with Czechoslovakia was to be linked with promoting democracy in central Europe, and not with promoting a utopian company town model. The concept received high marks from certain officials in the ČVV, like Agriculture Minister Ladislav Feierabend, but the majority of officials in the pre-Munich Agreement period found the idea of insisting on political messages within company space too intrusive. A compromise was made. The VKR would have control over the Czechoslovak government building in the Hall of Nations (space that every foreign participant received), and industry would 34 35 36 37

NA, SV-NY, Karton 5, Minutes from March 15, 1938 meeting at the Central Union for Czechoslovak Industry. NA, SV-NY, Karton 5, Minutes from Meeting of the Československý výstavní výbor, July 22 1938. NA, SV-NY, Karton 5, Minutes from March 15, 1938 meeting at the Central Union for Czechoslovak Industry. NA, SV-NY, Karton 3, Resolution, Výstavní kulturní rada. May 23, 1938.

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have control over the design of the much larger freestanding pavilion. In the end, no one was to stop Baťa from propagating its social program within the Czechoslovak industrial pavilion. And yet, the Baťa program would not be present in the government building. Thus, the goals of the state and Baťa were not inextricably linked.38 2.3. A FAIR AFTER MUNICH? The First Republic of Czechoslovakia crumbled when Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier decided to placate Hitler by signing the Munich Agreement in the morning hours of September 30, 1938. Their decision left a mobilized Czechoslovakia in a state of crisis. Though the majority of the population urged President Edvard Beneš to military action, he felt it futile to fight three aggrandizing states – Germany, Hungary, and Poland – without allies.39 His decision lost him the political support of Czechoslovaks, and his government collapsed; Beneš resigned five days after the Munich Agreement, and the Czechoslovak First Republic was no more. The Second Republic organized under Prime Minister Rudolf Beran and General Jan Syrový, who took control over a much reduced Czecho-Slovakia. On October 22, Beneš went into exile in London. The Second Czecho-Slovak Republic responded to the failure of liberal democracy by sharply moving toward the right. Beran in Prague ruled by decree and changed the constitution to circumvent minority rights. The government implemented restrictions on Jews, began curtailing free speech in the press, and ratcheted up nationalist rhetoric against the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. Leaders of the German Social Democrats, many of them refugees, were again subject to state censorship.40 Moreover, the interwar government’s earnest attempt to create a Czechoslovak identity, which was never very successful, was finally and completely abandoned. After 1938, there would no longer be a Czechoslovak option on the census; from then on one was either a Czech or a Slovak. To appease nationalist Slovaks, the state’s name was divided with a hyphen; Czechoslovakia became Czecho-Slovakia. The short-lived Second Republic marked a turning point in Czech and Slovak identities, as well as in attitudes toward multiculturalism and democracy. Above all it was a period of insecurity and instability, one that sent the plans for the now hyphenated Czecho-Slovak pavilion into a tail-spin. Thoroughly discouraged and uncertain over funding shortly after the Munich Agreement, Vavrečka – a newly appointed Minister without portfolio in the Beran Cabinet – announced to his personnel in New York and participating companies that the pavilion would be abandoned. Numerous industries had been lost with the Nazi annexation of the Sudetenland, and the pavilion no longer seemed financially tenable. 38 39 40

Ibid. For the public’s desire to fight, see Katriel Ben-Arie, “Czechoslovakia at the Time of ‘Munich:’ The Military Situation,” Journal of Contemporary History 25 (October 1990): 431–446. Jan Kuklík, Sociální demokraté ve Druhé republice (Praha: Univerzita Karlova, 1993).

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Yet Vavrečka had miscalculated the mood of the country, even the mood of his own company. For the announcement of the cancellation prompted a wide array of vendors and officials to write letters of protest. A representative from the Pilsner Urquell Importing Co. implored: We would like to impress upon your Excellency with the fact that more than ever this representation of Czechoslovakia must take place. […] There is a deep feeling of indignation in America about the fate of Czechoslovakia. […] The three big firms – Baťa, Škoda, and the Citizens’ Brewery of Plzeň – should stand together in making the representation possible.41

Flooded with similar letters, Vavrečka soon changed his mind, and wrote to the Ministry of Public Works to continue the project. The ministry would certainly not deny him this request, as longtime general manager of Baťa and Mayor of Zlín Dominik Čipera had been appointed minister in October. Though it remains unclear who ordered the exhibition to continue, it seems that within a few days of discovering Vavrečka’s renewed faith in the pavilion, Čipera agreed to continue funding the exhibit, though with alterations. The industrial pavilion would be reduced in size from 2,800 square meters to 1,600, and the German and Ruthenian (Ukrainian) minorities – who had been located in recently annexed territories – would no longer have any representation inside what had become a Czech and Slovak space.42 Now it was not a matter of exclusion; the “Czecho-Slovaks” had no claims to represent Germans or other non-Czecho-Slovak minorities. Yet this reduction in size left the Baťa exhibit unscathed. There was to be no reduction in its size, which meant that slightly more than one-third of the entire pavilion would be devoted to Baťa. In addition, a plan to create a nationwide exhibit, “We Will Build the Czechoslovakia of Tomorrow,” gained traction among Baťa executives. In October 1938, Černovský wrote a pamphlet titled “Výstavnictví“ (Exhibitors) that argued that “truly in today’s time we have 10 times the responsibility to exhibit. The whole world knows now who Czechoslovakia is. It (the Munich Agreement) was the most expensive propaganda in world history.”43 Clearly inspired by the NYWF, company men first developed the plan to place Zlín at the center of Czechoslovakia’s future. “We have had hundreds of exhibitions about the past. We have not had one about the future, not even one about how things will look for the next generation.”44 As the ČSR came apart, it appears that the exhibition became even more important, as Baťa sought to direct the new state closer to its own operational philosophy. With the state shrinking in size, Baťa’s goal to be at the center of a new Czecho-Slovak future became attainable. Of course, this is not to suggest that the longstanding opposition within Czech society to Baťa simply melted away. In fact, the handicrafts lobby, long an opponent of the Baťa system, tried to minimize Baťa’s place at the NYWF. The group’s chief representative Jan Suchard wrote in a letter to Jan Baťa, “We dismiss the argument that if it is technologically and organizationally efficient, then it should be 41 42 43 44

NA, SV-NY, Karton 14, Letter from Arthur Kallman to Vavrečka. October 3, 1938. NA, SV-NY, Karton 5, Minutes from Exhibition Committee meeting, October 22, 1938. NA, SV-NY, Karton 1, J. Černovský “Výstavnictví” Oct. 1938. “Stálé pracovní výstavy,” Zlín. May 4, 1938.

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done. This does not take into account the all-around effect of our part in the world’s fair.”45 For Suchard, Czecho-Slovak industry should not have been tied to the highmodernism on display in New York. Such opposition, though, was brushed aside as Baťa became increasingly in control of the exhibit. After all, complaints about the exhibition went to either Čipera or Vavrečka, both Baťamen. As opponents were left ineffective, the company shipped its exhibition materials to New York. While most businesses planned to wait until the building was completely finished, which was projected to be some time in March 1939, Baťa shipped its materials across the Atlantic during the winter of 1938–39. Among these items were five 20-by-10-foot stained glass panels presenting Tomáš Baťa’s life. Cyril Bouda’s impressive glass panorama, named “Hymn of Work,” exported the legend of Baťa’s rise from poverty to riches through hard work. This graphic history of the company began with a larger-than-life Baťa making shoes by hand and ended with a mosaic of the factory complex in Zlín. The glass was to fill the curved oval windows of the second floor of the pavilion, coloring the entire second floor with the legend of Baťa. A cargo of rare woods arrived with the glass. This wood was to make a large model of Zlín, from the hospital to the factory. In addition, all of the material for the “Culture of Footwear” display arrived in New York around the same time. Because most of the material for the Baťa display arrived in New York before March 1939, the company had no trouble covering its allotted floor space in the pavilion.46 The Baťa designers, Černovský and Karel Astra, did not dramatically deviate from their original plans. They still promoted a vision of an industrial utopia organized around the factory. Yet this vision of progress was tempered by the instability that Baťa executives faced in light of the Nazi advance into Central Europe. Anticipating the escalation of hostilities after Munich, Jan Baťa began looking for sites overseas to settle large groups of employees and reorient the company toward North America. The United States was high on his list of possible places for a new satellite town. While most Baťa executives still looked for their futures inside of the country, their participation in the NYWF became laden with political meaning, as it prefaced an attempt to massively expand operations on the continent. In many respects the Baťa exhibit’s representation of a pro-American, modernist vision became a device to convince Western countries to welcome the company into North America. The goal was to quiet the serious opposition to the Baťa brand made by powerful New England shoe manufacturers and, by so doing, warm American audiences to the idea of an American Baťa.47 With company officials in charge of both the Ministry of Public Works and the General Commission for the World’s Fair, they could use their country’s pavilion at the NYWF as they saw fit. Soon this level of control would come to an abrupt end. 45 46 47

NA, SV-NY, Karton 1, Suchard to Baťa. December 16, 1938. NA, SV-NY, Karton 1, “Bata’s Collection”. The New England lobby would ultimately block the Baťa company from moving to the United States. Instead, the corporate flag went to Toronto, where it stayed until 2002, when it moved to Switzerland.

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2.4. THE ORPHAN PAVILION When the sun set on New York on March 15, 1939, Oldřich Všetička, the representative for the Ministry of Public Works for the NYWF, gave up trying to contact his superiors in Prague. Having sent two telegrams, one to Čipera and the other to Vavrečka, he had received no reply. Všetička retired to his hotel in Queens, confused and depressed. He had helped plan the exhibitions from their inception and now it looked as though all of his work at the NYWF would amount to a shell of a building filled with several tons of crated material.48 Earlier that day the German army marched across Bohemia and Moravia under an early spring snow. The shortlived Second Republic of Czecho-Slovakia was at its end; the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia had begun. The Czechoslovak pavilion became the first “orphan” pavilion in history. No one knew what was to become of the $975,000 exhibit, least of all the men who were running its operations.49 At the time of the Nazi invasion, most display materials had not left Czecho-Slovakia, some had been seized on the docks in Hamburg by German officials, and the rest waited in crates in a warehouse in Queens, New York. Czecho-Slovak delegates to the NYWF had little idea how to proceed in the ensuing confusion as they awaited word from their occupied homeland. Officials in Prague, namely Vavrečka, initially called for the exhibition to continue, but had little idea as to how the Nazis would respond. The situation equally baffled American officials. The New York Times succinctly summed up the problem stating, “The World’s Fair now has a contract with a country that no longer exists.” Eight days after the invasion, the Ministry of Public Works sent a telegram to Všetička from Prague stating that the “construction of the pavilion will continue … there will not be any participation in the Hall of Nations … the State symbol and lettering will not be erected.”50 The government building was to be abandoned, but the industrial pavilion would continue. Vavrečka ordered a name change as well for the industrial pavilion; it would now be the building of the National Association of Bohemian and Moravian Industry.51 Work continued on the nearly completed building, but workers and architects were unsure whether they would receive any wages for their labor. By the end of March, the new plans for the reduced exhibit were definitively rejected by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, Joachim von Ribbentrop. Germany, the only industrial nation not invited to participate in the NYWF, did not want the pavilion to be used as a platform for anti-Nazi propaganda. On March 31, Vavrečka sent Všetička the order to begin the total liquidation of the pavilion. This was to be carried out by selling or renting the pavilion to another country.52 The 48 49 50 51 52

NA, SV-NY, Karton 7, Všetička’s private notes, April, 1939. This figure is from the Minister of Finance writing in February 1939 at an exchange rate of 28 crowns to the dollar. NA, SV-NY, Karton 3. The building’s cost in 2008 would be $13,487,783, adjusted for inflation. NA, SV-NY, Karton 2, Telegram, Ministry of Public Works to O. Všetička, March 23, 1939. NA, SV-NY, Karton10, Letter from Vavrečka to Všetička, March 26, 1939. NA, SV-NY, Karton 3, Letter from Vavrečka to Všetička, March 31, 1939.

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letter made no mention of whom the building should be rented or sold to.53 Všetička loyally tried to carry out his order to sell the pavilion but was rebuffed by the administration of the World’s Fair, which was “not able to recognize the authority of the present minister of public works in Prague.”54 Following the lead of the State Department, which declined to officially recognize the government of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Grover Whalen, president of the NYWF board of directors, would not allow the pavilion to be sold or rented. Prevented from carrying out his orders, Všetička had little idea how to proceed. On April 27, Ladislav Sutnar arrived in New York with $10,000 in cash to liquidate the pavilion. One of the original designers of the government building and perhaps the country’s most brilliant graphic artist, Sutnar was assigned the task of convincing American authorities to allow the sale of the pavilion. After giving money to Všetička, who had not been paid since the beginning of March, Sutnar put the rest of the money into finishing the pavilion, in direct defiance of orders. He did so at considerable risk to his family, who were placed under surveillance by the authorities in Prague.55 Sutnar’s defiance was matched by the actions of the now unemployed Czecho-Slovak ambassador in Washington, Colonel Vladimír Hurban. From the safety of the United States, Hurban began organizing patriotic groups of Americans of Czech and Slovak heritage to donate for the completion of the building and the displays. Together with Pavel Janáček, the also defiant general consulate in New York, and the American Czecho-Slovak Committee, Hurban and Sutnar took over the final stages of construction under the protection of New York’s vocally anti-fascist Mayor Fiorello La Guardia. While Vavrečka was forced to cooperate with German authorities in the Protectorate, his exhibition committee colleagues, with the help of American officials, were building an anti-Nazi organization. The German charge d’affairs in Washington realized the futility in trying to force the liquidation of the pavilion and, aside from a letter of protest, tacitly accepted the inevitability of the building remaining in Czech hands. Yet while powerless to stop the pavilion’s completion in New York, Nazi authorities were successful in preventing half of all display material from leaving Europe, for customs officials confiscated 20 crates of material on the docks of Hamburg. Only 49 percent of the material scheduled to be displayed in the pavilion arrived in New York.56 Hurban and Sutnar would have a pavilion, but they would have little with which to fill its space. The groups who had taken over the pavilion’s completion did not try to fill the emptiness but rather used the void as a political statement. In the entrance hall, a 120-word inscription greeted visitors: “The young Republic became the victim of a ruthless invasion which strangled the liberty of her people. More eloquently than 53

54 55 56

Vavrečka made compromises he surely never wanted to, but there is no evidence that he participated in or facilitated Nazi atrocities. He somehow managed to survive the war and the communist takeover without ever being arrested. More research needs to be done to understand the specifics of his wartime experience. NA, SV-NY, Karton 4, Letter from J. C. Holmes to O. Všetička, April 4, 1939. Iva Janáková and Steven Heller, Ladislav Sutnar (Prague: Orbis, 2003). NA, SV-NY, Karton 8, Internal memo, Československý výstavní výbor.

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words could express it, the emptiness that surrounds you tells the story.”57 The Czecho-Slovak delegation expressed national trauma with silent space. The pavilion’s physical emptiness would be filled with rhetorical furnishings, as the opening day of the pavilion attests. On May 31, 1939, a five-car motorcade carrying a group of high-ranking officials from the former Republic of Czechoslovakia arrived at the NYWF to officially open the Czechoslovak Pavilion. Among the group was Edvard Beneš, Col. Hurban, and George J. Janáček, the new commissioner-general for the Czechoslovak exhibition at the Fair. The automobiles stopped in front of the twin-columned Federal Building at the end of the Hall of Nations, where the Czechoslovaks stepped out to meet Mayor La Guardia and other representatives of the NYWF. The men embraced warmly and posed for press photographers before walking inside the Federal Building to eat lunch in Perylon Hall, where they raised champagne toasts to Franklin D. Roosevelt and the First Republic of Czechoslovakia. After the meal, the group continued to the dedication ceremony outside, where they gave speeches to a crowd gathered beside the 18,000-square-foot pavilion. There, under a Czechoslovak flag at half mast, a sweating La Guardia declared that the pavilion was proof of an indelible nation unable to be conquered spiritually: “Tanks, airplanes and poison gas have not yet been invented that can conquer a nation’s soul, and the Republic of Czechoslovakia has retained her soul.”58 Similarly, in the final speech of the day, Beneš claimed that Czechoslovakia was “one of the oldest countries in Europe” and rallied his listeners with forecasts of the inevitable victory of the Czechoslovak cause. He described the building as “a sanctuary of independence,” a symbol of a “free and independent Czechoslovakia of the near past, and the free and independent Czechoslovakia of the near future.”59 Behind the men, on the building’s façade, loomed the words of Jan Amos Komenský (Comenius), the last bishop of the Brethren Unity Church, who fled Bohemia after the battle of White Mountain in 1620. In a statement with profound relevance for 1939, Komenský had proclaimed, “After the Tempest of Wrath Has Passed, the Rule of the Country Will Return to thee, O Czech People.” Komenský’s words, which had been added to the building after German soldiers poured across the borders of truncated Czecho-Slovakia, reinforced the opening-day rhetoric of La Guardia and Beneš and provided directions on how to read the exhibit.60 By witnessing the Czechoslovak pavilion, the visitor would help to authenticate the ideal of a primordial, free Czech nation and its struggle for independence in a hostile Europe. Though the theme of the World’s Fair was “The World of Tomorrow,” the Czechoslovak exhibition had become a physical reminder of the precarious present and a longed-for past.61 57 58 59 60 61

NA, SV-NY, Karton 15, Photograph. Russell B. Porter, “Courage of Czechs Acclaimed at Fair,” The New York Times, June 1, 1939: 22. “Text of Benes Speech at the Dedication Ceremony,” The New York Times, June 1, 1939: 18. NA, SV-NY, Karton 5,The Czechoslovak Pavilion, photo. As Marco Duranti has noted, this created a tension between the pavilion’s cyclical narrative and

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Significantly, though, as has been seen, opening-day organizers had applied the cyclical rhetoric of Komenský to a building originally intended to project a very different vision of Czechoslovakia. The pavilion intended to show the world a state progressing toward an industrialized, rationally planned society, which was very much in step with the overall design of the NYWF. For, as visitors moved beyond the empty space of the entrance into the exhibits, the remnants of a powerful modernist vision could still be seen, as the Baťa exhibit was one of the few that remained largely unchanged. American visitors would see the Czechoslovak version of the World of Tomorrow, the glass panels depicting Tomáš Baťa’s life, and the “Culture of Footwear” that promised a “better shoe in a brighter future.” They could see Zlín as they saw Democracity and the General Motors’ Futurama, but it would be surprising if they came away from the exhibit connecting the Czechoslovak pavilion with the futurism of the Trylon and Perisphere.62 The official guidebook to the NYWF would mention “the shoe king Baťa” and the wooden model of his hometown of Zlín, but not their social message. Instead, the political message that underpinned the exhibit as a whole left a more lasting impression, as Americans were inundated with an explicit narrative on the contemporary situation in Bohemia and educated on its historical past. From a pamphlet titled “Czecho-Slovakia’s Sacrifice” to the frequently shown movie “The Rape of Czechoslovakia,” visitors were flooded with propaganda on Czechoslovak victimization. Guests were reminded with a large wall mural that “for three hundred years Czechs and Slovaks struggled for the right to live as a free people.”63 The new pavilion organizers wanted to mobilize Americans by making them bear witness to Nazi aggression against a country that belonged to the democratic “free” world. Along with exhibits of other countries, most outstandingly the British Pavilion, the exhibit tried to influence Americans to get involved in the struggle against fascism. As Poland, Finland, and Lithuania joined Czechoslovakia in the 1939 season as orphans at the fair, an atmosphere of doom replaced the initial optimism of the World’s Fair. Doom, however, was not good for business, and after the fair closed for the 1939 season in tremendous debt, World’s Fair organizers changed the progressive utopian theme to one of amusement and escape for the 1940 season. The Czechoslovak pavilion, though ill-suited for this new orientation, continued to operate throughout 1940 using funds contributed from several American Czech and Slovak aid organizations. The Baťa company, in the meantime, had also become an orphan of sorts. For it too, the NYWF became a refuge. During the NYWF’s two years of operation the Baťa company expanded into North America and experienced its most serious crises. Tomáš Baťa Jr. and a group of high ranking company men founded Batawa, Canada, in late 1939. They tried to carry on according to the principles of Zlín, building a distinctive company town

62 63

that of the linear narrative of the 1939 World’s Fair. Marco Duranti, “Utopia, Nostalgia and the World War at the 1939–40 New York World’s Fair.” Unfortunately, I have not been able to find a visitors comment book for the pavilion. Photo. “Czechoslovak Participation at the New York World’s Fair 1939” Official Guide Book of the New York World’s Fair: “Building the World of Tomorrow,” (New York: Exposition Pub, 1939).

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and gaining a new foothold in North America.64 Jan, meanwhile, set to work building the next Zlín in Belcamp, Maryland, on the Chesapeake coast. One of the first tasks in moving headquarters to North America was to win the hearts and minds of the highly trained Young Men and Young Women in the Baťa School of Work in Zlín. For, despite a decade of sending young people abroad, top leaders had their doubts about the will of the Baťa workers away from home. Vavrečka declared, “Our man does not have enough personal courage to go into the world. When I see how our people travel, I get the sense that they would rather be back with their mommies.”65 This doubt led to a series of pep talks to convince young people that what awaited them in North America would be far better than their lives in Europe. Giving a talk to the Young Women in the auditorium of the Masaryk School, Jan lambasted the chaos and disorder of Eastern and Central Europe: “I am telling you how primitive these Serbs are.” In a sudden reversal of the internationalism of Batism, Jan informed the Young Women that “it’s better to be unemployed in America than be the prime minister in Turkey.”66 In another speech to the Young Men a month later, Jan stressed the point that the workers need not fear emigration, because life was “more desirable abroad.”67 Around the same time as Jan was giving his speeches, upper management devised criteria for who would be sent to America. They decided that the people they wanted should have language skills, musical abilities, construction skills, and could be no older than 30. They did have exceptions to the age limit: “We can not allow even one young or old leader who has served abroad successfully or in the construction services to stay in Zlín.” Still, the focus was on bringing young people across the Atlantic, “And these youths we have to very intensively prepare for their special task right now.”68 Finding the right people, though, proved difficult. Upper management decided on 300 people who would be sent to Belcamp, all of them proven Young Men and Women. To locate the employees in a giant multinational corporation, however, was not easy. In a letter to four executives, Jan made clear his frustrations with the process: Finally received the 300 personnel cards of people on the rise. But only by accident do I know where some of these people are. It is written on many of the cards that they’re in Zlín, but they are not in Zlín at all [...] it makes little sense to have all of these cards if they can not tell us where the employee is.69 64 65 66 67 68 69

A good account of migrating to Canada can be found in Hanns F. Skoutajan, Uprooted and transplanted: a Sudeten odyssey from tragedy to freedom, 1938–1958 (Owen Sound: Ginger Press, 2000). ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, K. 1223, č. 192, Meeting of upper management, May 15, 1939. Ředitelství BŠP různé osobní záležitosti internátů 1936–1939. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, K. 1223, č. 192, Meeting of upper management, May 15, 1939. Ředitelství BŠP různé osobní záležitosti internátů 1936–1939. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, K.1223, č. 192, Meeting of upper management, May 15, 1939. Ředitelství BŠP různé osobní záležitosti internátů 1936–1939. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, K. 1223, č. 192, Letter, unknown author. Ředitelství BŠP různé osobní záležitosti internátů 1936–1939. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, K. 1223, č. 192, Jan Baťa, Sept. 10, 1939. Ředitelství BŠP různé osobní záležitosti internátů 1936–1939.

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Still, the men and women were tracked down for the most part and arrived in the United States from summer 1939 to fall 1940. They were people like Marie Kouřilová, Karel Aster, and Arnošt Meisler, people who were young, exceptional, and whose loyalty had never been in question. All three were sent to Belcamp in 1939. Kouřilová, 17, graduated from the Baťa School of Work with excellent marks, and her “attitude toward the factory was always very good.”70 Nineteen-year-old Aster had a year of English training, was “a good Czech,” had no debt, and “a sense of responsibility.”71 Meisler, a Jew and also possibly a genius, spoke five languages fluently. Older than most of those chosen, at 35 Meisler had a family and years of experience as a correspondent and rayon worker. The historian Martin Marek has argued that the company selected Jews to go abroad not because of their heritage but because of their skills.72 In the case of Meisler, this seems to apply, but with a few lingering questions; why was he one of the only ones chosen with a young family? In any case, these young, loyal workers found themselves at the NYWF on tourist visas before being quickly sent south to Maryland. Soon, they would be labeled dangerous elements by the FBI, as Baťa’s move into the United States turned into a disaster. While the company was sending young people into the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began to sour on Jan’s dealings. The FBI grew increasingly interested in his operations in Maryland during the brief presidential campaign of Millard Tydings, a Democratic Maryland senator at odds with Franklin D. Roosevelt. Partially financed by Jan, who had made statements in the company press about the dangers of “Red Roosevelt,” Tydings wanted to return the Democrats to a fiscally and socially conservative party. He took a drubbing in the primaries, gaining nine of 1,093 total votes at the convention.73 Jan’s foray into American politics proved foolish, as it reversed hard-earned concessions from the United States. Just a year before, in the spring of 1938, the U.S. had reached a historic trade agreement with Czechoslovakia, an agreement which raised the quota of Czechoslovak shoes (almost entirely Baťa-made) allowed into the U.S. from 650,000 to 4.8 million pairs per year.74 Now, after a “policy shift” in Washington, which occurred a few months after Tydings’ defeat in the primaries, only 10 of the requested 100 work visas for Czech specialists to come and build Belcamp were permitted to Baťa.75 Still, work continued at a furious pace. Baťa telegrammed Zlín in September for more workers to “tour the world’s fair,” obviously a way to get workers into Belcamp. This too would prove harmful for Jan’s American plans. For in that same 70 71 72 73 74 75

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, K. 1123, č. 89, Osobní kartotéky, M. Kouřilová. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, K 1123, č. 89, Osobní kartotéky, K. Aster. Martin Marek, “Z baťovského Zlína do světa: Směry transferu a kvalifikační kritéria přesouvaných baťovských zaměstnanců v letech 1938–1941,” Moderní dějiny 19, no. 1 (2011): 157–197. David Leip, “1940 Presidential Election Results,” Dave Leip’s Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections (July 31, 2005). “Czechoslovak Shoes,” The New York Times, March 13, 1938. “Policy Shift Puts Immigration Ban on Baťa Shoe Men,” The New York Times, December 29, 1939.

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month, the FBI launched an investigation into Jan’s supposedly “Nazi Drive in the Americas,” eventually accusing him of bringing in illegal Czech “teachers,” some 350 of them. These people largely got to Maryland through tourist visas to see the NYWF.76 Having arrived only in June 1940, by September Jan had worn out his welcome. The U.S. government was becoming increasingly suspicious of his loyalty and business practices. In order to try to persuade the government of his apolitical intentions, Jan decided to move to Washington D.C. While in D.C., Jan had perhaps his defining moment in the U.S., when he refused to publicly denounce the Protectorate government or publicly support the Czechoslovak resistance. Accounts of the incident suggest he both feared for the fate of his company back home and deeply mistrusted Edvard Beneš. Baťa, a critic of the government in the late 30s, thought Beneš too leftist, too weak, and too bureaucratic for the country.77 When Vladimír Hurban visited Baťa in Washington to ask for financial support for the resistance movement, now under the leadership of Beneš, Baťa is reported to have said, “If he will be president, then you can expect not even a cent from me.”78 In light of Jan’s refusal to publicly denounce the Protectorate, as well as a few bizarre ideas, which included an idea to send the entire Czech populace to Patagonia, Tomáš Jr. and other top executives in Canada lost faith in Jan’s abilities to lead the company. Soon, after meeting in New York and Maryland in 1941, Jan and Tomáš became embroiled in a legal struggle over the company that would last nearly a decade.79 The unity of Baťa had come apart. After the FBI investigation, the State Department revoked Jan’s visa and put him on a “black list” of potential Nazi sympathizers. Jan left the United States to go to Brazil, where he established several company towns in the Brazilian countryside.80 Belcamp continued its operations all the way into the 1990s, under Canadian-based Baťa management. After the war, once returned to power in Prague, Beneš promptly nationalized Baťa, and the courts convicted Jan in absentia of collaboration in 1947. This conviction would be rescinded only in 2007 when a Czech court officially cleared his name.81 He never returned to Czechoslovakia. Without the NYWF, one wonders whether the Baťa company would have gone to the United States at all, for the fair allowed the company to obtain necessary visas. Furthermore, one wonders what Baťa would be today, had executives not de76 77

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See Valenta, Žil jsem s miliardářem, 145. See Valenta, Žil jsem s miliardářem, and Ivan Brož, Chlapi od Baťů: Osudy baťovců v době, kdy šéfoval Jan Baťa. During Jan’s exile in New York, the men met in a hotel to discuss the fate of their country. According to witnesses, Jan told Beneš that he should leave politics and try his luck making shoes, to which Beneš replied coldly, “I have other plans.” Ivan Brož, Chlapi od Baťů: Osudy baťovců v době, kdy šéfoval Jan Baťa, 72. Ibid. With few friends in the United States where the eventual trial for the company was held, Jan went on to lose control over most of the company, with the exception of his company towns in Brazil. He would spend a considerable part of his energy trying to get the company back and clear his name. Having traveled to Brazil in 1940 on the request of President Vargas, Baťa had the necessary political connections to start again there. http://www.batuv-dum.cz/. http://www.radio.cz/en/section/curraffrs/jan-antonin-batas-name-cleared-after-sixty-years.

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cided to move to the United States. Perhaps it would not have been able to remain a dominant force in shoe production and sales, or perhaps it would have been even stronger, having a united leadership and fewer governmental restrictions. Thus, the Czechoslovak pavilion and its “Baťa, Baťa, Baťa” might fairly be described as a crucial turning point for the company – a turn that unhinged the company from the future of Czechoslovakia. For the vision of the future of Czechoslovakia initially designed for the NYWF, highly influenced by the Baťa system, was abandoned, in many cases by the same men who had championed it earlier, and replaced with an uncertain, zealously national vision. The welfare capitalist dreams of the company lost their relevance as a profound gulf opened between the industrial utopia of Baťa and the victim identity of the emerging Czechoslovak government-in-exile. Thus, the company’s participation at the NYWF was both a high-water mark for the company’s influence on the imagined community of Czechoslovakia and a spectacular failure. Valenta’s memory of the pavilion left out the most important point of them all, that though visually dominant, Baťa no longer fit into Czechoslovakia.

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3. BAŤA’S SEARCH FOR SOCIAL RECONCILIATION IN THE CHANGING WORLD OF SOCIAL JUSTICE Antonie Doležalová 3.1. INTRODUCTION This paper addresses the social concept implemented within Baťa’s company. During Baťa’s era the terms social justice and social reconciliation enjoyed unprecedented levels of attention from economists and politicians. A logical hypothesis is that these notions must have had an impact on the thinking of individual entrepreneurs. On the political-economic level, they were reflected in the initial concepts of the “social state,” which challenged entrepreneurs whose understanding of social justice was anchored in the 19th century. The main aim of this paper will be to test the hypothesis that growing state intervention displaced traditional solutions, which were based on individual solidarity and belonging to a community. This hypothesis is concerned with the relationship between individual and group (state) responsibility for social justice. Put more precisely, it is the hypothesis that as the role of the state grew, it had an increasingly restrictive influence on individual solidarity. It asserts that as the state became the guarantor of social justice, activities of individuals became curbed, and so it is appropriate to ask what room for action these individuals had and what motivated them. An extreme interpretation of this hypothesis is that for as long as the state paid little attention to caring for the poor and creating a social network, there was room for individual solidarity. Conversely, as the role of the state flourished, interpersonal solidarity inevitably declined. The changes in attitudes toward social justice and social reconciliation must have influenced subsequent business decisions, as state social policies have always led to increased wage costs. The paper will focus on outlining several factors that need to be considered in connection with Baťa’s social concept. It will briefly describe the time period and economic conditions in the Czech lands, first during the Austro-Hungarian Empire and then interwar Czechoslovakia, the period during which Baťa’s company came into being and prospered. It will pay special attention to state economic policies, the beginnings of social policy and the institutional framework, all of which were being created by Czechoslovak governments. The paper will also investigate which requirements had to be met in order for an individual entrepreneur to be able to set up a business. It will then analyze Baťa’s possible sources of inspiration as, contrary to the popularly held belief, these were not solely limited to his “American experiences.” The paper will look into theoretical reflections by prominent Czech economists of the time (A. Bráf, F. L. Chleborád and J. Macek), the concepts of cooperative ownership, planning and rationalization of production, and Baťa’s own pub-

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lished thoughts. The next section addresses the concept of social policy itself, as executed within Baťa’s company. Finally, the conclusion presents a number of basic characteristics of Baťa’s social concept. 3.2. BAŤA’S CONCEPT OF SOCIAL RECONCILIATION With regards to Baťa’s social concept, only its main points will be mentioned here as they are a sufficient reflection of his overall vision of social reconciliation. Baťa’s concept rested on three pillars: social security, self-government of work and a system of education. The pillars are mutually inseparable and define his vision of social reconciliation. Social security included an eight-hour working day (until 1930 when Baťa introduced a 45-hour working week), a system of insurance and health care. Most hospital care for workers from Baťa’s plants was financed from hospital insurance. In addition, there was Baťa’s relief fund, which served a social, charitable and healthcare purpose. It started operating in 1928, with an initial investment by the company of 1 million crowns. After that it received money in the form of voluntary contributions, workers’ fines and the company’s subsidies. The fund’s aim was to provide support in the event of illness, birth and death, to be a source of income for widows and orphans, and to offer interim assistance to workers who had been discharged. The interim assistance was even paid out to workers who were temporarily laid off due to decreased sales (1928). The fund was also involved in the construction of housing. The self-government of work consisted of the company being divided into individual departments, each with a manager in charge and a weekly account. Each worker was responsible for her or his share of work, and several workers from each department received a share in the company’s profits.1 Baťa’s expectation was that the self-government of work would increase the collective drive to accomplish the tasks of the workshop and prevent waste. Above all, however, self-government was supposed to change the workers’ way of thinking, from that of an employee to that of an entrepreneur. Baťa’s company school, founded in 1925, formed the backbone of his educational system. It was the first of its kind in the country and had the same status as state schools. Baťa encouraged his students and his employees to think economically and become financially aware. The school’s students traveled worldwide to gain experience, and foreign students began to come to Zlín in the 1930s. Not only did the system offer apprenticeship and a professional economic and managerial education, but it also nurtured a particular way of life. Baťa taught young men to be prudent with money and to take an interest in cleanliness, hygiene and savings (offering savings accounts with a 10% interest rate). The men would keep a weekly record of their expenditure plans in so-called economic books and present them to the boarding-school principal for approval. Baťa also organized boarding schools 1

However, they had to deposit 50% of this income in their accounts. In 1931 alone, the total amount deposited by all the employees was 74 million crowns.

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and education for girls; they learned cooking and housekeeping skills and personal care. In 1935 and 1938, Study Institutes were added to Baťa’s educational system to provide education for adults, and the institutes covered subjects ranging from mathematics to philosophy, art and management. The tuition fee was a symbolic one crown. To sum up, the workers in Zlín enjoyed an unusually high standard of social provisions compared to those privately employed elsewhere in the country. They had good wages coupled with other benefits, health care (which included spas) and access to decent housing, cheaper food and savings accounts with a 10% interest rate. It was not charity, however, but an entrepreneurial plan, an innovative approach to the rationalization of production. 3.3. BAŤA AND HIS ERA The Baťa brothers founded their first company in 1894, driven by the desire for a better livelihood. Their first business attempt almost ended in debt and disaster within a year. They escaped bankruptcy only due to industriousness, self-denial and strength of character. This experience taught them caution and may also have provided part of the drive that helped them toward the overwhelming success of their later business. Their company survived the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the formation of Czechoslovakia, 18 First-Republic governments, several governors of the National Bank, the Great Depression, the Second Republic and the Protectorate relatively unscathed. However, it did not manage to fight off the socalled People’s Democratic Order after 1945. 3.3.1. The era of the Habsburg monarchy In the 19th century, the Habsburg monarchy was the second-largest European country in terms of territory (without colonies) and the third-biggest in population. In terms of industrial advancement, however, it remained seriously underdeveloped, without compensating for it in agricultural production. In this context, it is possible to argue about the monarchy becoming relatively less important. The reasons behind this were the slow accumulation of capital, few raw materials, relative overpopulation and extensive farming, but most importantly the hindering influence of the absolutist regime prior to 1848. Between 1848 and 1914 profound social changes [took place] in Central and Eastern Europe. In the Czech lands there was no surviving nobility to say yea or nay to a bureaucratic career, but here too trade and manufacturing, until the final quarter of the century, were primarily German and Jewish preserves.2 In the late 19th century the Czech population of the towns and cities was growing rapidly.3 2 3

Richard. J. Crampton, Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 3–4. Ibid., 13.

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The final third of the century proved to be decisive for the economic role of the Czech lands within the monarchy. The development of capitalism in the Czech lands was hampered primarily by the passing of the Commerce and Trades Licensing Acts of 1862 and 1859. Through them the state declared an almost absolute freedom of trade and thus opened the doors to unprecedented levels of new business applications. Between April 1867 and April 1873 Austria approved 1,005 applications to set up a joint-stock company, 628 of which were actually founded with capital of 2.58 billion gulden. Around the year 1870, approximately 300 joint-stock companies were operating in the Czech lands.4 Economic development led to structural changes at the macroeconomic level, which manifested themselves, for example, in the creation of two new industrial areas in Moravia – the Brno and Ostrava regions. However, the stock market crash in Vienna in 1873 brought an end to this liberal period. As a consequence, entrepreneurs and small traders returned to safer approaches, and the state re-embraced a certain degree of state interventionism. The crisis slowed down industrialization at a point when small-scale production predominated over mass production. Small businesses and home enterprises with up to five employees accounted for 93% of all companies and 41% of all industrial workers. Conversely, only 0.01% of companies in the Czech lands had more than 1,000 employees, and they employed 6% of all industrial workers.5 However, the combination of mass production and home enterprise benefited various branches of light industry. The textile industry started evolving dynamically in the Czech lands at the beginning of the 20th century and proves the point mentioned above: although there were 11 plants with more than 1,000 employees each, 90% of all textile companies were home enterprises with up to five workers, but together they employed 40% of all textile workers. On the brink of WWI, the Austro-Hungarian Empire accounted for just over 10% of Europe’s GDP. It was still markedly less developed than England, Germany and the USA. While the developed areas of Cisleithania were comparable with Western Europe, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy also contained the completely undeveloped region of Transleithania. Transleithania exported mainly agricultural produce to Cisleithania, amounting to 72–74% of its total exports; whereas Cisleithania exported primarily industrial materials and fuels, iron ore and other metals, salt, chemicals and textiles to Transleithania, amounting to 38–39% of its total exports.6 Literature often refers to the “marriage between wheat and textiles” in this context. The only truly industrial-agrarian regions within the monarchy were the Czech lands and Lower Austria. From the end of the 19th century, industrial production was developing much faster in the Czech lands than in the monarchy as a whole or in the more industrially advanced Upper and Lower Austria and Vienna. The Czech lands practically reached a monopoly position in some branches of industry, 4 5 6

Otto Urban, Kapitalismus a česká společnost (Praha: NLN, 2003), 73. Ibid., 86. Vlastislav Lacina and Jan Hájek, Kdy nám bylo nejlépe? (Praha: Libri, 2002), 14.

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such as porcelain, sugar, flax and wool manufacturing. Within the monarchy, the Czech share of the metal, mechanical-engineering and coal-mining industries was also growing.7 The per-capita national income of the Czech lands was 118% of the European average.8 When discussing the economy of the Czech lands, the nationality composition of the population cannot be ignored. In 1900, the Czechs formed 13% of the monarchy’s total population and 22% of those employed in its industry, whereas the figures for the Germans were 25% and 41%, respectively.9 The economic base of the Czechs within the Czech lands continued to consist of agriculture, handicrafts, retailing, the sugar-beet and sugar industries, beer and malt production and the distillery industry. From the end of the 19th century Czech entrepreneurs began to engage in branches of industry that almost exclusively had been the domain of German capital – the textile, chemical and ceramic industries. They tended to be medium-sized enterprises. It is estimated that only about 20–30% of the capital value of the industry in the Czech lands was in the hands of Czech entrepreneurs, and they did not dominate in any branch of industry except for sugar manufacturing.10 Consequently, the differences among individual regions intensified at the turn of the 20th century. The industrial potential of town agglomerations in industrial areas was growing, creating a more apparent contrast with undeveloped areas. South and Central Moravia and Wallachia were among the latter. Central Moravia remained agricultural, with its main emphasis on potatoes and grazing. Infrastructure was developing and “making the world smaller” elsewhere, but had not yet reached these regions. The part of the Czech lands which Baťa would turn into the epicenter of his entrepreneurial pursuits had not even started differentiating between agricultural production and handicraft. The Zlín region does not figure in the maps depicting structural development in the Czech lands at the time, and the nearest districts – those of Uherské Hradiště and Kroměříž – come up as agrarian areas with a capitalist agricultural system and food industries. The district of Holešovice appears as agrarian with basic handicrafts. The Baťa brothers were about to start changing this. 3.3.2. The First-Republic era The Czechoslovak Republic was built upon the ruins of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy on the October 28, 1918. The Revolutionary National Assembly was established immediately after that, which unleashed a whirlwind of legislation, affecting all areas of social and economic life. A so-called Continuity Act was adopted (Act no. 11/1918 coll. of laws), based on which all the laws of the monarchy remained valid. In general terms, the economic policy of the First Republic can easily be characterized as protectionist. If we analyze all its 18 governments by examining 7 8 9 10

Urban, Kapitalismus a česká společnost, 57–60. Lacina and Hájek, Kdy nám bylo nejlépe? 13. Urban, Kapitalismus a česká společnost, 62. Lacina and Hájek, Kdy nám bylo nejlépe? 17–19.

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their program statements, which should convey the essence of their intentions, we find that all of them promised to support small tradesmen and farmers, as well as industrial production. At the same time, however, they distanced themselves in principle from supporting private ownership. In fact, they all agreed on relatively extensive state intervention in the economy. All of them were in favor of expropriating large estates and forests, nationalizing mines and controlling monopolies – at least when it came to natural resources and the so-called “key industries.” The key industries were never specified, which led to an inflation of the term. The control of monopolies, which was to be aided by workers participating in checking the production processes, and perhaps by sharing the profits, enabled the word socialization to become part of the Czechoslovak government economic policy from the very beginning of the country’s existence. Almost all governments endorsed it and gave it meaning. Beginning with the first caretaker government of Jan Černý (September 1920), they also agreed that the role of the state as the key employer should grow. The third government (headed by the Social Democrat Vlastimil Tusar in May 1920) and all subsequent governments negotiated with the unions over social issues, particularly over a system of wages and the shape of collective-labor agreements. All 18 governments dedicated carefully worded passages to the social question, mainly the issue of unemployment. Another tool, meant to facilitate the path toward social justice, was tax reform and/or alterations to the tax system, always designed to mainly affect “large” capital. The aim was to bring different social groups within society into balance. It was only the first post-Munich government which promised to return the private sector to an equal level with the cooperative sector and also with the business activities of the state.11 In this situation entrepreneurs found themselves burdened with two contradictory tendencies. One was determined by their thinking being rooted in the 19th century, so that they regarded social reconciliation as individual agreements between employees and employers which could vary in content. The other was a result of the swift social changes which had taken place within society, coupled with the interventionist state policy. Entrepreneurs were well aware that this policy did not have a proactive quality; it tended to crowd private business entities out, and it slowed down the national economy as a whole, worsening the national debt. Baťa’s concept of social reconciliation can be seen as an example of addressing the conflict between these two tendencies. 3.4. BAŤA’S SOURCES OF INSPIRATION The paper has briefly examined the characteristics of the economic situation at the time when Baťa’s company came into existence. It will now concentrate on the possible sources of inspiration which may have led Baťa to form his complex and wellconsidered social concept. Contrary to the universally held opinion, his inspiration 11

Antonie Doležalová, Politické stranictví a ekonomický zájem, Studie Národohospodářského ústavu Josefa Hlávky, 2/2008 (Praha: Národohospodářský ústav Josefa Hlávky, 2008).

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did not come solely from his “American experiences.” His social background and other life experiences cannot be ignored. The economic thinking of the time played a fundamental role and will also be analyzed. 3.4.1. Life experiences Understanding Baťa’s social background is crucial if we want to understand his social project. It had a strong impact on the direction which Baťa tried to encourage his employees to take. For instance, in his Contemplations and Speeches (Úvahy a projevy) Baťa states that he mistrusted cooperatives because as a child he joined one such “cooperative” event – a Rattle Parade on a Good Friday – and the proceeds were divided unfairly.12 His childhood was closely connected with trade and not only in the sense that he started making shoes from off- cuts as early as a six-yearold to earn some pocket money. Success in his trade was beginning to determine his opportunities. Due to work he had no time to read, and books and newspapers were regarded as a luxury. By the time he completed his four-year secondary school and began his apprenticeship in his father’s business, he had already become well aware of the unequal distribution of wealth within society. It was clear to him that “the human society is divided into two – the masters and non-masters” and that the masters go on to become students while the non-masters become apprentices. “This is why I strived to end up among the students and, because of it, struggled and endured hardship which cannot be calculated or put into words.”13 The experience from the time when the brothers’ joint venture had debts, was facing bankruptcy and Tomáš’ sister Anna bought him a pair of leather shoes for Christmas on credit, may have had a formative effect on his character. Having put them on, Tomáš headed for the “gentlemen’s section” of a pub for a game of billiards. There he was challenged by the shoemaker who had made them, from the adjoining non-gentlemen’s room: “And who is going to pay for these shoes, you bourgeois pauper?”14 Dishonored and humiliated, Baťa promised himself that he would never again wear anything without making sure it had been paid for. Baťa disliked machines at the outset of his career. He admired Tolstoy and had read his novels advocating modest life: My head burned with ideas back then about human society, the ideas of my twenties about life, read from the books of Tolstoy, from the poems of Svatopluk Čech (I knew ‘Lesetinsky Blacksmith’ and ‘Slave’s Songs’ by heart) [...] I was a collectivist and something like a communist, but decidedly a socialist. I considered contemporary capitalist society to be good only for bad people like blackmailers and loafers. I dreamed of Tolstoy’s simple life. After I’d paid off my debts – actually my brother’s debts – and earned a bit extra, I’d buy a small country manor and sow only what I needed for myself and my family.15 12 13 14 15

Tomáš Baťa, Úvahy a projevy (Praha: Institut řízení, 1990), 11. Ibid., 19–20. Ibid., 20. Ibid., 25.

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This is an interesting piece of inspiration since Tolstoy did not only write War and Peace or Anna Karenina. He was an unconventional intellectual with ambitions to reform not just his serfs but also himself, his own family and the whole world.16 He attempted his first reform on his serfs in the 1840s, claiming it was something unprecedented, but it was actually a subject already being discussed in most provincial clubs. This first reform failed, and he made a second attempt in 1856 when he offered to free serfs in return for 30 years’ worth of rent. Unfortunately for Tolstoy, they had already heard of the czar’s plans to abolish serfdom unconditionally, so they rejected the offer. He labeled them as illiterate, hopeless fools. It does not come as a surprise that he condemned the abolition of serfdom by Alexander II since it was an act of state. After his second reform failed, he turned to education as a means of resolving the serf question once and for all, starting with his serfs’ children. Tolstoy was heading in the direction of a collectivist solution to the social issue with the help of (re-)education. As Paul Johnson states, this is a strange, fallacious idea, advocated by intellectuals. Regardless, it may well have been this intellectual approach by Tolstoy which Baťa could have copied in his paternalistic-socialization relationship toward his workers. 3.4.2. American experiences Baťa’s American experiences are naturally seen as the springboard for his concepts. He often wrote about them himself, frequently giving examples. He was thrilled by the people of the USA during his first visit to the country, and his memoirs contain comparisons with his personal experiences up to that day: “There were no studentscum-masters,”17 as newspapers were sold by millionaires’ as well as workers’ sons. “I liked the better, manlier relationship between the worker and the entrepreneur in America. I am a master – you are a master, I am a tradesman – you are a tradesman. I wanted us in Zlín to lead the same way of life. I wanted us to be somehow equal.”18 Interestingly, Baťa made a note that he found nothing new in America as far as machine equipment and organization of production were concerned.19 During his further visits he had several opportunities to become familiar with two aspects of private social projects: the employee-employer relationships and the system of education. He did so in two ways: by studying American literature on management and by visiting particular companies. Taylor’s 1911 publication The Principles of Scientific Management undoubtedly influenced Baťa. In this book Taylor concluded that it was no longer possible to look for employees trained by someone else but that one needed to train one’s own future employees. He claimed that this was because a capitalist’s welfare and an employee’s discontent could not coexist for long. He advocated making full use of the potential of both machines 16 17 18 19

Paul Johnson, Intelektuálové, trans. Lucie Mertlíková (Praha: Návrat domů, 2002), 135. Baťa, Úvahy a projevy, 27. Ibid., 30. Ibid., 28.

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and employees, and here he can be seen as understanding the role of human capital. However, the aim is not only to maximize the capitalist’s profits but also to increase the welfare for both parties – the employee as well as the employer. Baťa had the chance to witness an original system of education when visiting companies such as the Ford Motor Company (and Ford’s Trade School established in 1916), Milton Hershey’s Hershey Chocolate Company and the shoe company Endicott-Johnson, which introduced profit sharing with employees and a so-called welfare capitalism style of management as early as 1890. These self-made men believed that if they treated their workers well, they would be repaid by their increased productivity. Milton Hershey recognized the obvious lack of education within the poor background which he had come from and built his empire in his home village of Derry Township, turning it into an exemplary industrial town. Hershey was childless and in 1906 built his Industrial School for poor orphans. It accepted boys as young as six, and his aim was to give them an education which would enable them to fend for themselves. 3.4.3. The socioeconomic theories of the time The third possible source of inspiration for Baťa was the economic thinking of his time. This paper will now focus on the factual aspects of economic thinking in the Czech lands and then Czechoslovakia at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century but select only those aspects and schools which resemble Baťa’s concept. The choices are also determined by a rather hypothetical speculation about what Baťa may have been familiar with. His emphasis on the social question strongly echoed the tradition in Czech economic thinking in which the key characteristic, from the times of A. Bráf until 1948, was to examine social issues. As F. L. Chleborád wrote: “[...] laws of economics are inseparable from those of morals.”20 An important consideration is that at the turn of the 20th century both theoreticians and those working in the field used the term welfare to identify their social concepts. In Baťa’s times it was a “microeconomic” term, referring to an individual and encompassing both material and moral aspects.21 The Czech word for welfare (literally blissful existence) explains this perfectly. It literally means being in bliss, where bliss is a mental state in which one feels that one’s physical and intellectual needs and the chances that they will be met are in balance.22 However, by the end of WWII this word had become associated solely with the concept of the welfare state, where social programs are carried out through its public policies. The leading economic thinkers of Baťa’s era, such as Bráf and Macek, regarded the growing 20 21 22

František Ladislav Chleborád, Hospodářství vlastenské: Soustava národního hospodářství politického (Praha, 1869), 171. Antonie Doležalová, “Blahobyt, luxus …. a štěstí v ekonomickém myšlení 2. poloviny 19. století,” Hospodářské dějiny, 25/1 (2010): 77–92. Ottův slovník naučný, díl čtvrtý (Praha, 1891), 125.

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role of the state as a more or less necessary extension of private and volunteering activities, with the condition that the state could only begin to intervene in the social sphere once it had gathered enough finances for these activities. Before we ask ourselves which currents of Czech economic thinking may have inspired Baťa, we must first characterize the thinking itself. The paper will look at the end of the 1860s, the period when Czech intellectual potential became independent from the German intellectual climate and its education system. Eclecticism was a significant feature of Czech economic thinking and manifested itself through various economic schools of thought influencing each other, among which the German Historical School had the most effect.23 3.4.3.1. The origins of Czech economic thinking Albín Bráf is traditionally seen as the founder of Czech economic thinking.24 Bráf espoused conservatism. He regarded monogamous marriage, the market economy, private ownership, freedom to enter into agreements and the legal equality of all people as the basic characteristics of society. When these are infringed upon, social issues arise. Bráf believed that the workers’ question was the most important of these issues. It was in society’s interest that all its sections were allowed to evolve and had adequate conditions to lead an orderly life and raise children. As a result, he studied the workers’ question intensively and derived from this a number of further issues in the sphere of social policy: legislation to protect workers, insurance for workers, workers’ coalitions, the issues of wages, support for the poor, residency rights and dealing with the homeless.25 He rejected liberalism for its negative social repercussions and socialism for its demands to abolish individual ownership. A partial solution, as he saw it, was the state engaging in such activities that would eliminate the negative consequences of absolute liberalism, i.e. in encouraging and/or regulating economic activities so that they would lead to a “general benefit.” However, he placed the greatest emphasis on economic self-help – in communities as well as within professional, consumers, producers and educational associations. According to Bráf, there was a dual quality to the state’s responsibilities in the social sphere. It discouraged certain behavior, such as infringements upon the freedom to sign labor contracts, while at the same time it also encouraged, organized and, when needed, coerced. The state’s scope of actions was limited to either creating conditions and a legal framework in which self-help institutions could come into being, or establishing such institutions itself (e.g., insurance). Bráf’s views made allowances for state intervention only in the cases which individuals or their associations could not resolve themselves. He was of the opinion that the state was 23 24 25

Antonie Doležalová, Rašín, Engliš a ti druzí (Praha: Oeconomica, 2007), 34–37. Albín Bráf (1851–1912), Czech economist and professor of political economics. Albín Bráf, Národohospodářská theorie. Spisy Dr. A. Bráfa, sv. I. (Praha: nákladem Sborníku věd právních a státních, 1913).

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primarily there to create legislation, i.e., laws to protect women, children and underage workers, laws to regulate the working day and to stipulate by law how long one needed to reside in an area in order to gain residency rights and thus access to public support for the poor (Bráf’s recommendation was eight years). 3.4.3.2. Cooperative ownership Cooperative ownership has been part of central European culture since the 19th century, and virtually all cooperative notions, whether formulated as part of economic theory or as practical reform steps, have left their impressions. We also need to take into account that there has been a blending of developments in the area of political and economic life and the field of economic thinking, where concepts are formed and verified. The founding work with regards to the role of cooperative theories was done by F. L. Chleborád. Two other thinkers come to the fore in this context: F. Modráček and J. Macek, both theoreticians of cooperative socialism. František Ladislav Chleborád26 did the most to set in motion the cooperative movement in the Czech lands toward the end of the 1860s, having been strongly influenced by his own experiences at the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers. In 1868 he founded Oul – the First Entrepreneurial Association of Prague Workers and Slavia – the Collective Insurance Bank for Collective Insurance of Life, Health, Capital and Pensions. On the one hand, Chleborád respected the way classical political economics approached the free play of individual interests: “[...] from freedom to individuality, from individuality to trade, from trade to wealth and from wealth to freedom again and thus they continue in an eternal cycle [...]” 27. On the other hand, he embraced the socialist line of thought when he wrote: “[...] indulging in luxury, everywhere [the classes of proprietors] have gone so far that profligacy has numbed them [...] numbness and apathy to their own welfare, to the welfare of the community and of the state have taken hold.”28 He was convinced that social welfare and social justice belonged together and that social welfare came before individual welfare. The state was thus entitled to intervene in the distribution of pensions (the fruits of labor) so as to foster social welfare. Chleborád was undoubtedly inspired by the younger generation of the German Historical School, particularly by A. Wagner. Chleborád argued that the primary responsibility of the state was to protect and promote national welfare, while the highest objective of each citizen was to contribute to the welfare of the whole. The answer, as Chleborád saw it, was not only in fair taxation and the introduction of a tax-free minimum, but also in curbing free competition. He was seeking an economic system in which private ownership and individual freedom would combine harmoniously with the common interest of the whole, and where the differ26 27 28

František Ladislav Chleborád (1839–1911), Czech economist, revivalist and cooperative-ownership theoretician and practician. František Ladislav Chleborád, Boj o majetek (Praha, 1884), 15. Ibid., 57.

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ences between the wealthy and the poor would disappear. He ruled out socialism and communism as possible solutions and advocated “entrepreneurial journeymanship” – a system of production, trade, credit and insurance cooperatives which would guide the poor to wealth. As an accelerated option he suggested a “journeymen’s entrepreneurship,” whereby full-fledged, enthusiastic workers and clerks would become partners in an existing company by obtaining registered shares. His aim was to awaken dormant entrepreneurial skills through self-help. František Modráček’s29 most important work is the Self-Government of Work (1918), in which he explains his understanding of cooperative ownership and reconciles the 19th-century social and cooperative movement, Marxism and the tradeunion movement. Having characterized and compared workers’ production cooperatives and other associations, such as work associations, he arrived at the need for a “self-competence of work” and the issue of economic transformation of society, both of which would lead to a new socialist-cooperative order. Modráček’s contemplations stemmed from his own analysis of the socio-economic position of workers within the capitalist economy of that time. In his eyes, cooperative socialism was the best and the only possible way to reject capitalism, together with its main attribute – the capitalist wage system. A cooperative form of economy would gradually establish a system based on complete cooperative coownership and the self-government of work. According to Modráček, the existing capitalist wage system would eventually cease to exist in two stages. At first, and still within the capitalist economy, there would be the actual transformation of wage workers into co-owners, as existing private companies were being turned into cooperatives and new cooperatives were being set up. Then, once this new form of economy had prevailed, a legislative act by Parliament would follow. Modráček envisaged that the workers’ share of profits would be determined by law but, rather than being paid out, it would instead be kept for the future, as capital investment. This ex-post capital investment would still earn the workers net profits, making their capital grow further. Eventually, this process would gradually push the “idle capitalist” out of the production process, which would become cooperative in nature, as would the relevant capital. Work would thus be “freed” and could no longer be exploited. The actual “socialist reform” was not meant to dispute existing private ownership in any way. Modráček regarded the issue of state ownership and its position within the cooperative-socialist order as a crucial aspect of ownership relationships. By no means was the state a savior or the solution to the maladies of capitalism; the state could be an important ally and a tool of the victorious workers’ political organizations, and it could influence significantly the legislative, legal and political spheres. However, it was neither realistic nor desirable for it to take over the broad and multifaceted structure of the national economy. The state was supposed to use its legislative powers to legalize the new cooperative-socialist order. Another thinker interested in social issues and in putting the concept of cooperatives to use was Josef Macek.30 An important characteristic of his thinking was 29 30

František Modráček (1871–1960), theoretician of cooperative ownership and politician. Josef Macek (1887–1972), Czech economist and politician.

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an organic approach to the social situation, according to which all of its parts are mutually interconnected. In this context, Macek’s views about the possibilities of social reformism make sense.31 Another distinctive feature of his approach was an emphasis on the practical applicability of scientific knowledge. “Man is entitled and bound to act in accordance with the level of scientific understanding he has reached. Practical application, executed according to a particular theory, is what either verifies this theory or disproves it, forcing man to seek a truer theory.”32 In other words, knowledge obliges man to act in a certain way. Until the mid-1920s, Macek had undergone an evolution in his views not dissimilar to Modráček’s. Unlike his friend, however, Macek understood the essence of inequality within society in broader terms. He believed that there was more to it than just the worker-employer wage relationship, since profiting from someone else’s work was not exclusive to this situation. It occurred whenever a price was involved (e.g., buying goods, renting homes or land, loaning money, entering into transport or insurance agreements, paying taxes etc.). His understanding of social economics corresponds with the modern-day complex notion of social-state policy, which identifies socialism with certain social and economic policies. Macek envisaged a gradual building of a socially just society by means of social reforms. He regarded the intellectual and moral refinement of mankind as a prerequisite to establishing institutions which would be just and eliminate exploitation. Macek’s opinions on cooperative socialism, which he referred to as “self-help socialism,” are similar to Modráček’s but are much more developed. In addition, Macek warned of a degree of conflict between self-help socialism and the tradeunion movement. The theory of self-help socialism did not limit itself purely to setting up cooperatives. It also tried to implant the principle of the self-government of work into capitalist firms, by taking advantage of the newly emerged form of workers’ co-entrepreneurship, granting workers stockholding rights, offering profitsharing, etc. In doing so, Macek’s self-help socialism clashed with the views of trade unionists as well as orthodox Marxists. The unionists aimed to achieve tangible improvements in working conditions, without taking upon themselves entrepreneurship risks, while the believers in class struggle (i.e., the Marxists) regarded workers’ participation in entrepreneurial activities as pure treachery. 3.4.3.3. Laboretism33 If cooperative ownership can be identified as one the main currents in Czech economic thinking, laboretism was only a marginal component. However, since respected intellectuals and entrepreneurs from a broad political spectrum were among 31 32 33

Antonie Doležalová, Učíme ekonomii 90 let (Praha: Wolters Kluwer, 2011), 203–216. Josef Macek, “Povaha vědeckého poznání (druhá část),” Naše doba 50/6 (1943): 256. Antonie Doležalová, “Nebylo úniku? Kontinuita a diskontinuita v ekonomickém vývoji ve 30. a 40. letech XX. století,” in Československo a krize demokracie ve střední Evropě ve 30. a 40. letech XX. století. Hledání východisek, ed. Jan Němeček et al. (Praha: Historický ústav AV ČR, 2010), 467–468.

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its supporters, it was in a position to attract interest from a wide range of people. Although with time laboretism faded into obscurity in the Czech lands, we will see that it was its supporters who became the main proponents of the scientific organization of work, which in the 1930s developed into concepts of planning. Laboretism concerned itself with the position of the working man within society and, similarly to the concepts of cooperative socialism, aimed to transform the capitalist society into a less “problematic” form.34 It strove to solve social problems by seeking social reconciliation between employees and employers, emphasizing education and morals. The term itself was created by combining the words “work” and “morals” (labor and ethos). The starting point in the laboretists’ thinking was the ideal of a healthy, happy and moral human being. This ideal was to be accomplished by organizing and planning the economy and the whole of the society, as societies based on liberalism were falling short of achieving this goal. One of the prominent proponents of laboretism, Václav Verunáč35, characterized it as “a movement of thought, borne out of the principles of technical thinking, the ethical concept of work and the principles of scientific organization.”36 In contrast to Taylorism, for instance, the implementation of laboretist principles would not be limited to industrial enterprises only. It would significantly affect all areas of human activity and thus the agricultural, financial and public spheres, too. Scientific organization was meant to encompass the entire society. A society-wide plan, complemented by a system of checks, was to be the instrument of such wide-ranging organization. In the 1930s many laboretists were clearly inspired by the Soviet model of planning but also by Italian corporatism and the German concept of central management and planning. Most laboretists continued to adhere to the principle of private ownership. Their hopes for making economic activities more efficient were projected into planning, by placing the central role in all stages of planning in the hands of the state and its institutions. At lower levels, this form of a planned economy was to be managed by industrial intelligence, the so-called social engineers – technical cadres familiar with production technologies as well as social issues. One cannot overlook how these concepts ushered in the future models of personnel management (i.e., human resources). 3.4.4. Social concepts of the time At the end of the 19th century, all the countries that had joined the process of industrialization were intervening in the social sphere in some ways. In the context of wage-workers especially, European countries were in agreement about the starting point, the goals and frequently also the means of achieving their social policies. The 34 35 36

Josef Máče, “Laboretismus – specifický směr českého ekonomického myšlení,” Politická ekonomie 4 (2001): 584. Václav Verunáč (1893–1960), Czechoslovak economist, theoretician of scientific management of work. Václav Verunáč, Zásady laboretismu (Praha, 1928), 3.

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main areas of social policy aimed at workers were (in the terminology of the time): protection of workers, insurance for workers, workers’ coalitions and reporting on the conditions of wage work. There were two ways in which Czech entrepreneurs, Baťa included, could learn about the social concepts of the time: either through their own experiences or by studying (national) economic literature. This paper has illustrated how social questions had formed an integral part of Czech economic thinking from its very beginning, i.e. A. Bráf’s profound interest in the social area.37 Thanks to his articles but also to entries in Otto’s Encyclopedia and in other publications, readers were able to familiarize themselves with existing Austrian law as well as the laws in Germany, England and Switzerland. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, there were two basic laws in Austria which dealt with the social area – one from May 8, 1885, which amended and regulated the trades, and one from June 21, 1884, which dealt with the employment of women, working hours, the period of Sunday rest and other matters. If the state was to play the role of a “night watchman” as Adam Smith intended, all other steps in the direction of social welfare clearly must have fallen within the domain of private activities. So-called fraternal funds are a case in point. In accordance with the Mining Act of 1854, entrepreneurs were obliged to set up fraternal funds for their employees. The law also stipulated the initial payment of workers and the subsequent contributions for workers and employers. A worker had to be younger than 35 to be able to participate in the fund. Initially, the contributions were set at 3.5% of the wage but this figure gradually reached 6% in 1877. Fraternal funds, which were managed by the workers, were there to support laborers, widows and orphans, but also help in the event of illness, injury and death. The problem with all of these funds from the workers’ point of view was that all their contributions were lost if they left their employment. This led to proposals that insurance should not be linked to a particular company and that workers should be allowed, for instance, to make up their missed payments once they became employed again, and that pensions ought to be calculated from the total of all contributions paid. Employers had already motivated their workers before the 1873 crisis by adding bonuses to their wages for higher productivity. Workers were also penalized for late arrivals at work or defective products, for example. Money collected through these fines was deposited in funds, such as the sickness fund, from which the workers could borrow money. They could also borrow money directly from the business owner. In addition, there were so-called travel funds, which gave workers access to accommodation and travel money on presenting a travel-fund card during their business trips. Furthermore, employers built storehouses for flour and bread and sold these foods to their workers at lower prices. Workers could also purchase lunches at their workplace or warm up their own food. Those who lived further 37

As Vilém Pospíšil wrote about him in his memoirs: “He was a conservative but had a great sense for social issues and was one of the first ones in our land to examine the social questions systematically – and not only theoretically.” Ladislav Hobza, ed., Bráfův památník vydaný k slavnosti odhalení pamětní desky na rodném domě Dra. Albína Bráfa v Třebíči ve dnech 16.–18. září 1927 u příležitosti patnáctého výročí jeho úmrtí (Třebíč: Spolek absolventů Obchodní akademie Dra. A. Bráfa v Třebíči, 1927): 38–39.

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away could sleep in company lodging houses. When the growing numbers of workers led to housing shortages, business owners would deal with the situation by constructing flats for their workers. Some of these flats even had a field or a garden. Once a miner left his employment, however, he had to leave the flat, too. In the 1860s educational societies started to emerge and organized various lectures and courses, ran libraries, consumer associations and even sickness funds. Membership in these societies kept rising until the 1970s but then stagnated or declined, so their activities became rather modest. By no means was there a predominant belief that business owners should also act as philanthropists toward their employees. Bráf saw the sources of poverty in the social sphere, i.e. in the state of society and the economy, which was why it was society’s duty to let the state take over a part of the care for the poor at the state, regional or municipal levels. That said, Bráf stressed that the support had to be such that it would not diminish people’s determination to resolve their situation through their own effort. The key instrument in his view was not alms but workers’ insurance, particularly against illness, injury, old-age and death. He disapproved of workers spending this type of savings elsewhere and then demanding public assistance when in need. He also believed that their awareness of public assistance demotivated them further. In addition, he proposed to institute an obligation on the part of employers to partially finance their employees’ insurance (at least against illness and injury). The First Republic began to interfere with this “division of power” between the state and entrepreneurs and this in turn led to the “social reconciliation paradigm” being redefined. Tripartism (i.e., interaction between entrepreneurs, trade unions and governments) was established in many areas of the decisive sphere, in relation to both the level (parliamentary and governmental)38 and the subject matter. It affected lawmaking and the implementation of everyday policies.39 However, if we examine the structure of social legislation in more detail, we discover that the state only committed itself to transfer payments which covered a very limited social network. The proportion of transfers in the total state administrative expenditures did not exceed 5%, with the exception of the years immediately after WWI when these payments derived from Austrian legislation.40 Compulsory insurance against unemployment as we know it today did not exist, but there was the so-called Ghent system. This was voluntary insurance against unemployment among union members, whose contributions into this system were subsidized by the state.41 Simultaneously, however, the state was passing laws which forced business owners to bear a substantial proportion of social-reconciliation costs. This can be proven by analyzing the types of laws which were passed and, indirectly, by the size of the tax burden.42 38 39 40 41 42

Doležalová, Politické stranictví a ekonomický zájem. Doležalová, Rašín, Engliš a ti druzí, 325–362. Ibid., 297. In Czechoslovakia, the 1919 and 1920 amendments made it part of the basic compulsory social insurance for the so-called non-self-employed workers (nesamostatně výdělečně činných), to cover illness as well as disability and old age. Doležalová, Rašín, Engliš a ti druzí, 235–277.

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3.5. CONCLUSION This paper has focused on the factors which may have helped shape Baťa’s social concept. It has answered the question about how Baťa could have been influenced by his own experiences, the currents of economic thinking of the time and the common practice for entrepreneurs to intervene in the social area. In light of all this, what can be said about Baťa’s search for social reconciliation? First, it was not a novel concept. His ideas were being implemented at a time when the century of industrialization was coming to an end and the only thing that capitalism seemed to need was an army of “personally free workers” (as Marxist terminology put it). It was a time when the old education model, set within the personal-relationship framework of apprentice-journeyman-master, was disintegrating. It created room for entrepreneurs to readdress innovations and rationalization of production through education and building social networks, hand in hand with their own reputations. In addition, Baťa’s company was evolving as the state began to intervene in an increasingly wider range of social issues. This inevitably brought entrepreneurs a greater tax burden and more pressure to increase their expenditures to meet the state’s expectations. From the point of view of public interest, we cannot only talk about modernization – the issues of growing bureaucracy and rent-seeking have to be considered, too. As Baťa writes in his Contemplations: “I slowly began to glimpse that the dark capitalist souls were right and that a life of ease was not suited to someone who has not somehow secured for himself an access to the state or municipal treasury.”43 In short, he acted in the tradition of Czech economic thinking and allowed for state intervention only in cases when individuals or their associations could not do enough. Second, his concept could be summarized by modern theory in the social sciences as a combination of respect for the roles of social and human capital. Among the seekers of social reconciliation, the Baťas were among those who believed that the core elements of social capital – trust and a sense of belonging to a community – were of crucial importance. Already at the very beginning of his business career, Baťa could see how much easier it was to solve problems when he had managed to build trust among his employees, suppliers and customers. Indeed, the cohesion of his workers was proven during the Great Depression.44 Baťa formulated his concepts with former allotment holders, cottagers, smallholders and tradesmen in mind, i.e., people with a “smallholder mentality,” devoted to their native land.45 It is conceivable that such people would have had a special relationship with their factories, workshops or the machines they worked with. They also knew each other. In addition, his employees were the company’s greatest creditors, and their participation in the capital of the company was slowly rising. With regard to human capital, 43 44 45

Baťa, Úvahy a projevy, 21. Zdeněk Kárník, České země v éře první republiky (1918–1938). Díl první (Praha: Libri, 2003), 432. Antonie Doležalová, “Prolegomena ke studiu spolkové činnosti zemědělců,” in Agrární strana a její zájmové, družstevní a peněžní organizace, ed. Blanka Rašticová (Uherské Hradiště: Slovácké muzeum, 2010), 93–105.

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the Baťas were convinced by the potential of social engineering, which they implemented through education. Baťa was inspired by American employee-employer relationships and their way of organizing (specialist) education. In terms of the economic theories of the time, he was strongly influenced by laboretism, was one of its main proponents and incorporated it in his managerial way of thinking. Baťa could not have conceived of the self-government of work without the influence of cooperative ownership. At that time, the principles of self-government were given a greater role within much broader ideological and practical contexts than that of complementary entrepreneurial methods. Cooperative ownership began to be seen as a comprehensive theoretical concept, the implementation of which could transform existing society and make it more socially just. Third, when it came to social reconciliation, welfare was as much the mantra of the time as it was Baťa’s. His search for social reconciliation can be defined as presenting new possibilities for increasing individual welfare, which in turn leads to welfare for the whole society. Baťa spoke of “education toward welfare, so that work could bring welfare to all.”46 This notion was in keeping with the common understanding of the term, whose precondition had (ever since Aristotle) been happiness. Within the definition of welfare, certain material conditions needed to be fulfilled, but its essence lay in interaction with others and creating social capital, i.e., reputation, solidarity, assisting others and helping oneself. When welfare was being considered, it often became closely associated with a key aspect of all selfhelp (cooperative) concepts – frugality. Savers of capital were considered to be the greatest benefactors since they were creating the greatest source of the nation’s welfare. Thanks to the concepts of self-help, the notions that work is the root of happiness and that only work leads to welfare were growing stronger. At that time, the work of associations and self-help movements was never seen as either pure benefaction or cooperation of equally poor individuals, but always as all people belonging together and cooperating across social classes. Associating welfare with a good life is almost as old as philosophy itself, and the ratios of physical to ethical health, and of “happiness at home” to public welfare are very similar. In conclusion, Baťa’s search for social reconciliation encompasses not only responsibility for one’s own destiny, solidarity, cohesiveness and reputation-building, but also mistrust in the role of the social state. The Baťa brothers were the bearers of a certain set of social and moral values. Using the usual framework of social strategies, they tried to instill these values in their employees, most of whom had a smallholder mentality. Although their employees were under the constant pressure of the Baťa ideology and might even have found it oppressive, they were not subject to paternalistic restraints, i.e. in the sense of being unable to bear responsibility for their decisions or to learn from their experiences.

46

Baťa, Úvahy a projevy, 69.

Preface

III. BAŤA TOWNS – CASE STUDIES

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Martin Jemelka and Ondřej Ševeček

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1. OTTMUTH (OTMĘT): A GERMAN OUTPOST OF BATISM? Martin Jemelka 1.1. ESTABLISHMENT OF THE COMPANY DEUTSCHE SCHUH-AKTIENGESELLSCHAFT BATA, BERLIN (1928–1930) The Baťa concern’s decision to enter the German market with products manufactured on German territory and using its corporate know-how occurred during a period of deep crisis in the German footwear industry (1927/1928–1933), stigmatized by unusually high unemployment but also achieving a peak in production in 1927 and in sales in 1928, at a level to which German footwear production returned only in 1937. In addition to rising productivity amid declining consumer purchasing power, the crisis in the German footwear industry was accompanied by a high degree of differentiation in production, a price war, and in 1927 a precipitous acceleration in the transition from an export-dominated to an import-dominated system, among which imports of Baťa footwear unambiguously predominated in 1928, with an average price of RM 7.90 (most German products were sold at prices ranging from RM 12.50 to RM 16.50).1 The natural attempt to defend domestic footwear production culminated in a change in customs policy and the adoption of legislative measures valid from January 1, 1930, until January 1, 1935 (the so-called Lex Baťa), with antidumping clauses which made imported footwear more expensive and caused German exports to grow. Since import duties has risen as the economic crisis emerged in most European countries, the company could no longer postpone the decision to produce Baťa footwear abroad and sell it as a domestic product in those markets. It thus proceeded with a momentous decision in the concern’s history: the construction of satellite factories and housing estates, among which the only German factory with a factory housing estate – one of the Baťa concern’s first foreign company towns – undoubtedly played the pioneering and perhaps most complicated role. This was because a united front against the Baťa concern formed on the German market, associating producers, sellers, and even certain customers, as well as trade unions, and left-wing parties led by the Communist Party of Germany, which criticized the company’s patriarchal management methods, exploitation of employees through profit sharing, and the loss or liquidation of small shoe repair shops. As Anne Sudrow has observed, however, most of the German clientele identified with the Baťa concern’s pricing policy.2 1 2

Anne Sudrow, Der Schuh im Nationalsozialismus: Eine Produktgeschichte im deutsch-britisch-amerikanischen Vergleich (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2010), 123–125. Ibid., 128–131.

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The culmination of the Baťa concern’s pre-crisis activity in the German economic sphere was the establishment of the joint-stock company Deutsche SchuhAktiengesellschaft Bata (hereinafter DSAGB, Bata German Shoe Joint-Stock Company), headquartered in Berlin and constituted for an indefinite period on July 24, 1929, for purposes of producing and selling all types of footwear, as well as the materials and machinery necessary for producing shoes and building a network of company stores3 based on the retail network of the company Romeo A.G., with eight branches in northern and eastern Germany and the exclusive right to sell Baťa footwear.4 Share capital of RM 1,000,000 was divided into one thousand bearer shares, of which 996 shares, worth RM 996,000, were held by Jan Antonín Baťa.5 In planning the production facility, the Zlín headquarters of the Baťa concern focused its attention – from the end of 1928 at the latest – on the Upper Silesian region of the middle fork of the Oder River, which had sufficient water resources and a sufficient labor force in a near-completely unindustrialized agrarian region afflicted by long-term structural unemployment. Already in 1929, DSAGB planned to build a production facility in the locality of Schmögerle (today Smolne) in the district of Guhrau (Góra), purchased as an estate in 1929.6 Other localities under consideration were apparently the vicinity of the municipality of Przywory, halfway between Opole and Krapkowice, and land near Gogolin.7 Long under consideration for the factory grounds were forested plots of 653.50 hectares north of the municipality of Klodnitz (Kłodnica), today part of Kędzierzyn-Koźle (Kandrzin, Cosel/Kosel), near the confluence of the Kłodnica River and the Oder (the municipality was the site of interwar Germany’s second-largest port of call), and west of the Kędzierzyn–Opole line, which were owned by the state (the Prussian Ministry of Agriculture and forestry in Berlin) and on which the company wanted to build a footwear factory with ancillary production of paper and wood products, i.e. shoe boxes and wooden soles. It was clearly the vacillating position taken by central state administrative authorities, the rather disapproving posture of local administrative authorities, and decided resistance on the part of the Upper Silesian professional corporations supported by the press which forced DSAGB to abandon its efforts to purchase stateowned land near the town of Koźle (Cosel), and finally led to the conclusion of a purchase agreement on November 20, 1930, with Countess Maria Sylvia von Sponeck (1892–1967), née von Teichman und Logischen, from whom for RM 1,097,200 the company purchased the estates of Ottmuth (Otmęt) and Emilienhof (Emilówka) 3 4 5 6 7

Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, Státní okresní archiv ve Zlíně (hereinafter ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín), fond Baťa, a. s., Zlín (hereinafter Baťa), XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Opis zakládací listiny DSAGB. Sudrow, Der Schuh im Nationalsozialismus, 123–125. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Opis zakládací listiny DSAGB. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Rittergut Schmögerle. Władysław Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys powstania i rozwoju Śląskich Zakładów Przemysłu Skórzanego Otmęt v Krapkowicach (Krapkowice, 1984), 11–13.

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in the district of Gross Strehlitz (Strzelce Opolskie) on the right bank of the Oder, where DSAGB began to build a production facility in 1931 under the strict supervision of local oversight authorities.8 1.2. DEUTSCHE SCHUH-AKTIEN GESELLSCHAFT BATA, OTTMUTH A.G. (1930–1938) Locating the industrial plant and factory housing estate in Ottmuth turned out to be ideal: The factory was situated on the right bank of the Oder below the inflow the Osobłoga River and 1 km from the center of what originally had been the only fishing and boating community, 2.5 km from the center of the neighboring town of Krapkowice – a 26 km train ride from the administrative center of Opole – 800 m from the Krapkowice – Opole road and 2.5 km from the Raciborz – Krapkowice – Opole road.9 In addition to the immediate proximity of the Oder River, which was to satisfy the needs of water-intensive industrial production, also of key importance was the accessibility of the two-track main Katowice – Gogolin – Opole – Wrocław railway line (6 km) and the one-track Gogolin – Krapkowice – Prudnik railway line (2,9 km).10 As in other European localities, in the case of Ottmuth an agrarian region distorted by long-term structural unemployment was selected with a sufficient labor force hitherto working mainly in agriculture, local lime kilns, and quarries, the recruitment of which commenced at the beginning of 1931.11 In July of the same year, when the first German employees were sent to Zlín for training,12 construction began on the first two factory buildings, equipped with machinery imported exclusively from Czechoslovakia. Production of women’s textile footwear (sateen shoes), tennis shoes, and rubber footwear (wellingtons) – using imported semi-finished products at least until mid-1932 – was launched with approximately 210 employees on November 27, 1931.13 Another key event in 1931, however, was the relocation of DSAGB’s headquarters from Berlin to Ottmuth, apparently not because of the unrealized Oder Canal project, but rather for practical reasons (moving the company headquarters to the production center) as well as pragmatic ones (during a period of increasingly frequent labor disputes with company officials and store managers, jurisdiction for all of Germany was granted to the Labor Court in Opole, 8 9 10 11 12 13

Archiwum Państwowe w Opolu (hereinafter APO), Zespół Rejencja Opolska (hereinafter RO) W I, sygn. 9996: 168, 201; ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, I/7, rec. no. 392, inv. no. 26, Kupní smlouva (Sponeck). Baťa-Bericht: Zeitschrift im Dienste der Mitarbeiter deutschen Schuh A.G. Bata, Ottmuth (hereinafter BB, Baťa-Report: A periodical serving the workers of the Bata German Shoe JointStock Company, Ottmuth), 2, 35, August 30, 1934: 4. APO, Zespoł 391 Spółka Akcyjna „Otmęt“ w Krapkowicach [1945]1946–1999, Monografia Śłaskich zakładow przemysłu skórzanego „OTMET“ w Krapkowicach (kombinat), Grudzień, 1968 roku (sygn. 236): 25; Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 11–13. BB, 1, 10, October 15, 1932: 1; Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 11–13. Sudrow, Der Schuh im Nationalsozialismus, 128–129. BB, 1, 19, December 17, 1932: 1.

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which posed a significant logistical complication for the plaintiffs and was for state authorities a further argument in the anti-Baťa campaign).14 The plant began 1932, when in early October the sales and accounting departments were definitively relocated from Zlín to Ottmuth,15 with approximately 360 employees16 and its first director, František (Franz) Kraus (b. September 30, 1898, Zlín, director 1931–1933, subsequently head of production for several months), who held the post until May 1933. The plant’s second year involved feverish development, as well as growth in employee numbers and production volume, but also the first disputes (frequent overtime work, no noon break) and heightened scrutiny on the part of state authorities, which complained e.g. in June 1932 that written communication with the company was not at all easy,17 and the influence of the concern’s headquarters in Zlín was indisputable.18 In the autumn, the plant was visited by J. A. Baťa, and at the very end of 1932, when the foundations for the plant’s sports facility and club had been laid and the first edition of the factory magazine Baťa-Bericht had been published (August 5, 1932),19 the company suffered a loss of orders; 200 workers were dismissed, and the thousand who remained worked only two to three shifts per week. Due to freezes at year’s end, construction works were also halted on the new five-story factory building.20 With Adolf Hitler’s ascendancy to the chancellorship (January 30, 1933) and the launch of sweeping changes across society, a range of fundamental reversals occurred during 1933 at the Baťa concern’s Ottmuth plant. To begin with, it was no longer sustainable for the plant not to be headed by a citizen of the Reich,21 and so at the end of May 1933 Franz Kraus was replaced as director by Heinz Mahnkopf, a German citizen of Aryan origin not yet thirty years old, who had been employed by the company since 1931. Similarly, the Supervisory Board was also replaced to satisfy the German authorities, and persons of German origin continued to predominate among its members.22 The plant management fully accepted the change in societal circumstances and supported the celebration of the first German Labor Day (May 1, 1933), when the provisional sports stadium was opened to the public as Nazi functionaries looked on,23 as well as the introduction of the Hitler salute at the factory in the summer of 1933.24 The company also continued to respond to a range of confrontations during 1933 – be it in the form of twenty court disputes before the Labor Court in Opole,25 or scandals surrounding the opening of new 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 392–395. BB, 1, 14, November 12, 1932: 1. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 245–246. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9993: 40–44. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 255–257. Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 21–22. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 392–395. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 503–505. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 494–501. BB, 2, 17, April 28, 1933: 1–2; BB 2, 18, May 5, 1933. BB, 2, 33, August 24, 1933: 1. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 495.

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1.1. Store selling the factory weekly Baťa-Bericht, 1932.

stores, which provoked animosity among Upper Silesian shoemakers as well as threats of violence.26 The second year of Germany’s Nazi era saw an expansion of production in Ottmuth, as well as a growing number of employees, refinements of the company’s social policy (the new school building – half-financed by the company – was ceremoniously opened on April 11),27 the first May company conference in Ottmuth attended by the company leadership and managers of branch stores,28 but also increasing pressure to employ only citizens of the Reich and from mid-year also workers over twenty-five years old. The company could no longer resist the pressure of Nazi organizations, and permitted the participation of its young employees in the National Vocational Competition (Reichsberufswettkampf)29 and the establishment of a factory organization of Kraft durch Freude (hereinafter KdF, Strength through Joy) movement. It also began to support the factory organization of Deutsche Arbeitsfront (hereinafter DAF, German Labour Front).30 In addition to a joint firefighting service for the factory and the municipality,31 a factory sickness fund 26 27 28 29 30 31

APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 525–529. BB, 2, 11, March 15, 1934: 4. BB, 2, 22, May 31, 1934: 1. BB, 3, 13, March 28, 1935: 1. BB, 2, 48, November 29, 1934: 1. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 510.

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modeled on those of other German enterprises was established after a significant delay on July 15, 1934, and officially authorized on October 1.32 The uninterrupted ties between the Ottmuth factory and the concern’s Zlín headquarters were symbolized by an instructional stay in Czechoslovakia for thirty Reich-citizen employees33 and an educational tour of Zlín, undertaken for the purpose of a two-day excursion with a visit to the grave of the concern’s founder in mid-July 1934.34 Of similarly symbolic significance was the takeoff of the first airplane from the company airport on Monday, June 25, 1934, carrying director Heinz Mahnkopf on a business trip to Berlin.35 Mahnkopf usually spent every Friday in Zlín.36 Although the structure and content of the annual report for fiscal year 1935 do not indicate it, 1935 was a turning point in the Baťa concern’s business activities in Upper Silesia. This is attested to by the change of the company’s name to Bata A.G. Ottmuth, Oberschlesien,37 as a result of a protracted court dispute over the authorized use of the word “Deutsche” (“German”) in the company’s former name. The company had argued that it had never used this adjective – which had acquired new meanings since the company’s establishment – for marketing purposes, but only to distinguish it from the Baťa concern’s other foreign subsidiaries. Nevertheless, it was ordered to change the name by the Regional Court in Opole on August 16, 1935.38 In 1935, the fifth factory building was completed at the end of May,39 the factory fire brigade was established at the beginning of September,40 and the foundations were laid for a new factory housing estate called Bata-Siedlung,41 but 1935 was also among the most discordant in the company’s history, and not even J. A. Baťa’s June visit as part of his European inspection tour could improve the situation.42 The company came in for increasing scrutiny on the part of the German authorities, who on August 22, 1935, initiated a meeting at the labor office in Opole lasting more than three hours, during which the company’s benefit for the German shoe industry was seriously questioned, to which the company responded by threatening to close the factory.43 Nor was the atmosphere calm among employees, who had not received the statutory tariff wages set for the tanning industry and were often subjected to financial penalties.44 It seems that the authorities were not bothered so much by the unsuitable sanitary conditions and labor-policing practices at

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

BB, 2, 27, July 5, 1934: 2. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9993: 95–97. BB, 2, 28, July 12, 1934: 2. BB, 2, 26, June 28, 1934: 2. Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 47. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht über das Geschäftsjahr 1935. BB, 4, 43, October 24, 1935: 1. BB, 4, 22, May 29, 1935: 1. BB, 4, 36, September 5, 1935: 1. BB, 4, 34, August 22, 1935: 2. BB, 4, 23, June 6, 1935: 2. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 326–339. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9993: 178–181.

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the factory, allegedly eliminated only pro forma,45 as by the fact that the company had managed to corrupt Ottmuth’s mayor, Josef Kuhnert, who had accumulated a range of administrative and party offices.46 The company was also able to similarly incline leading members of the DAF and of the Workers’ Legal Center in Opole, as well as the NSDAP regional head, Foitzik, from Groß Strehlitz (Strzelce Opolskie).47 Increased scrutiny on the part of the authorities was also directed at director Mahnkopf, whose regular trips to Zlín were a further blemish on the company’s reputation. Through good relations with various party and administrative entities, however, the company management was able to acquire needed information very quickly, e.g. when it was informed the very next day of the result of a DAF meeting on October 31, 1935.48 The year 1936 saw fundamental change in Germany’s economic policy, manifested in restrictions on the activities of private enterprises (the company declared its participation in the four-year economic plan in November 1936),49 among others, e.g. in the areas of resource procurement, price controls, and protection of small enterprises, which led the company to greater rationalization of labor and more economical use of input resources, including the use of new materials. In the social sphere, the company emphasized care for employees’ private needs which the municipality was unable to cover, and cooperation with Nazi organizations DAF, KdF and NS-Volkswohlfahrt. The most visible manifestation of the company’s social policy was the announcement of its intention to build a factory cinema with a theater stage serving the needs of Nazi organizations.50 The situation in the factory was viewed much more critically by state administrative authorities, according to whom neither task nor tariff wages had been paid out; overtime work was common in the factory, because the workers were not able to meet the daily norm on the assembly line of 800–900 pairs of shoes, and a partial success was the increase of the minimum female wage from RM 15 to RM 20.51 The years 1937–1938 marked another turning point, mainly in a change in the concern’s strategy in a period of unrelenting pressure from Nazi economic circles on its Ottmuth subsidiary, whose business principles (the Baťa system) were still sharply at odds with the principles of the Reich’s socialized economy. In mid-November 1937, the district president in Opole thankfully acknowledged that the company had a purely Aryan character, and informed Opole’s Gestapo of a change in assets which had occurred during the spring months, whereby 40% of shares were transferred from J. A. Baťa to Norwegian shoe merchant L. Th. Wiborg (Oslo) – J. A. Baťa retained 5% of the shares – and the rest remained in the hands of Norwegian, English, American, and Swiss entities. The forward-looking Opole district

45 46 47 48 49 50 51

APO, RO W I, sygn. 9993: 178–181. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 352–354. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9993, 178–186. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9993: 182–186. BB, 5, 45, November 6, 1936: 1. BB, 5, 12, March 3, 1936: 1; BB, 5, 18, May 1, 1936: 2; BB, 5, 48, November 26, 1936: 1. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9993: 182–186.

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president conceded, however, that the influence of J. A. Baťa and the concern’s Zlín headquarters would persist in the future, at least due to the company’s production system, which was radically different from the German system of shoe production. Whether the Opolo district president knew, or suspected, that the sale of shares was merely a deception and a shift to surreptitious control of the enterprise through intermediaries, who now included Berliner Georg Boness as a member of the Board of Directors, remains speculation.52 Despite all the production restrictions (a chronic shortage of raw materials) and operational ones (a persistently high accident rate),53 the company also expanded its employee social policy. On April 8, 1937, the factory cinema (Werkfilmtheater und Feierabendhaus) was opened,54 on May 31 instruction commenced at the factory school,55 on July 9 construction was launched on the factory sports facility,56 on September 1 a new factory code of conduct came into effect,57 and at a meeting of the Supervisory Board in Berlin on November 1 it was decided that development of company housing would continue in the beginning of 1938.58 1.3. OTA SCHLESISCHE SCHUH-WERKE OTTMUTH A.G. (1938–1945) If 1937 marked the beginning of a retreat into the background by the concern’s Zlín headquarters vis-à-vis its Ottmuth subsidiary, this development culminated the following year – undoubtedly influenced by worsening Czechoslovak-German relations leading to the Munich catastrophe – in the second half of August 1938 when the word linking the company to its Zlín roots disappeared from its name; henceforth, the company was known as OTA, Schlesische Schuh-Werke Ottmuth, A.G. with share capital of RM 2,000,000, and in the second half of the year J. A. Baťa sold his remaining shares to Mahnkopf, the director, for RM 50,000.59 The concern’s headquarters had prepared for this fundamental change in relation to its Ottmuth subsidiary, although it can be assumed that the company’s change of name in August 1938 following the transfer of a majority share from Anglo-American banks, as well as the takeover of footwear company Rosenstein & Prerauer (Landeshut, district of Waldenburg, today Kamienna Góra, district of Wałbrzych) at the end of the year were orchestrated by the Zlín headquarters.60 The capital transfers and 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60

APO, RO W I, sygn. 9993: 349; MZA v Brně, prac. Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht über das Jahr 1937; BB, 6, 15, April 16, 1937: 4. BB, 6, 35/36, September 17, 1937: 3. BB, 6, 6, February 11, 1937: 2. BB, 6, 18/19, May 14, 1937: 2. BB, 6, 26, July 9, 1937: 1. BB, 6, 33/34, September 3, 1937: 2. BB, 6, 43/44, November 12, 1937: 1. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, I/10, Bilance. Bilance, rec. no. 819, inv. no. 442. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht über das Jahr 1938.

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the need to invest led to an intensification of the company’s social policy (housing development continued, and the sports facility was finished, complete with an outdoor swimming pool) and to the general development of the company, which despite strict import quotas and a labor shortage managed to increase production and establish contacts with foreign footwear markets. Cooperation with the DAF and KdF was a matter of course, and the KdF participated in the organization of a collective factory summer vacation on the Baltic coast, as well as the establishment of a factory women’s group (Werkfrauengruppe) which organized healthcare courses and sewed clothing in the evenings for the children of employees.61 The annual report for 1939 states that while production grew in the first eight months of the year, albeit insufficiently to satisfy rising demand, the outbreak of war brought difficulties related to the German economy’s reorientation to wartime production. Nevertheless, the Ottmuth plant soon played an important role in this area as well. The outbreak of war, of which employees were informed in a radio broadcast after a stoppage of work on the morning of September 1, 1939, impacted labor opportunities and wage policy since the opening of war fronts led to a shortage of qualified workers and declining wages. The factory’s social department attempted to counter this by pressing to maintain company social policies at least at the prewar level of quality.62 With the first war action, the company’s social policy expanded into new areas: caring for conscripted, wounded, and fallen employees.63 Surprisingly, there is no mention in the 1939 annual report of the takeover of the Baťa factories on the territory of occupied Poland (Chełmek) and Lorraine (Hellocourt) under German administration. This task was entrusted to no other than H. Mahnkopf, who thus became responsible for the operation of all Baťa enterprises on the territory of the Reich until the end of the Second World War.64 A key problem during the war years was the labor shortage, which OTA countered by employing women, unskilled labor, and – as did many enterprises in the Reich – forced labor, beginning in the spring of 1940 when the first group of young Poles arrived in Ottmuth from the Baťa locality of Chełmek in the General Government, among others. Male workers 16 and older were initially housed in the former feudal estate of Emilienhof next to the airport, where they were later joined by smaller groups of captured Yugoslavs, Ukrainians, and Russians. During the same period, the former sheepfold near the church was apparently also modified to accommodate the needs of forced labor. In 1941, its Polish residents were finally moved from the wooden buildings to OTA’s forced labor camp built in the vicinity of the factory and housing estate in 1941 and 1942 for Poles, Yugoslavs, and at the end of the war even a few Czechs. At the end of 1943, OTA proposed a never-realized project to build a branch camp of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp for 600 prisoners. The OTA camp ceased to exist in January 1945, when its inhabit61 62 63 64

Ibid. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht über das Jahr 1940. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht über das Jahr 1940–1941. Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 40.

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ants were liberated by the Red Army. Scandalous housing and alimentary conditions prevailed in the camp as well as the other accommodation facilities, but forced laborers enjoyed – despite twelve-hour shifts, strict discipline, and frequent work on Sundays unloading railway wagons in Gogolin or cleaning the factory housing estate – partially restricted freedom of movement, albeit limited by a ban on personal contacts with the local population, and a ban on using the Polish language. On July 16, 1940 – prior to the opening of OTA’s company labor camp – one of sixteen labor camps established in Opole Silesia for construction of the Katowice – Wrocław motorway (Reichsautobahn 29) was opened in Ottmuth. Its origins may reach back to 1938, when German citizens were to be employed there, and by the beginning of 1940 perhaps Poles as well. From the summer of 1940, however, the actual camp was used for Polish Jews from the ghettos in Sosnowiec (Sosnowitz), Będzin (Bendzin/Bendsburg), Czeladź, and other Silesian municipalities, and it was administered by the SS (Organisation Schmelt). In addition to Polish Jews, their co-religionists from France and the Netherlands were held there as well. Initially, the camp’s Jewish population, who had to wear a Star of David in a visible place (Poles from the OTA labor camp were designated with the letter P, Russians with the letters OST), worked 12 hours per day, lived in ever-worsening conditions under strict guard, and were employed exclusively in construction of the motorway. Apparently from 1942, however, the camp was divided into male and female parts, with the women employed at the OTA factory and approximately 200 men building the motorway, although some also performed dangerous and arduous tasks in the factory’s chemical operations. During the winter, the Jewish prisoners were usually employed in the factory, and from the winter of 1942–1943, when construction of the motorway was halted, only in the OTA, Rösner und Söhne, and Duck factories. The Jewish labor camp was liquidated in the spring of 1944, when sick prisoners were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and those able to work to a forced labor camp on the territory of today’s Kędzierzyn-Koźle conurbation (Arbeitslager Blechhammer).65 It is not easy to reconstruct the development of the Ottmuth plant during the war years; as the end of the war drew near, the company’s annual reports became more formal, and the available archival material more fragmented. The fact remains that the departure of J. A. and T. J. Baťa into exile, the establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and the introduction of German administration at the Zlín company Baťa, a.s. relieved the tensions of the second half of the 1930s and eased communications between the concern’s Zlín headquarters and its subsidiaries in the Reich and occupied territories.This is attested by a number of cases from the 1942–1944 period: In the first months of 1942, for example, director František Malota was contacted repeatedly in the matter of OTA’s takeover of the company Bata-Schuh A.G. Luxemburg, and helped to resolve the situation which had arisen in Luxembourg after 1 January 1942, when the German stock corporation law came into force there; it was necessary to quickly change the composition 65

Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 26–45; www.sztetl.org.pl, www.tenhumbergreinhard.de, both accessed May 7, 2012.

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of the Supervisory Board, which was to be filled by Germans Dr. Ludwig and director Mahnkopf. OTA received permission to take over two Luxembourg stores on February 6, 1942, and in May 1942 it was further arranged that OTA would take over all business activity of its Luxembourg affiliate, while the management and Supervisory Board would remain unchanged following necessary additions. Similarly, at the end of 1942 after raising OTA’s share capital from RM 2,000,000 to RM 3,400,000, a loan was negotiated from the concern company BEAG Ein- und Ausfuhrgesellschaft m.b.H. Berlin66 with the knowledge of Dominik Čipera and František Malota67 despite opposition from Supervisory Board member Dr. Wettstein. The importance of the concern’s Zlín headquarters actually increased as the end of the war approached, and thus it was through Malota’s intervention following Mahnkopf’s negotiations that certain war contracts were transferred from Ottmuth to the Netherlands and France: In the spring of 1944, through cooperation with a rubber industry interest group and due to the bombardment of the Tretorn company’s factory, the Ottmuth plant received a large number of specialized contracts, mainly for textile footwear with rubber soles, and a few for wooden shoes, which exceeded its capacity in view of ongoing contracts for the Wehrmacht. Through Zlín, H. Mahnkopf offered to cooperate with the concern’s affiliates in the Netherlands (Best) and Lorraine (Hellocourt). This was all to take place behind the back of BEAG, however, which was unsupportive of too many new contracts for the Ottmuth plant (heightened tensions between OTA and BEAG may have anticipated the concern’s future capital schism).68 As the end of the war approached, uncertainty took hold at the Ottmuth plant as well. While it had not been a target of Allied bombardment, it was evacuated on January 20 and 21, 1945, ahead of the advancing front. Shortly after January 24–26 when the municipality and factory were liberated by the armies of the 1st Ukrainian Front, the latter became a target of Soviet trophy divisions which, until the arrival of the first Polish workers from Chełmek on April 4, 1945, disassembled the nonevacuated machinery and usurped all immobile assets. Initially, the role of a substitute Ottmuth plant – employing 2,700 at war’s end – was played by the branch in Lanžhot, where a substitute workshop had been put into operation by mid-April and all important corporate documents including the factory sickness fund had been transferred. As soon as the front approached Lanžhot, however, everything had to be evacuated to Czech territory near Varnsdorf and Trutnov, and – around May 7, 1945 – transported with complications to Freiberg in Saxony, where one of OTA’s new plants was established. The branch in Lanžhot and the evacuation across Bohemia to Saxony was apparently arranged by the company’s proxy, P. Cura, who set out for Lanžhot again on May 13, 1945. The company apparatus had been ransacked by Soviet troops, however; employees returned to Lanžhot on foot, and P. Cura – with documents including the last financial reports and RM 41,000 in cash – departed for Velké Osinalice near Mělník, where the company documents were 66 67 68

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, 23. 12. 1942. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, 29. 12. 1942. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, 9. 5. 1945.

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left in the care of private individuals. When in mid-June 1945 a truck was dispatched from Zlín to retrieve property and documents belonging to OTA, including items deposited in Mnichovo Hradiště, it brought back 31 crates, boxes, and metal cases containing counting machines and typewriters, mainly from the Lanžhot plant.69 1.4. ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE COMPANIES DEUTSCHE SCHUH-AKTIEN GESELLSCHAFT BATA, OTTMUTH AND OTA, SCHLESISCHE SCHUH-WERKE OTTMUTH, A.G. (1930–1945) 1.4.1. Footwear sales network The basis of the Baťa concern’s business activities in Germany before 1929 was commission sales of imported goods of Czechoslovak production, which the concern had discontinued by 1931 at the latest, when the right to sell Baťa footwear was revoked from some 6,000 resellers. Distribution and sales were gradually entrusted to DSAGB sales branches, whose numbers grew sharply: In 1931, DSAGB operated 28 sales locations,70 whereas in the following year the number of stores was at least 60,71 with some sources reporting as many as 128 retail branches.72 The establishment of stores at the beginning of the 1930s took place in the confrontational atmosphere of an anti-Baťa campaign73 supported by the press as well as by trade oversight authorities pointing out the fact that not so much the production but rather the sale of Baťa footwear, including company shoe repair shops, undermined the position of at least 6,000 local small shoemakers in the Upper Silesia region.74 The company’s argument that Baťa footwear could not be repaired by hand and required a special repair service accompanied by related quality services for the broadest strata of society was clearly a success, because two years later it was stated at a working meeting in the building of the labor office in Opole that the company had circumvented the ban on establishing branch production facilities by developing a sales network of 150 sellers whose monthly salary in August 1935 was RM 150 without the 9% share of profits.75

69 70 71

72 73 74 75

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, 14. 3., 5. 4., 5. 6., 19. 6. 1945. Sudrow, Der Schuh im Nationalsozialismus, 126–127. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 536–539; Eduard Kubů, “Die Bata-Gefahr: Antibaťovská propaganda a bojkotové akce v Německu na přelomu 20. a 30. let 20. století,” in Pocta Janu Janákovi, Předsedovi Matice moravské, profesoru Masarykovy univerzity věnují k sedmdesátinám jeho přátelé a žáci, eds. Bronislav Chocholáč and Jiří Malíř (Brno: Matice moravská, 2002), 527–539. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 503–505. Kubů, “Die Bata-Gefahr,” 535. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 525–529. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 326–339.

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In July 1936, there were already company stores with customer pedicure centers in all of Berlin’s districts.76 In the following year, of 4,000 company stores in Germany, 150 were sales branches.77 In the first half of 1940, the company had 121 stores with 944 employees and gross profits of RM 265,039; one year later, in the first half of 1941, the company had 126 stores with 1,329 employees and gross profits of RM 767,128.78 During the war years, the company had approximately 16 stores in Berlin and 19 in the Opole district, including two in Ottmuth – at the factory and in the municipality. By the end of the war, the number of stores had climbed to 186; branches were the most common type of stores, with average weekly sales of 300 pairs of shoes. For understandable reasons, the situation for the sales network was significantly complicated by the end of the war and the division of Germany into occupation zones: There were 13 stores in the Russian zone, 49 in the Anglo-American zone, 19 in the French zone, and 65 in the Polish zone. Conditions were worst in Berlin, where only three of the remaining nine stores were open; the rest had been plundered and destroyed, and lacked management as well as staff.79 1.4.2. Footwear production at the Ottmuth factory DSAGB began its economic activity with share capital of RM 1,000,000 divided into 1,000 shares, each worth RM 1,000. Already in May 1931, share capital was increased to RM 2,000,000 and remained at this level until the end of 1942, when, in coordination with the concern’s Zlín headquarters, it was raised for the last time to RM 3,400,000,80 where it remained until the company’s nationalization in 1948.81 The Supervisory Board and Board of Directors retained a stable composition: Apparently between 1931 and 1935, the directors Kraus and Mahnkopf were members of the Board of Directors, from 1936 director Mahnkopf was its sole member, and during the war the Board of Directors had three members, namely H. Mahnkopf, Helmut Kreymeier, and Dr. Oscar Witt, with the latter two functioning as deputies. A range of ties with the concern accompanied the members of the Supervisory Board, initially composed of T. Baťa, D. Čipera and H. Pilka (1929), and at least between 1935 and 1943 it was headed by H. Nonn, who was chairman for many years. Additional members of the Supervisory Board were J. A. Baťa (until 1936), Berlin attorney Fritz Ludwig (at least 1935–1943), Zurich lawyer Dr. Georg Wettstein (at least 1935–1943), Georg Boness (at least 1937–1943) and the Norwegian merchant from Oslo, L. Th. Wiborg (at least 1937–1942), who apparently replaced J. A. Baťa on the Supervisory Board and became crypto-holders of his shares. 76 77 78 79 80 81

BB, 5, 29, July 16, 1936: 1. Sudrow, Der Schuh im Nationalsozialismus, 127. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Verkauf Ottmuth. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Verkaufstellen laut Typen, Seznam prodejen, Seznam prodejen v okresku Berlín. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Zakládací listina DSAGB. Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv (hereinafter SBA), B.S.F.-Stiftung, St. Moritz (Bündner-SchuhFonds), Polen Verstaatlichnungen, 1942–1953, Bestand: E2001-07, Aktenzeichen B.34.66.1.

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DSAGB’s area of business was the production and sale of all types of footwear, as well as the materials and machinery necessary for footwear production, including establishing a network of company stores.82 During the first problematic years of production, the company produced 1,800–2,000 pairs daily of sought-after rubber and sports footwear, but also children’s and luxury shoes intended largely for export to northern countries.83 Prior to instituting two-shift operations, the company preferred less-expensive overtime work for handling periods of increased orders, but encountered resistance from trade and labor oversight authorities emphasizing the chronic shortage of labor in agriculture.84 Despite all economic and administrative complications which the company faced in the first half of the 1930s, even the state administrative authorities conceded that the company was important in the microregion and throughout Upper Silesia, and that it brought the German economy valuable foreign currency.85 In 1933, the company produced 40,000–50,000 pairs of shoes weekly (according to some sources only 30,000–35,000 pairs),86 which were exported to the Netherlands, Italy, Yugoslavia, and Scandinavia, and in just two years it invested RM 1,490,000 in purchasing German materials and paying wages.87 While in 1935 the company accounted for approximately 12% of overall German shoe production, despite frequent overtime – the minimum daily production for each workshop was set at 800 pairs of shoes88 – D. Čipera is reported to have said on a visit at the end of October that the plant’s performance was insufficient, that instead of 800 pairs per day one workshop should produce up to 1,600 pairs, and that adequate pressure should be applied on workshop and floor managers.89 Problems with labor productivity persisted even in 1936, as the company’s annual report concedes (productivity was maintained at the 95% level).90 The company addressed insufficient productivity by applying motivational pressure on employees, improving equipment, emphasizing maximum technological and economic efficiency in operations, making more rational use of semi-finished products, and attempting to process its own raw materials, but also by trying to keep the prices of inexpensive footwear as low as possible in the face of rising prices of input materials. Despite all the problems resulting from the harmonization of production with the requirements of the German national economy, a dividend was first paid out in 1936 when the company sharply restricted production of rubber shoes and stepped up production of leather footwear.91 One of DSAGB/OTA’s long-term difficulties was the penetration of foreign markets, which was inhibited by the customs policies of most European countries. 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Zakládací listina DSAGB. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 503–505. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 321–323. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 352–354. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 525–529. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 507–512. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 326–339. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9993: 178–181. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht über das Geschäftsjahr 1936. Ibid.

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1.2. The main street of the factory grounds during the afternoon break, Ottmuth, Germany, 1932.

Despite this, in 1937, when the company achieved roughly half the size (in terms of employee numbers) of Germany’s largest footwear company, Salamander, A.G., and thus ranked among the largest footear producers in the Reich,92 it managed to increase sales of goods through its retail network, to increase exports, and – compared to the previous year – to almost quadruple its net profit. The company achieved its greatest net profit in 1938 (RM 242,673.93) when production peaked (4,144,500 pairs of shoes), which was helped by greater purchasing power, growth in exports, support for rationalization and the testing of new raw materials, and the expansion of its collection of footwear through the purchase of a factory in Lanžhot from the company Rosenstein & Prerauer.93 Apparently during 1938 and 1939, the company ran one-shift operations in Ottmuth of 14 footwear and 4 rubber workshops, a machine works, polishing works, paper works, synthetic leather works, wooden footwear works, and in Lanžhot two footwear workshops94 (one of which closed in 1940 at the latest95). The pre-war assortment of goods – rubber, knitted, leather, and wooden shoes with rubber, leather, or wooden soles – was preserved during the war years, during which the company’s production in the state-organized war economy was focused 92 93 94 95

Sudrow, Der Schuh im Nationalsozialismus, 128–129. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht 1938. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Informační přehled OTA. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Werk Landeshut.

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on military footwear. Only in the area of production and sales of rubber boots did the company participate in cartel groups.96 The chronic shortage of production material became insurmountable by the end of 1944, and the cold winter and lack of raw materials hampered continuous operations.97 Production was then definitively halted for several months by the military action which ended the war, the partial passage of the front, and the disassembly of machinery by trophy divisions of the Soviet Army which transformed the factory premises into a ruin.98 In conclusion, it should be noted that the company did not derive its profits merely from the production and sale of footwear and related goods, but also from the rental of company land purchased in 1930 and not occupied by industrial or residential buildings.99 1.5. CONSTRUCTION DEVELOPMENT OF THE FACTORY PREMISES (1931–1945) According to the handover protocol between the commander of the 1st Trophy Division, Colonel Kowalczykow, and the factory’s provisional administration in mid1945, the factory premises consisted of a single-story rubber mill (1931), a fourstory hall for producing rubber footwear (1931), a five-story administrative building with a dining room and a joinery (1933), a five-story building for production of leather footwear (1935), a single-story paper works building (1938), a two-story furnace house (1934), a two-story warehouse (1939–1943), a garage and gatehouse (1936), the company housing estate with 32 two-story buildings, and an internment camp with 14 barracks.100 Construction of the factory began in July (actually in the autumn) 1931, when the building documentation for the first two factory buildings, the rubber mill, and the four-story production building were presented for approval.101 First, in 1931, the single-story cellarless rubber mill building was built with a reinforced concrete skeleton and brick and glass infill, covered by a wooden construction with skylights and a tar-paper roof. The building included a freight elevator with a 1,500 kg capacity.102 In November or early December 1931, together with the rubber mill building, construction was completed on a cellarless four-story building with a freight elevator for production of rubber footwear, made from a reinforced concrete skeleton with brick and glass infill, and containing production, storage, and initially

96

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht über das Jahr 1937. 97 Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 32–34. 98 APO, Zespół Spólka akcyjna „Otmęt“ w Krapkowicach, sygn. 34: 5–6. 99 APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 507–512; BB 2, 6, February 10, 1933: 1. 100 APO, Zespoł 391, Spółka Akcyjna „Otmęt“ w Krapkowicach [1945]1946–1999, sygn. 77: 1. 101 APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 206. 102 APO, Zespoł 391, Spółka Akcyjna „Otmęt“ w Krapkowicach [1945]1946–1999, Monografia Śłaskich zakładow przemysłu skórzanego „OTMET“ w Krapkowicach (kombinat), Grudzień, 1968 roku (sygn. 236): 29; BB, 1, 15, November 19, 1932: 1.

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1.3. View of the factory grounds in Ottmuth.

also administrative rooms.103 Construction on the building was apparently initiated in September 1931, and according to a photograph from December 2, 1931, work on the four-story production hall was almost complete.104 On November 8, 1932, construction began on the five-story factory hall, which – due to hard freezes during the winter of 1932–1933 was only completed in late August 1933. On May 16, 1933, a dining hall or common and conference room was completed in the building,105 prior to which employees had to eat either in the production halls or outdoors.106 After its completion, offices and dispatching of goods were on the ground floor; the purchasing department and materials warehouse were on the first floor; the pattern shop, fitter’s shop, and reserve machinery warehouse were on the second floor; the dispatch warehouse was on the third floor; and the reserve warehouse was on the fourth floor. The five-story building made from a monolithic reinforced concrete skeleton worth RM 120,000 with brick and glass infill had reinforced concrete ceilings and a tar-paper roof, and was equipped with an external staircase and a freight elevator.107

103 104 105 106 107

BB, 1, 14, November 12, 1932: 1. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XV, inv. no. 167. BB, 2, 19, May 12, 1933: 1; APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 503–505. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 392–395, 494–501. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 507–512; BB, 1, 14, November 12, 1932: 1.

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In January 1934, in addition to the first of a pair of five-story factory halls, construction was also completed on a new furnace house built on a steel structure with reinforced concrete cladding,108 and replacing the original steam furnace with an electric one.109 In the autumn of 1934, a three-story mixing tower was built next to the rubber mill.110 A second five-story production hall, for making leather footwear, was built on the factory grounds in 1934 and 1935.111 Before construction works were halted on the factory grounds for several years, the still-standing small gatehouse112 was built in 1936, as was a waste water treatment facility with open filtration for 5,000 persons.113 1936 and 1937 saw a series of minor structural modifications at the plant: In April 1936, a suspended transporter was built between the administrative and production buildings to move materials and goods between them;114 in the same year, there was an expansion of the rest areas, lighting, and factory cafeterias,115 into which recorded music was played on loudspeakers during the lunch breaks – as it was throughout the factory.116 In 1937, in addition to continuous attention to workplace lighting, emphasis was also placed on installing a sufficient number of loudspeakers used to disseminate messages and recorded music into the workplaces.117 The 1930s also saw construction of an airport with a hangar (1934),118 a single-story building for electricity distribution (1935), and a single-story timber-framed building for producing boxes (1938). Another timberframed building was built in 1939; two years later, a single-story brick building was built for the factory fire brigade, and the last building from the war years except for a warehouse was a wooden building on a brick foundation in 1943.119 In the agrarian landscape of the Opole region of Upper Silesia, the DSAGB/ OTA grounds seemed even futuristic, especially in the evening, when the glazed factory buildings shined in the then-unforested surroundings of the Oder. The industrial facility’s impressive evening lighting was even mentioned in the factory press, as the glow of many factory lights was a highly visible symbol of the Ottmuth plant’s socioeconomic significance.120 The local construction and trade authorities were impressed neither by the glow of industrial lighting nor regular landscaping upkeep,121 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121

BB, 2, 38, September 28, 1933: 1; BB, 3, 24, June 14, 1934: 1. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 507. MZA v Brně, prac. Zlín, Baťa, XV, inv. no. 193. MZA v Brně, prac. Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht über das Geschäftsjahr 1935. Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 24. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 510; BB, 2, 34, August 31, 1933: 1; BB, 2, 36, September 14, 1933: 1. BB, 5, 15, April 9, 1936: 1. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht über das Geschäftsjahr 1936. BB, 5, 27, July 2, 1936: 2. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht über das Jahr 1937. APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 508; BB, 2, 34, August 31, 1933: 1. Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 32, 35, 39. BB, 1, 18, December 10, 1932: 1. BB, 5, 34, August 20, 1936: 1.

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and especially during the first months and years of the factory’s development were provoked by inadequate storage of dangerous materials in production rooms and inadequate sanitation in the workplace,122 not to mention the factory’s failure to comply with construction oversight regulations such as the timely submission of construction documentation for essentially completed buildings. The concern was notorious for this at other European localities as well, where more than once actual construction preceded the issue of a building permit by oversight authorities. 1.6. BATA-SIEDLUNG The most expensive segment of the company’s social policy was the resolution of the housing issue for employees, whose growing numbers and socio-professional stabilization, together with insufficient housing capacity in the municipality of Ottmuth, required significant investments in common and family housing, the construction of which was launched not even a year after the factory began operations. By the autumn of 1932, in addition to the factory kitchen with a bunkhouse, the company already had five standardized semi-detached house pairs, which were soon joined by the first dormitory and three new residential buildings.123 Most of the company’s housing development was built between 1935 and 1938. In midAugust 1935,124 the company began development of the Bata-Siedlung factory district with the construction of four dormitories – each with 18 beds. This was followed by fifteen two-family and four eight-family buildings made of plastered brickwork with saddle roofs and containing 23 two-room, 30 three-room, and 5 four-room apartments for approximately 200 employees; the original outbuilding in the Emilienhof courtyard was also converted to serve the needs of employee housing.125 Twenty-three residential buildings126 supplied with drinking water from a new well on the factory grounds127 were approved for occupancy at the end of 1935 and the beginning of 1936,128 and in the spring of 1936 only the roads were still being completed in the housing estate,129 which had been built in the style of a garden city. Due to the growing number of personal automobiles, a centrally located garage and telephone booth were added during the summer months, and landscaping was organized in the autumn.130 At the end of 1936, 240 employees were housed in company accommodation facilities, namely in 7 dormitories and 30 family residences – the factory also supported private and communal construction in the mu122 APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 245–246, 255–257, 287–289. 123 RO W I, sygn. 9996: 352–354; BB, 1, 2, August 19, 1932: 4; BB, 1, 12, October 29, 1932: 1; BB, 1, 19, December 17, 1932: 4. 124 BB, 4, 34, August 22, 1935: 2. 125 ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, Geschäftsbericht über das Geschäftsjahr 1935. 126 BB, 5, 41, October 8, 1936: 1. 127 BB, 4, 47/48, November 28, 1935: 1. 128 BB, 4, 49, December 5, 1935: 2. 129 BB, 5, 4, January 1, 1936: 1; BB, 5, 14, April 2, 1936: 1; BB, 5, 23, June 4, 1936: 1; BB, 5, 26, June 25, 1936: 1. 130 BB, 5, 28, July 9, 1936: 2; BB, 5, 32/33, August 13, 1936: 1.

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1.4. Factory residential district in Ottmuth, Germany.

nicipality – to which 24 pairs of semi-detached houses were to be added for selected employees.131 While company residential development essentially came to a halt in 1937 – only a large playground was built in the housing estate132 – in the municipality the company supported construction of 6 municipal buildings and 20 pairs of semi-detached houses in the housing estate of the German Labor Front (DAFSiedlung)133 built in cooperation with the Oberschlesische Heimstätte do-it-yourself movement.134 The last residential buildings were built in 1938, when construction was launched in May on two dormitories and two eight-family apartment buildings with apartments consisting of a kitchen, two rooms, and a bathroom with rooms illuminated by three-section windows. In the dormitories, there were 28 twobed rooms with common facilities on each floor, a caretaker’s apartment, and a kitchen.135 In 1938, the director’s villa with two large apartments was also put into use.136 131 ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht über das Geschäftsjahr 1936. 132 BB, 6, 20, May 21, 1937: 2. 133 ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht über das Jahr 1937; BB, 39/40, October 15, 1937: 1–2. 134 BB, 6, 13/14, April 8, 1937: 1–2. 135 ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht 1938. 136 Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 25.

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1.5. View of a factory colony of residential buildings, Ottmuth, Germany.

The Bata-Siedlung housing estate was built along the lines of the concern’s other factory housing estates, most likely with the participation of Baťa architects and urban planners, as is attested to at least by the choice of construction methods and materials. While the construction methods were imported from Zlín, building and production materials were procured mainly in Germany, as is evidenced by a December 1933 report according to which the company had planned to build hundreds of residential buildings,137 regularly inspected by personnel director P. Cura, who strolled through the housing estate with his wife and saw to it that order was maintained.138 Although the company financed all company development from its own resources, it managed to keep rents as low as possible for the high standard of housing.139 The company emphasized in its annual reports that affordable housing contributed to a general improvement in sanitary conditions, as well as to increasing real income by eliminating expenditures on mass and personal transport.140

137 138 139 140

APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 509. BB, 3, 10, March 8, 1934: 1. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht 1938. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XXVII, rec. no. 1895, inv. no. 4, Geschäftsbericht über das Geschäftsjahr 1935.

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1.7. POSTWAR DEVELOPMENT AND OTA’S POSITION IN THE POLISH ECONOMY The name of the OTA footwear company lived a double-life in the postwar years – one in Poland until 1952 and one in Germany at least until 1953, whether in the Anglo-American or the Soviet administrative zone. The management of the company and the organization of renewed production in the joint Anglo-American zone were apparently in the hands of Mahnkopf, who was in contact with the concern’s London center from the company’s office in Hamburg, and in the autumn of 1946 also spent time at the Hellocourt factory in France. OTA’s actual management in the Anglo-American zone was entrusted by the British to a designated Mr. Johannes, whose first advisor was H. Mahnkopf, as the latter awaited denazification. Although the small Hamburg plant produced only 1,000 primitive sandals per week, the situation in the Western occupation zones was obviously better than in the Soviet sector, where the renewal of production in Gera, Thuringia, and in Crimmitschau, Saxony, was handled by the company’s proxies H. Kreymeier (Gera) and P. Cura (Freiberg). Contacts between the OTA companies in the Anglo-American and Soviet zones floundered, because the proxies Cura and Kreymeier consulted the renewal of production and sales with the concern’s headquarters in Zlín, while Johannes and Mahnkopf were not in contact with Zlín. The company’s headquarters in the Soviet zone was the city of Gera, where H. Kreymeier was accompanied by the head mechanic and the head of the department of leather ready-made clothing, both from Ottmuth. The effort to build a small factory in Crimmitschau enjoyed support from the authorities, although efforts by the former management to restore large-scale production were unsuccessful, and legal issues also remained unresolved for a long period of time.141 While the traces of OTA in the Soviet occupation zone are lost at the end of 1946, in the Anglo-American zone and later in the Federal Republic of Germany it was active, according to Swiss archival materials, at least until mid1953, when its headquarters were definitively relocated to Hamburg.142 The situation was different in Otmęt, where on April 6, 1945, a group of employees arrived from the Polish Baťa shoe company (Polska Spółka Obuwia Bata) in Chełmek near Kraków (it was nationalized already on July 23, 1945), tasked with securing the damaged factory, which had been devastated by the passage of the front and the first visit by Soviet trophy divisions. Employees of the Chełmek branch of the Baťa concern remained at the Otmęt factory, which had now become a branch of the Chełmek shoe factory established by the Baťa concern in 1931, and began cleaning up the halls, replacing windows, restoring the damaged water and power networks, and reconstructing the furnace,143 which was put back into operation in the autumn of 1945, as production of approximately 1,000 pairs of shoes per 141 ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, fond Obuvnický průmysl – Svit, s. p., Zlín, I/2, OTA-Schlesische Schuhwerke Ottmuth A.G., inv. no. 322, box no. 289. 142 SBA, B.S.F.-Stiftung, St. Moritz (Bündner-Schuh-Fonds), Polen Verstaatlichnungen, 1942– 1953, Bestand: E2001-07, Aktenzeichen B.34.66.1. 143 Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 47–48.

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day was restored on a provisional assembly line. The situation at the OTA state footwear factory in Otmęt (Państwowa Fabryka Obuwia „Ota“ v Otmęcie, powiat Strzelce) became complicated at the beginning of summer 1945: Although the factory was handed over to Polish authorities on June 19, 1945, on the orders of Colonel Kowalczykow it was re-occupied on July 14 by Soviet trophy divisions, who, despite repeated written protests by the provisional Polish administration, dismantled the remaining machinery and definitively handed over the factory to Polish authorities at the end of July. A total of 1,244 of the factory’s machines had been dismantled, i.e. approximately 90–95 % of the original machine equipment, and following the definitive handover to Polish authorities at the end of July 1945 there remained just 232 of the minimally required 616 machines, without any finished products, semi-finished products, or input materials.144 The first production line producing 800–1,000 pairs of children’s textile shoes per day out of material imported from Chełmek (and possibly also out of material hidden at war’s end in the surrounding municipalities) was put into operation at the OTA state footwear factory on May 9, 1946. Already in January 1946, however, production started in Hall III, and by the end of the year the factory, with approximately 500 employees, had received a contract to alter 140,000 pairs of military shoes for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), and had produced 95,800 pairs of children’s shoes, boys’ low shoes, and slippers. From October 1, 1946, the company operated on its own – independently of the Polish Baťa company. During the initial postwar years, the factory encountered financial and production difficulties, as well as significant personnel complications caused by the deportation of the local German population in late 1945 and early 1946; the indigenous population was initially not reliable for the Poles, and they were provided with Polish language courses as part of repolonization.145 Starting in the spring of 1947, the company began to preferentially hire residents of Otmęt, qualified employees and experts from the Strzelce Opolskie district, poverty-stricken persons, and individual members of poor Otmęt families, for whom the plant’s social department operated from June 1, 1946, providing housing, preschool, and factory alimentation and supplies (initially, a dining facility was located in one of the director villas, but was later moved back to the factory). At the end of March 1947, when production of rubber footwear and glues had resumed, the factory had 603 employees; on September 1, 1947, instruction commenced at the factory’s footwear apprenticeship facility on the first floor of Building I, and in the second half of the year the first three cooperative footwear stores were opened in Otmęt, Malnia, and Karłubiec (Gogolin). In addition, the plant had its own agricultural cooperative. In the same year, production of leather footwear began in five new workshops, workshops producing rubber strips and synthetic leather were restored, and the number of employees grew sharply (there were 1,600 by the end of 1947), 80% of whom were of indigenous origin. In total, 649,092 pairs of men’s leather shoes with leather soles, women’s leather shoes with synthetic-leather soles, 144 APO, Zespół Spółka akcyjna „Otmęt“ w Krapkowicach, sygn. 77: 1–5. 145 Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 49–50.

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women’s rubber galoshes, men’s leather work shoes with wooden soles, and children’s textile shoes with synthetic-leather soles were produced in 1947 worth a total of PLZ 600,000,000.146 In 1948, the process of integrating the OTA plant into Poland’s nationalized economy was completed with a decision on July 6 by the minister of industry and trade to definitively nationalize the property of the company OTA Schlesische Schuhfabrik Ottmuth A.G., by then renamed Śłąskie Zakłady Obuwia (hereinafter SZO, Silesian Shoe Works), including affiliated facilities in Kamienna Góra, Oleśnica, Prudnik, and by September 1, 1948, also Biały Kamień and Korfantów. The nationalization of OTA’s property occurred without compensation, although in 1946 and 1947 the Swiss concern fund B.S.F.-Stiftung, St. Moritz (Bündner-SchuhFonds) attempted, with temporary support from the Swiss embassy in Poland, to force the Polish state to compensate it for share capital worth RM 1,100,000, which the fund held in the name of Westhold Corporation, New York, the Baťa family’s holding company for trans-Atlantic business activities. The Swiss government never directly intervened in the matter of B.S.F.-Stiftung’s shares, however, designating the Baťa family as the actual aggrieved party, and since OTA’s shares was not on the list of compensated Swiss companies, the matter was dropped by both sides in the resulting Polish-Swiss agreement of June 25, 1949. The prewar share capital of RM 3,400,000 – 55% of shares administered by B.S.F. -Stiftung, 5% by heirs of Dr. Wettstein, and 40% by other shareholders – definitively became the property of the Polish state in 1948 and 1949.147 SZO, with 2,463 employees (1,795 in Otmęt), began the pivotal year 1948 with a completely repaired factory building, and ended it with the reopening of the factory cinema, the reconstruction of which was part of the three-year economic plan (1947–1949), followed by the investment-intensive six-year plan (1950–1955) and the more modest first five-year plan (1956–1960).148 From the end of the 1940s, the factory grew continuously with respect to number of employees and products, and thus in 1950 it could begin to produce its own footwear designs. In the same year, SZO became the first Polish footwear factory to introduce production of uppers from pig leather.149 In addition to growing investments in production and the social sphere, the first half of the 1950s was also marked by a definitive break with the OTA brand in Poland: On March 28, 1952, the new brand Otmęt Ś.Z.O. was registered, and from 1955 the company was named just Otmęt.150 Although Poland’s first five-year plan was accompanied by investment restrictions during a period of economic regression and increasingly disproportionate growth in the standard of living of the Polish population, SZO was nevertheless able to build new employee apartments (1952) and a factory medical clinic (1958) which OTA had unsuccessfully endeavored to build in the prewar period. Apart 146 Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 49–54, 88–94. 147 SBA, B.S.F.-Stiftung, St. Moritz (Bündner-Schuh-Fonds), Polen Verstaatlichnungen, 1942– 1953, Bestand: E2001-07, Aktenzeichen B.34.66.1. 148 Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 55–65, 72–77. 149 Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 72–77. 150 Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 83–84.

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from obtaining large contracts for the Polish Army – during the execution of which in 1956 mainly graduates of Zlín footwear courses acquitted themselves well – and the opening of a secondary vocational school for footwear in Krapkowice, 1956 also marked the company’s highest employment level in the postwar period (6,314 employees). Another important year in SZO’s postwar history was 1959, when production of footwear for export was launched, and not without influencing new footwear designs. Already in 1958, a department for initiating footwear exports was created at state export company Skórimpex, and in the following years the company entered the ranks of major footwear exporters. Exports peaked in 1976, when the company exported 87.3% of production, i.e. 4,511,000 pairs of shoes.151 The economically rather regressive second five-year plan (1961–1965), during which the company focused mainly on purchasing new machinery, built two residential buildings with 60 apartments (1962–1963), and obtained new contracts through Skórimpex for the Afghan Army (1962),152 was followed by a decade of strong growth at the factory under the third (1966–1970)and fourth (1971–1975) five-year plans, during which the company’s machinery was completely modernized through new purchases, a warehouse was built for finished shoes (1970), and a modern rubber mill was constructed (1970–1975) to replace the original 1930s-era mill. Investments tripled at SZO between 1966 and 1970, and this increase was also reflected in higher-quality social care. With investments of PLZ 98,670,000, 1972 was unequivocally the investment peak in the postwar history of SZO; production peaked in 1975 with 11,147,500 pairs of shoes (5,989,800 pairs of leather shoes).153 The next two five-year plans were a mere echo of the previous decade 1966–1975.154 After 1989, Otmęt – which together with the Chełmek plant formed the backbone of the Polish footwear industry – met the same fate as the other former Baťa subsidiaries in the former Eastern Bloc including Svit in Zlín. The loss of markets and inability to compete in a global economy, initially with Western products and later with cheaper Asian footwear, ultimately drove the company into bankruptcy after 2000. Today, the Otmęt brand is used by a small footwear company without its own sales network producing only a few types of men’s footwear and shoes for youth.155 The actual factory grounds have been put to partial commercial use as industrial rental property for small operations (a Finnish paper factory, multi-service), but are mostly decaying – due in part to the 1997 flood – and are only a distant reminder of previous decades when thousands of workers came through its gates every day. In Otmęt, the unemployment rate is roughly 11% today, although this figure is comparatively low for the region.156

151 Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 55–87. 152 Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 55–64, 69. 153 APO, Zespół Spółka akcyjna „Otmęt“ w Krapkowicach, sygn. 236: 68–75; Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 55–64, 72–76. 154 Piechota et al., Historyczny zarys, 62–64. 155 “Otmęt,” Otmęt Zbyt Sp. z o.o., accessed May 7, 2012, http://www.mcdonalds.com/corp/ about/factsheets.html. 156 “Krapkowice,” last modified May 5, 2012, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottmuth.

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1.8. CONCLUSION As in other European localities it selected from among economically stagnating regions, the Baťa concern’s activity in Upper Silesia was a turning point in the local history there. The concern was behind the transformation of Ottmuth from an agrarian and boating village into an industrial municipality, and later into a town (1954). The Baťa concern was not only responsible for Ottmuth’s urban transformation into a modern industrial municipality with the civic amenities of a small town, but also for the rapid growth of its population: While there were some 1,500 residents before the concern’s arrival, the population had doubled in less than a decade (2,900 residents in October 1937).157 Although the concern’s influence in the areas of population and urban development can be viewed as clearly positive, evaluating its activity in the economic sphere is more complicated. While certain economically acceptable principles of the Baťa business and production model were retained at the Otmęt plant – to the benefit of Poland’s postwar economy – at least until the replacement of machinery around 1970, and – as German trade oversight authorities were loath to concede – they had spread even before the war to other nearby plants as well (e.g. the Moll company in the town of Brieg/Brzeg),158 the concern apparently gave up on expansion on the German market already in the mid-1930s, even though it profited in subsequent years at least from war contracts. The postwar organization of Europe, the nationalization of the concern’s enterprises in Poland, and its inability to resume large-scale production in the Soviet or the Anglo-American zone on the territory of today’s Federal Republic of Germany significantly limited the Baťa concern’s subsequent activities on German territory.

157 BB, 3, 26, June 28, 1934: 1; BB, 5, 20, May 14, 1936: 2; BB, 5, 47, November 19, 1936: 3. 158 APO, RO W I, sygn. 9996: 326–339.

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2. PUTTING MÖHLIN ON THE MAP: THE SWISS BAŤA TOWN AS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE COMPANY’S NATIONAL IMAGE Tobias Ehrenbold The first Baťa shoes reached the Swiss market as early as 1926, but the actual story of Baťa in Switzerland begins with the outbreak of the global economic crisis in 1929. This year marked not only the opening of the first Baťa stores in Bern and Basel, but also the establishment of Bata-Schuh AG, headquartered in Zurich. At the close of the 1920s, the tremendous growth of the company from the small Moravian city of Zlín was a topic of fervent discussion in Switzerland. While many were amazed by the incomparably low prices of Baťa shoes, the local shoe sector viewed this incursion by the large shoe producer with great concern. To the shoemakers and shoe factories, the entry of the so-called “King of Shoes” was truly threatening, as Baťa’s rigid pricing policy lastingly changed the local shoe market. Thus, in 1930 a pair of shoes cost on average 12.40 Swiss francs; in 1932 they were 8.80, and from 1933 on they were below 7.50 francs. This price decrease was caused by Baťa. The company from Zlín consistently undercut prices by 1 to 3 francs.1 Baťa not only sold shoes at incomparably low prices, however; its light footwear was also part of a paradigm shift in the world of Western fashion. The classical leather shoe now faced competition in the form of pimsolls, sandals, and galoshes – a development which in the 1920s the Swiss shoe industry had largely ignored. In economic terms, the early years in Switzerland were a success for Baťa.2 Between 1929 and 1933, Bata-Schuh AG opened 23 stores at such exclusive locations as Bahnhofstrasse (Zurich), the Marktplatz (Basel), and Rue du Marché (Geneva). During this period, the shops still imported footwear from Zlín – although this model soon came under severe pressure. In order to protect its national economic system, Switzerland, too, shifted in 1931 to a managed economy with high tariff barriers.3 For Baťa, this rendered the mass export of shoes all but impossible. A savvy businessman, Tomáš Baťa hinted at the idea of building factories abroad already in a 1930 interview: He was considering, among other things, “a mountain boot factory in Switzerland and one for football boots in England.”4 The 1 2 3 4

Andrea R. Gadient, Bata in der Schweiz: Die Gründung und Entwicklung der Bata Schuh Aktiengesellschaft in der Schweiz 1928 bis 1936 (Universität Zürich, 1991), 31. Ibid. Gaudenz Prader, 50 Jahre schweizerische Stabilisierungspolitik. Lernprozesse in Theorie und Politik am Beispiel der Finanz- und Beschäftigungspolitik des Bundes (Zürich: Schulthess Polygraphischer Verlag, 1981), 74–83. Der Bund (Bern), September 16, 1930.

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reader should not be misled by these cliché hints: The search for a suitable building site in Switzerland was already ongoing. On October 6, 1931, the renowned Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper announced – with the caption “Primeur” – Baťa’s plans to build in the village of Möhlin.5 2.1. A CRISIS-RAVAGED VILLAGE Baťa had its eye on a remote parcel of land located in the immediate vicinity of the Rhine River. For the 24 hectares, the Czechoslovak shoe giant paid just under 1 franc per square meter, an absolute bargain.6 The rural municipality of Möhlin welcomed the opportunity to accommodate the well-financed concern, especially when viewed in the context of the world economic crisis that had been raging since 1929. Although the Depression reached Switzerland somewhat later than most other industrialized nations, in about 1931, this did not change the fact “that the crisis was difficult; all areas of the country, all economic activities, all industrial sectors were impacted.”7 The effects of the crisis were severely felt in rural Möhlin. At the start of the 1930s, many companies in the region were forced to close, resulting in a significant decline in tax revenues. With 2,860 inhabitants, the village had up to 140 fully unemployed.8 The prospects seemed ominous, and looking back at Möhlin’s recent history suggested doom. An account dating from the beginning of the 19th century commented on conditions in the region as follows: “The misery is beyond all description, it’s completely desperate.”9 Despite its admission to the Confederation in 1803 the poverty did not subside. Over the course of the following decades, to escape hunger and destitution, dozens, even hundreds, of Möhlin’s residents emigrated to the United States, as well as to Algeria, Brazil, and Australia.10 In the agrarian village of Möhlin, the standard of living remained extremely modest, and the population poor. In the nearby village of Stein, average life expectancy in 1910 was 46 years, almost five years below the national average.11 The related economic and sanitary problems were rife in Möhlin as well. At the time of Baťa’s arrival, the rural image of the municipality, situated only 20 kilometers from Basel, was conveyed by the largest horse population in the Aargau canton as well as by the village’s distinct thatched roofs, the last of which disappeared only in 1929.12 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich, October 6, 1931. Markus Widmer, Die Bata-Kolonie in Möhlin (Zürich: ETH, 1990), 192. Jean-François Bergier, Wirtschaftsgeschichte der Schweiz: von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart (Zürich: Benziger, 1990), 272. Karl Schib, Geschichte des Dorfes Möhlin (Thayngen: Buchdruckerei Karl Augustin, 1959), 274. Ibid., 195. Ibid., 206–210. Paul Hugger, Fricktaler Volksleben. Stein, Sisslen, Kaisten, Gansingen. Eine Studie zum Kulturwandel der Gegenwart (Basel, 1977), 52–53. Pius Räber, Die Bauernhäuser des Kantons Aargau, Band II, Fricktal und Berner Aargau (Basel, 1996), 86–87.

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2.1. Möhlin village center at the beginning of the 20th century.

Particularly in such a ravaged region, the effects of the global economic crisis brought uncertainty, perhaps even a sense of foreboding, and created fertile ground for the belief in a rescuer. The local newspaper thus saw it as its responsibility to warn the population of the numerous false “miracle cures” being pedaled in Möhlin.13 In 1931, however, there were many indications that the “King of Shoes” would be their long-awaited savior – among other things, the fact that aviation enthusiast Tomáš Baťa often descended from the sky. At the time, the image of the Czech shoe company was closely associated with its founder, who was adroitly portrayed in the Region of Fricktal as a generous and progressive patron. At the end of March 1932, the municipal council announced, “that His Highness Baťa, King of Shoes, with retinue and his airplane squadron [...] will grace our dear village with his virtuous visit.” The suspicion that this enthronement could have been intended ironically vanished instantly: On this occasion, Mr. Baťa will lay the foundation stone of his future manufacturing plant [...] Now that, fortunately, all doubt and difficulties in the realization of this most eagerly awaited factory have been definitively erased from the world in a single stroke, it is well worth participating – in the most profound interest of each among us – in this highly important and pivotal celebration for our village. [...] As a dignified culmination of this celebratory day, each participant shall receive on demand one pair of Baťa shoes of their choice completely free at the close of festivities.14

In Möhlin, an “airplane squadron,” “shoes completely free” – the unimaginable financial means of “His Highness, Baťa, and King of Shoes” deepened the belief in a 13 14

Anzeiger (Möhlin), May 2, 1933. Volksstimme (Rheinfelden), March 30, 1932.

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better future. The Baťa airplanes circling repeatedly over the village in rural Fricktal were doubtless a spectacle as well as a glimmer of hope. Baťa’s aviation activities, however, soon turned from fascination to tragedy. On July 12, 1932, Tomáš Baťa set off on a business trip to Möhlin, where his son, Tomáš J. Baťa, was directing construction of the first factory hall.15 The plane crashed shortly after takeoff, killing Tomáš Baťa and his pilot. In the days that followed, the accident became a top international news story. 2.2. A COLORFUL BOUQUET OF ENEMIES In August 1932, just one month after the death of the company’s founder, the factory in Möhlin began operations. By the start of production on Swiss territory, a real struggle had broken out “which lacked neither insult nor slander,” as Widmer aptly summarizes in a seminal work for research into the history of Baťa in Switzerland.16 In the first half of the 1930s, Baťa was truly known not only as a producer of low-priced shoes, but also as a public controversy – a veritable apple of discord. It seemed that in this period allegations were made against Baťa from all sides. For the struggling shoe sector, Baťa was simply the root of all evil. The cumulative displeasure with Baťa became obvious when a boycott, organized in significant part by the company Bally, was launched in March 1934. The firm from Schönenwerd was one of Europe’s largest shoe producers at the beginning of the 20th century. Despite far-reaching efforts at rationalization,17 however, Baťa overtook Bally in the 1920s. The “King of Shoes” was no longer a Swiss, but a Czech. The loss of face ran deep, and surely played a role in the radical call for a boycott. The latter envisaged that stores selling Baťa products would be publicly ridiculed, and justifications for the campaign against Baťa included its aggressive pricing policy, low quality, and foreign origin. Only in 1948 was the boycott officially called off. Even more harm came from the policy of protectionism in the 1930s. Due to federal decisions it was forbidden to open new stores (1933) and factories (1934). Since the bans were motivated by parts of the national shoe industry, there was talk of a “Lex Baťa.” In addition to the animosity of its direct competitors, Baťa also drew scorn from fascist and communist circles; due to its foreign origin and capitalist orientation, respectively, the concern became a common enemy of both these extremes, which otherwise fought bitterly against one another. During the restive period of the socalled Frontenfrühling around 1933, Baťa was undoubtedly a contentious issue in Switzerland. The fascists even demanded Baťa’s immediate expulsion from Switzerland, while the communists called upon the Baťa workers to strike. Thus, not 15 16 17

Eugen Erdély, Baťa. Ein Schuster erobert die Welt (Leipzig: Kahler, 1932), 137. Widmer, Die Bata-Kolonie in Möhlin. Rudolf Jaun, Management und Arbeiterschaft. Verwissenschaftlichung, Amerikanisierung und Rationalisierung der Arbeitsverhältnisse in der Schweiz 1873–1959 (Zürich: Chronos, 1986), 202–240.

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only did the model Swiss state come under scrutiny in this turbulent atmosphere,18 but the foreign and unfamiliar shoe industrialist Baťa was challenged as well. Was he a Jew? A fascist? An exploiter? In the initial phase, such questions shaped Baťa’s image in large part. The company was not merely a shoe manufacturer, but – more importantly – a controversial topic that was omnipresent in the newspapers. This media presence no doubt offered Baťa a suboptimal starting point for building its image. In its initial public relations efforts in Switzerland, Baťa was mostly relegated to a reactive stance. 2.3. BAŤA’S ROAD TO THE STATUS OF A SWISS PRODUCT The question of whether Baťa’s shoes were an indigenous product was of vital importance for its success in Switzerland. The concern’s foreign origin served the fascists in particular as a preferred target, but the shoe syndicates also saw in Baťa a “foreign economic pest.” Although production in Möhlin was mainly carried out by locals, Baťa shoes were considered unfamiliar and foreign by many consumers in the early 1930s – a circumstance that became a real problem in the second half of the 1930s. At the time, a decidedly patriotic mood prevailed in Switzerland. Influenced by the increasingly aggressive German Nazis in the north and the Italian fascists in the south, a majority of the population aligned itself with the Federal Council. Under the popular term of “spiritual defense” (Geistige Landesverteidigung), political and societal contradictions seemed to quickly pale “in the glare or in the fog of patriotism.”19 The decisive turning point in the issue of whether Baťa was producing indigenous products in Möhlin came with the debate over the opening of a galoshes factory in the town. Initially, Baťa’s future in Switzerland looked truly grim. Since 1933, through emergency federal enactments, the government had been managing the domestic economy. For Baťa, this rendered it all but impossible to establish new stores or to expand production. But as was so often the case, Baťa found a loophole: this time it was the manufacture of galoshes. In particular, the well-respected newspapers supported Baťa’s plan for starting the first galoshes factory in Central Europe besides Zlín. They felt that galoshes were “a specialty product that has not yet been produced in Switzerland.” In fact, hitherto they had to be partially “imported (for example, from Japan!).”20 In 1935, the Federal Council resolved to allow the expansion of production in Möhlin, although with clear constraints: Baťa was allowed to produce a maximum of 300,000 pairs of galoshes annually, and for this purpose to employ no more than 160 new workers.21 For Baťa, the Federal Coun18 19 20 21

Roland Ruffieux, “Die Dreissiger Jahre oder die Schweiz auf dem Prüfstand,” in Dreissiger Jahre Schweiz. Ein Jahrzehnt im Widerspruch, ed. Kunsthaus Zürich (Zürich, 1982), 46. Georg Kreis, “Philipp Etter – ‘voll auf eidgenössischen Boden’,” in Intellektuelle von Rechts. Ideologie und Politik in der Schweiz 1918–1939, ed. Aram Mattioli (Zürich, 1995), 214. NZZ, January 14, 1935; National-Zeitung, January 15, 1935. Federal Council resolution dated August 9, 1935. BAR, E4110A. 1000/1820. BD: 5. C.08.15.

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cil’s decision was at least a partial success. The limits of expansion into the Swiss market were defined for the time being, but Baťa had achieved something that was of greater significance for establishing itself in Switzerland: the status of the only Swiss galoshes producer. 2.4. MÖHLIN AS A NEW CENTER Around the time that the building permit for the galoshes factory was issued, numerous changes were taking place inside Baťa-Schuh AG that pointed to an actual change of strategy from 1935 on. A first step was to consolidate the various business lines. Until then, the headquarters of the Swiss Baťa Company had been in the law office of Georg Wettstein, who was highly influential in the global concern, and in Möhlin production proceeded under relatively simple conditions. In 1935, the company’s headquarters were moved officially from Zurich to Möhlin. The commitment to Möhlin was demonstrated most impressively in the expansion of the Baťa colony, with construction beginning in 1935. Since 1931, numerous building plans for the Swiss Baťa colony had been drafted under the direction of the Baťa architects in Zlín. The initially quite modest dimensions of the factory – which until 1934 consisted of two single-story production halls, three residential buildings and a small administration building – were completely out of proportion to the grandiose designs being cultivated in Zlín. If the Baťa Building Department had its way, 10,000 or even 20,000 people would inhabit a satellite community22 – a size that for Möhlin would not be attained even in the most audacious building schemes. The plans for Möhlin anticipate at most one settlement for 2,000 to 3,000 people. The turning point in the building plans for the factory settlement came with a plan in July 1935 ushering in a completely new approach: The settlement was divided along a clear line into production and residential zones. The design broke with the customary Baťa urban layout consisting of concentric residential areas surrounding a production core. This plan’s radical nature is demonstrated by the decision to tear down residential buildings that had been erected just three years before, only to rebuild them on a site one hundred meters away. Between 1935 and 1937, the settlement in Möhlin expanded significantly. Alongside the three displaced residential buildings, there emerged two dominant three-story buildings, two multiplefamily dwellings, two dormitories for unmarried workers and – within eyeshot of the rest of the colony – a director’s residence built according to the same plans as the director’s residence of the colony in Chełmek. Another significant shift came in the mid-1930s as well – this time in the company management. At the end of 1934, the Czech director Josef Mansfeld was transferred to the concern’s British subsidiary in East Tilbury, and was replaced by 22

Ladislava Horňáková, “Baťa Satellite Towns Around the World,” in A Utopia of Modernity – Zlín: revisiting Baťa’s functional city, eds. Katrin Klingan and Kerstin Gust (Berlin: Jovis Verlag, 2009), 118.

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2.2. Aerial view of the Baťa colony in Möhlin, 1935.

2.3. Aerial view of the Baťa colony in Möhlin, 1937.

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his countryman, Josef Šimsa.23 After taking control in Möhlin, Šimsa was anxious to place local people in management positions, as they were more familiar with local conditions.24 In so doing, the new director began his long tenure according to a maxim that the company’s founder, Thomas Baťa, had declared to the Export Department in Zlín in late June 1932: “When you go out into the world, make use of the language of the people among whom you dwell. If this language is not robust for you, then speak in your mother tongue – but softly.”25 The founder’s words were also implemented in Switzerland: Certainly the local subsidiary continued to follow the Zlín model – “but softly,” just as Tomáš Baťa had directed. Accordingly, minutes of silence were observed for the deceased founder and “Tomáš Baťa roses” were planted, but these festivities were kept as distant from the general public as were the working methods imported from Zlín. Externally, an image was now to be developed that seemed to overemphasize all that was “typically Swiss.” 2.5. BAŤA APPLIES AN IMAGEOLOGICAL BRICOLAGE At least from 1935 on, Baťa presented itself in Switzerland as an indigenous enterprise. The accompanying cultivation of a national image followed the principles of an imageological bricolage. A company’s image is closely related to the approach of imageology in literary criticism to the extent that in both cases – in the market economy as well as in the humanities – it has become understood that identity can be represented externally by means of a broad sign system. This comprises texts as well as pictures and symbols. “This sign system thus does not evoke objective reality,” as Marchal aptly remarks. Rather, “it is a representation; it stands for something” – the imageological bricolage is “something contrived.”26 As a result of a marked decline in public interest in the controversy surrounding Baťa, from 1935 on the company found far friendlier conditions for building its own image than in the first half of the 1930s. Henceforth, Baťa faded from the headlines. The concern’s management asked themselves calmly what signs in the public imagination would correspond to a Swiss company. Baťa’s ties to rural Möhlin thus became the central sign. 2.6. WHAT DAYS SHOULD ONE CELEBRATE? In May 1933, the seven Möhlin pupils of the Baťa boarding school reported on a May Day celebration with 120,000 participants under the headline “Greetings from Zlín.”27 The next year, Baťa organized its first May Day celebration in Möhlin. 23 24 25 26 27

Ibid., 207. Widmer, Die Bata-Kolonie in Möhlin, 222. Erdély, Baťa. Ein Schuster erobert die Welt, 152. Guy P. Marchal, “Das ‘Schweizeralpenland’: Eine imagologische Bastelei,” in Erfundene Schweiz. Konstruktionen nationaler Identität, eds. Guy P. Marchal and Aram Mattioli (Zürich, 1992), 37–38. Anzeiger (Möhlin), May 16, 1933.

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2.4. Bata-Schuh AG Chairman Georg Wettstein during his address on May 1, 1935, in Möhlin.

Some 350 factory workers and dozens of Baťa store managers from throughout Switzerland marched through the village. The local newspaper, the Anzeiger, was euphoric: “Möhlin has never seen a more beautiful May Day celebration.”28 One year after the premiere, the celebrations had become not just bigger but also far more nationalistic. The National-Zeitung in Basel reported at length on a parade through Möhlin of 1,000 marchers carrying banners with slogans like “The Swiss Galosh – our Product!” and “Wear Swiss Galoshes!”29 The emphasis on Baťa as the only Swiss galoshes manufacturer was manifested here in nationalistic refrains. Furthermore, numerous participants waved Swiss flags, and the decorations in the settlement on that May 1, 1935, were intended to leave no doubt that a national company was manufacturing in Möhlin. How fast a “tradition” is ended when it no longer fits an image was demonstrated one year later. While in 1934 Baťa still insisted that “no year” would pass without a May Day celebration,30 already in 1936 the company announced succinctly in the local press that May Day would not be celebrated, as it had been accused, the company’s statement read, of wanting to use the celebration to prevent its workers from attending other organized events.31 The calculus behind the cancella28 29 30 31

Anzeiger (Möhlin), May 8, 1934. National-Zeitung (Basel), May 12, 1935. Anzeiger (Möhlin), May 8, 1934. Volksstimme (Rheinfelden), April 30, 1936.

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tion becomes clear when one considers that in 1934 the Baťa May Day celebration truly had been attacked far more fiercely than in 1935. In 1934, for example, the communist paper Vorwärts described the occasion as a cunning response to radicalization among the working class – and resorted to crass comparisons: “In order to counter this radicalization, Baťa – following Hitler’s model – intends to deceive the working class with a massive feast on May 1. […] As in Hitler’s Germany, May Day – the day of action of the working class – is to be defiled”.32 The most significant reason for the cancellation of the 1936 celebration was doubtless the symbolic content of May Day. A celebration of the seditiously connoted “day of action of the working class” would definitely send the wrong message for Baťa in Switzerland. Anyway, a different holiday was a much better match for its new national image: Swiss National Day on August 1. Already in 1934, Baťa had granted the “entire workforce (ca. 500 workers) a day off in honor of Swiss National Day on August 1.”33 By making Swiss National Day a non-working day, the Czech concern had implemented – quite early – what was made official throughout Switzerland only in 1993 through a popular referendum. Soon, however, work was again performed at Baťa on August 1 – not in the factory, but with festive devotion to the “Fatherland.” Baťa’s Swiss National Day celebrations were more restrained than the previous May Day festivities, but their significance was unmistakable. Starting in 1937, “the birth of the Confederation” was celebrated on company grounds with accordion players in traditional Swiss costume and by collectively singing the national anthem. After the celebration in the generously decorated colony, “the workers of the Baťa factory marched in close solidarity with the village of Möhlin in the National Day parade [...], the children out in front with their colorful paper lanterns”. In contrast to its May Day celebrations, here Baťa no longer portrayed itself egocentrically as the region’s largest employer; rather, it was a modest participant in the official festivities of the municipality of Möhlin. In so doing, Baťa portrayed itself – just a few years after its arrival – as an enterprise with deep roots in Möhlin. Or, as the Anzeiger summed up the patriotic impact of the National Day celebration, “certainly a good sign of the solidarity of Baťa, village and homeland.”34 2.7. WHAT LANGUAGE SHOULD ONE SPEAK? Originally, the factory in Möhlin was to be run by Tomáš J. Baťa, but after his father’s death in 1932 he returned to Zlín.35 However, he remained closely connected to Switzerland. In his memoirs, the longtime head of the concern recalls: “In the 1930s, I was a frequent visitor in the Wettstein home [...] I did develop a close relationship with their father, particularly following my own father’s death.”36 One year 32 33 34 35 36

Vorwärts (Basel), May 7, 1934. Volksstimme (Rheinfelden), August 2, 1934. Möhliner Anzeiger, August 2, 1938. Erdély, Baťa. Ein Schuster erobert die Welt, 152. Thomas J. Bata and Sonja Sinclair, Bata: Shoemaker to the World (Toronto: Stoddart, 1990), 124–126.

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after Georg Wettstein’s death, in 1946, Tomáš J. Baťa married his daughter, Sonja, who was henceforth his “wife and partner.”37 But for the young Baťa, the connection to Switzerland proved to be of seminal importance not only in his personal life, but also for his business career. In 1933, he was appointed head of the Baťa store on Bahnhofstrasse in Zurich. “At my age – I was yet to turn nineteen – being in charge of one of the largest stores within the organization was a major challenge,” Baťa remembers – especially in a country “notorious for its distrust of outsiders.”38 The task would also be a challenge for the young Czech from a linguistic point of view. In his autobiography, Tomáš J. Baťa offers an anecdote from a conversation with a customer in Zurich that ended with the sale of two pairs of Baťa shoes. Later, he learned from an employee that the client had been satisfied with the service provided by “a young man who seemed to know his business.” But praise was followed by reproach: However, he couldn’t help noticing that the salesman didn’t speak the distinctive Swiss brand of German. Given the high unemployment that prevailed in Switzerland at the time, he felt the store should be hiring local staff rather than blankety-blank Germans. I took the hint and promptly began taking lessons in Switzerdeutsch.

By the time of his departure for Zlín at the end of 1934, Baťa could pass linguistically “as a resident of some remote Swiss canton,” as he noted with satisfaction.39 In this case, then, the imageological bricolage of a Swiss – even region-specific identity took place in the very form of Tomáš J. Baťa’s personal expression. In contrast, the German of influential director Josef Šimsa retained a heavy Czech accent – it is no wonder the longtime head of the Baťa colony in Möhlin never took on a representative function for Baťa’s national image in Switzerland. 2.8. WHAT ADVERTISING SHOULD ONE USE? The purpose of advertising can be deduced from Luhmann’s definition, “only communication can communicate,”40 which is as simple as it is far-reaching – for it is not the concern that communicates, but its means of communication, and above all its advertising. Advertising performs a prominent function in representing an image. Through it, the company communicates a notion of its products, but – above all – also of its desired image. Baťa’s advertising in Switzerland soon drew on the expertise of external specialists including – starting in the 1940s – such distinguished Swiss advertising designers as Herbert Leupin and Donald Brun. If one examines the 1936 poster by Zurich’s Studio Selecta in terms of Panofsky’s three-strata model,41 the given shoe price must be related pre-iconologically: 37 38 39 40 41

Ibid. Ibid., 33–35. Ibid. Niklas Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung, 6. Die Soziologie und der Mensch (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1995), 37. Erwin Panofsky, Ikonographie & Ikonologie (Köln: DuMont, 2006).

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For 1.50 francs it was possible to purchase just about 5 liters of milk or 1 liter of cooking oil; the average price of a pair of shoes at the time was around 7 francs.42 Iconographically, the low-priced pimsoll can be recognized in front of the outline of Switzerland. Inside the hatched Swiss territory is a centrally positioned Swiss cross. Furthermore, the company’s location is prominently labeled with “Möhlin Aargau” as well as a stylized three-story building. Iconologically, the subjects with the country outline and Swiss cross make an unambiguous nationalistic statement. In addition, there is a reference to a novelty within the local shoe industry: the typical Baťa pimsoll with a rubber sole. Of interest here is in particular the emphasis on the location of the “only Swiss galoshes factory,” which should evoke the home of Baťa in the public consciousness. Baťa’s identification with Möhlin seems especially strong in this poster. Studio Selecta’s contract work places Möhlin in the national limelight. Several similar campaigns made the unfamiliar village widely known; they put Möhlin on the map. The now significantly expanded colony became a selling point for potential Baťa customers. 2.9. WHAT OCCASIONS SHOULD ONE SUPPORT? Besides newspaper advertisements and posters, the shoe enterprise soon turned its advertising activities to sponsoring as well. In Möhlin, Baťa appeared as a great patron of sports, among other things. In addition to its own football club, Baťa also 42

Gadient, Bata in der Schweiz, 31.

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2.6. Recreation room in the Baťa colony in Möhlin, ca. 1940.

had a cycling club. And thus it was in cycling that Baťa’s most sensational sponsoring campaign was launched. The shoe concern appeared prominently in the 1939 Tour de Suisse. In this year, the cycling tour – first staged in 1933 – was larger than ever before, with just under 80 riders from eight nations. Due to the extremely palpable threat of war in the summer of 1939, the race turned into a manifesto of “spiritual defense.”43 Baťa more than satisfied the nationalistic mood with its sponsoring campaign. The Baťa support vehicle decorated with Swiss flags was merely one aspect of a nationalistic communication chain that literally rode through Switzerland in 1939. This included the sponsored occasion per se – as a cycling tour through the Swiss countryside is certainly one of the “most Swiss” occasions one can imagine. Baťa made sure the popular event would pass through Möhlin as well. The Anzeiger announced proudly: “Möhlin will play a special role in this stage; after all, the Möhlin Prize has been endowed by Bata-Schuh AG.” Not all participants in the Tour were eligible for the 500 franc prize, however; it was only offered to Swiss riders.44 Thus, in a sponsoring campaign in Switzerland just seven years after its arrival in Möhlin, the “King of Shoes” from Zlín was utterly xenophobic. In addition to the Tour de Suisse, Baťa figured prominently at the national exhibition in Zurich. The fourth rendition of the irregularly staged event was completely in the trappings of the “spiritual defense.” A contemporary witness described 43 44

Martin Born, ed., Tour de Suisse: 75 Jahre, 1933–2008 (Zürich: AS, 2008), 50. Anzeiger (Möhlin), August 4, 1939.

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2.7. Park in the Baťa colony with the “Landi pergola,” ca. 1940.

the so-called “Landi” as follows: “It was a patriotic surge!”45 And where there is a “patriotic surge” in the second half of the 1930s, it seems, Baťa cannot be far away; this was also the case for the national exhibition. At the exorbitant expense of 1,000 francs, the company made it possible for Möhlin’s schoolchildren to visit the exhibition. Baťa sent not just the children of Möhlin to Zurich, however, but also its workers. Baťa captured the excursion to the “Landi” on film. The recordings attest to the patriotic manifestation that took place in Zurich in 1939. Many visitors came in traditional Swiss costume. They walked through the “Landi-village” – which imitated regional architectural styles, listened to accordion players, and watched flag-wavers. Baťa screened the film sequences of its employees’ excursions as well as of its factory complex in the factory’s recreation room. The necessary technical apparatus was available, as a photograph taken ca. 1940 shows. For this photograph, the room was garnished with technical equipment – as with portrait paintings of noblemen where the objects stand for something. Here, they stood for Baťa’s modernity. In the 1930s, the financially strong global concern kept pace with progress – and not only in Zlín; even in Switzerland it could afford an airplane, automobiles, and photographic as well as film cameras. Baťa was not afraid to deploy modern tools to influence public opinion – and the national exhibition in Zurich was also a suitable venue for this. Under the impression of the abundantly staged folklore, it was often forgotten that the “Landi” was also supposed to represent Switzerland’s progres45

Christof Dejung, Thomas Gull and Tanja Wirz, eds., Landigeist und Judenstempel. Erinnerungen einer Generation 1930–1945 (Zürich: Limmat, 2002), 76.

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siveness. The state-financed event fostered shared values, but also the belief in Switzerland’s technical preeminence. It is both a “summer full of celebrations and full of patriotism,”46 as well as a “national showcase.”47 The national exhibition, with its interplay of the dichotomous concepts of tradition and modernity, is notably consistent with Baťa’s national image. In its public relations, the concern no longer acted like the international “King of Shoes,” but plainly and modestly as Baťa, the galoshes manufacturer from Möhlin. With its state-of-the-art product, it was well suited to a country performing a balancing act between tradition and modernity. And so it was no surprise that Baťa sent its workforce on a pilgrimage to Zurich at considerable expense. The “patriotic surge” of 1939 even earned a monument in Möhlin: Even today, the stone pergola from the national exhibition forms the center of the park in the Baťa residential settlement.48 2.10. FROM EXPANSION TO PRODUCTION STOPPAGE “From an able but little-known farming village, Möhlin has developed into a widely known industrial town,” summed up the Anzeiger less than six years after the start of production in Möhlin.49 In reality, by the end of the 1930s – through the campaigns of Baťa’s enemies and above all thanks to Baťa’s image building as a national concern – the town of Möhlin had become a well known place in Switzerland. The connection between Baťa and Möhlin, however, was much more than merely imageological. At the beginning of the 1940s with some 500 workers, the shoe factory was by far the largest employer in the village, which from the start of production in 1932 grew by some 1,000 residents to 3,820 in 1950. Compared to other Baťa satellites, the Baťa colony in Möhlin grew to only a modest size. From 1942, the Zurich architect Hans Hugo Hannibal Naef – to whom Tropeano attributed a “playful interaction with modernity”50 – became the formative architect in the cautious completion of the colony, which in its clear stylistic vocabulary always followed the model of Zlín functionalism. Even though many of Naef’s projects were never executed (among them a swimming hall, a stadium, and a hotel), the Baťa colony grew into an attractive settlement with green space designed by renowned landscape architect Johannes Schweizer. Naef’s clubhouse in 1948 marked the end of the growth. From the point of view of urban development, the clubhouse was a clear counterpoint to the factory zone: In the linear sequence of functions, it was the center of the resting zone, which was surrounded by a tennis 46 47 48 49 50

André Lasserre, Schweiz: Die Dunkeln Jahre. Öffentliche Meinung 1939–1945 (Zürich: Orell Füssli, 1992), 25. Charles Linsmayer, “Die Krise der Demokratie als Krise ihrer Literatur: Die Literatur der deutschen Schweiz im Zeitalter der geistigen Landesverteidigung,” in Frühling der Gegenwart. Erzählungen, Band III, ed. Charles Linsmayer (Zürich, 1983), 448. Widmer, Die Bata-Kolonie in Möhlin, 230. Anzeiger (Möhlin), February 1, 1938. Ruggero Tropeano, “Hans Hugo Hannibal Naef, 1902–1979,” in Die Bata-Kolonie in Möhlin, ed. Architekturmuseum Basel (Basel, 1992), 33.

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court and a miniature golf course, among other things. With the clubhouse, Naef managed to “smoothly bridge the gap between Baťa’s formalistic utilitarian architecture of the 1930s and the modern contemporary architecture of Switzerland ca. 1950.”51 In 1960, the cautious growth of the Baťa colony in Möhlin came to an end. In addition to the clubhouse, it was now surrounded by seven factory buildings as well as 25 residential buildings for 300 people. From the 1940s on it was quiet around the colony. Baťa used the Möhlin headquarters only occasionally for its imagebuilding activities. With respect to the imageological bricolage of its brand image, the company soon seemed to have set other objectives for itself than representing Möhlin – in the 1960s, for example, as a youthful producer of dance shoes, and later also as a ski boot specialist. With the postwar economic boom, the industry in Möhlin became diversified. Until the beginning of the 1970s, however, Baťa remained by far the largest employer, with some 750 workers. With rising wages, however, the manufacture of labor-intensive products – which shoes undoubtedly are – soon became too expensive. The gradual dismantling of production ended at Baťa in Möhlin in 1990, and since then Baťa has withdrawn completely from Möhlin. 2.11. CONCLUSION Of particular interest among the range of changes taking place around 1935 inside the Swiss Baťa company is the fact that public relations became more professional. In Switzerland at the time, the Czech concern was intensively refining its image as a national enterprise with the help of local graphic designers, architects, and advertising experts. The Baťa colony in Möhlin was built into an integral part of the new image. It is the central sign in the imageological bricolage of a national concern, for the name of the village lent Baťa a local appearance. As late as 1973, the influential local politician Franz Metzger stated that the terms “Baťa and Möhlin” were often “fused together” in the public perception. 52 In order to consolidate its new image, the internally still very Czech concern made use of a complete set of nationalistic signs. In addition to the emphasis on its Möhlin origin, these also include celebrating Swiss National Day, sponsoring the Tour de Suisse, the use of Swiss dialect in communication, and the ubiquitous appearance of the Swiss flag. During the same period, politicians and intellectuals in Switzerland made use of “similar imageological fillers.” As Marchal and Mattioli contend, however, they did this for completely different reasons;53 in contrast, Baťa is downright profligate with such “fillers.” The characterization of Baťa by his arch51 52 53

Widmer, Die Bata-Kolonie in Möhlin. Kontakte (Möhlin), August 6, 1973. Guy P. Marchal and Aram Mattioli, “Nationale Identität – allzu Bekanntes in neuem Licht,” in Erfundene Schweiz. Konstruktionen nationaler Identität, eds. Guy P. Marchal and Aram Mattioli (Zürich: 1992), 18.

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rival, Iwan Bally, as the embodiment of the principle that “there is no sentiment in business”54 not only applies to Baťa’s production methods and pricing policy, but also to its image building. For the “global player,” there could hardly have been excessive sentiment for the “Swiss” that was present, but for business in Switzerland in the 1930s there is no doubt that a national image was particularly lucrative. Ultimately, the company was not concerned with giving expression to a sentiment, but rather with capturing one – in this case the national sentiment, the nerve of the day. Beyond the economic argument, however, it is important to take seriously the constructivist objection that an image not only represents reality, but also creates it. From the late 1920s on, Baťa was not just part of the socio-cultural context in Switzerland, but – in retrospect – also an astoundingly coherent indicator for the complex period of the 1930s. In a country full of contradictions – which Switzerland was at the beginning of the decade – it seems no coincidence that a “King of Shoes” from Moravia should itself have been perceived as a contradiction. Baťa stood for the foreigner – which was defined by shoe syndicates, fascist circles, and communists, among others, as a real threat to Switzerland. The resolution of the virulent contradictions in the concept of “spiritual defense” found a rather synoptic accompanying phenomenon in Baťa’s change of image. In the shoe concern, too, it was possible to strip away the contradictions after 1935. Baťa had set the nationalistic signs in its imageological bricolage so unerringly, that by the end of the decade its shoes were hardly identified anymore in broad circles of the population with the idea of foreignness. The medium of Baťa shoes now ran in a Swiss product. Made in Möhlin.

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Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zurich), November 29, 1934.

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3. BAŤA IN PONITRIE1: ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SLOVAK COMPANY TOWNS OF VEĽKÉ BOŠANY AND BAŤOVANY (TODAY PARTIZÁNSKE) Oľga Kvasnicová In the mid-19th century the ambitious Austrian businessman Adolf Schmitt, owner of a tannery in Krems, visited Bošany in order to do business with Count Bošáni in trade with tree bark. Schmitt soon noticed the perfect conditions to establish a tannery (sufficient water supplies, plenty of tree bark in the nearby woods, the opportunity to buy raw materials in the rich agricultural region and the tradition of leather processing in the village). Thus in 1857, a factory called the Veľkobošianska imperial patent factory for leather, transmission belts and military equipment began operating. This factory soon became well known all over Europe, and awards from international trade fairs (e.g., in 1862 in London, in 1877 in Paris) showed the world-class quality of its products. After Adolf Schmitt’s death in 1899 his son-inlaw Julius Leidenfrost managed the factory for a short time before the brothers Budischowsky bought it from him in 1904.2 The factory (hereinafter the Veľkobošianska leather factory) became a part of the Busy company. The economic crisis in the 1920s, unemployment and the resulting emigration had a negative influence on the development of the factory in Bošany. Surely, the expansion of Baťa’s concern played an important part. Several shoemaking factories and tanneries went under;3 among them was Baťa’s biggest rival in Czechoslovakia: the Busy company in Třebíč and Karel Budischowsky and sons in Bošany. All of these companies were in debt to the Moravian Bank, which controlled them. They were practically without profit, so the bank decided to stop their production on January 1, 1931. It was the wish of the government, particularly of the Finance Minister Karel Engliš, who cooperated closely with the bank, that the Moravian Bank should offer these companies to Tomáš Baťa. Baťa visited Bošany personally in 1930 and decided to buy the factory. Thanks to this decision, the village had a good public transport connection (Bošany is situated on the Nové Zámky–Prievidza railway line), as well as other criteria that promised a successful development of the factory, Veľkobošianska leather factory, formerly known as 1 2 3

Ponitrie is an area in the southwestern part of Slovakia located in the administrative regions of Nitra and Trenčín. It consists of the districts of Nitra, Zlaté Moravce, Topoľčany, Bánovce nad Bebravou, Prievidza and Partizánske. 120 rokov garbiarstva na Slovensku (Bošany, 1977), 14ff. Bohumil Lehár, Dějiny Baťova koncernu (1894–1945) (Praha: Státní nakladatelství politické literatury, 1960), 152.

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3.1. Old Tannery in Bošany.

A. Schmitt, became a part of Baťa’s company. The first director was Alexander Řezník.4 Bošany was not the only area of interest in the Ponitrie region. Baťa intended to expand his activities. In 1930, company representatives were interested in buying the estate of the family Zay in Uhrovec, as well as the starch factory in the nearby Chynorany. These purchases were not carried out.5 At that time, about 150 people were working in the factory in Bošany, which was in a deep crisis. According to the contemporary press releases, Baťa was thinking about stopping production completely, but, fortunately, he decided to change his plans.6 First he addressed personnel issues by dismissing all the employees, only to hire some of them back the next day who he was sure would work properly, as well as new, especially young employees. After this staff reorganization, he continued with rebuilding the old plants. He ordered new machines and restructured the whole production process according to the system in Zlín. Intensive production began in 1931. Thanks to the new owner, the decline of the factory that had lasted several years ceased, and a very successful chapter in the history of the leather tannery in Bošany began. The implementation of new technology, combined with discipline at work – especially of the young employees who studied in Zlín – soon brought positive results. 4 5 6

120 rokov garbiarstva na Slovensku, 24. Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, Státní okresní archiv ve Zlíně (ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín), Baťa a. s. Zlín (Baťa), sign. II/8. Press cuttings. Ibid.

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3.2. White Colony.

Thanks to Baťa’s company, the appearance of the small, unkempt village began to change gradually. In 1933–34, two living quarters for workers were built for company employees: Red Colony (for its red brick color) and White Colony (for its white rendering). In the following years, another 48 similar houses and four workers’ hostels were constructed. In accordance with Baťa’s style of building modern settlements, a department store, a hotel, a canteen and a cinema (Slávia in 1938) were built as well. To meet the company’s needs, more buildings were constructed: storehouses, an electrical distribution plant, a printing plant in 1940, etc.7 After Tomáš Baťa’s death, the following directors were in charge of the factory in Bošany in the years 1934–35: J. Fischer, L. Gerbec (Jan Baťa’s brother-in-law), Jindřich Baťa, J. Klátil, Ján Lupták, Otakar Voděnka. New production halls grew around the factory, and shoe production was established in addition to leather processing. The factory in Bošany soon became the major shoe producer in Slovakia, and Jan Baťa intended to expand production.8 The shoes, especially leather work boots, made in the tannery were produced in only one plant since January 22, 1934, but the plan was to extend the production to four plants and produce 20,000 pairs of shoes per week.9 The factory was to employ a few thousand people. Thanks to Baťa’s factory and the planned expansion, there was a great chance for Bošany to 7 8 9

Štátny archív v Nitre, pobočka Topoľčany (SAN-PT), fond Okresný úrad v Topoľčanoch (OUT). Records 1933–40. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, sign. II/8, Press cuttings. Ibid.

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3.3. Red Colony.

become a highly developed industrial center in Ponitrie. Rubber production started in 1939. To carry out further factory expansion plans, it was necessary to buy land from private owners. But then a problem arose. In the 1930s, Baťa’s leaders carried out many negotiations with landowners in Bošany. Jan Salzberger possessed the largest property; in 1921, he leased 600 hectares of land from the owners of the country estate of the Bošáni family (almost the entire estate – the Bošáni family retained only 100 hectares). Jan Salzberger could not sell the land because he was not the real owner. Other smaller owners saw an opportunity, so they began to demand higher prices for their land.10 The main reason was that the land was of very good quality and was suitable for agricultural production and could not be sold as building land. In some cases, farmers demanded 4 crowns more per square meter than Eugen Salzberger from Šimonovany did.11 An example of the unwillingness of people from Bošany to give up their land was the meeting in January 1939, which was attended by Baťa representatives – Dr. Ladislav Tolt, Dr. Kún – and a lawyer from Topoľčany and Bohuslav Kristl from Zlín, representatives from the District Office of Topoľčany and representatives from the municipality of Bošany. This meeting concerned the expropriation of the land of 64 landowners in Bošany, which was necessary for the expansion of the factory. The owners said they would give up their land only if Baťa exchanged their 10 11

SAN-PT, fond Obvodný notársky úrad Bošany (ONUB), sign. 4542/1938. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, sign. XX/2.

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land for land of the same quality. They asked Baťa to pay them the difference in quality in cash. Moreover, they demanded that Baťa build new buildings to replace the ones they would lose on the expropriated land. Company representatives refused the landowners’ demands.12 An entirely different situation occurred in the Eugen Salzberger’s manor (he was a son of Jozef Salzberger, who died in 1930) in the nearby municipality of Šimonovany. This landowner was presumably in financial straits and needed to gain money. His Jewish origin and the fact that it was the year 1938 had considerable relevance. As a result of this coincidence of circumstances, he offered his plots of land in the village of Šimonovany for sale for a significantly lower price. Originally, the company MAS belonging to Baťa’s corporation should have built an engineering factory for the production of bicycles and shoemaking machines here, because the shoe production was planned for Bošany. When on May 18, 1939 Jan Baťa personally came to Bošany, hardly anybody realized that the day was going to be the birth of a totally new town. Besides the leading factory and community representatives, Jan Baťa also invited to the negotiations the architect František Fackenberg, attorney Dr. Zvala from Topoľčany and deputy Teodor Turček from Nedanovce. Jan Baťa had submitted all the documents concerning Bošany as well as Šimonovany, and, shortly before noon, he decided to change his plans and to build a shoe factory in Šimonovany. The contemporary press even recorded that he had engaged the corporate journalist Michal Dada and gave him 15 minutes to invent the name of the new town. The name Baťovany was the best of several proposed names, which respected the regional practices concerning the formation of the names of the villages and towns, which ended in this region mainly with the suffixes -any or -ce (Topánkany, Topánkovany, Topánkovce, Čižmárovce, Baťovce, Baťovany). So today’s town of Partizánske, as one of the few in Slovakia, knows the exact date and nearly the exact hour of its birth as well.13 This decision shattered at the same time all hopes of the inhabitants of Bošany for a great future. The shoe production was moved to Šimonovany, and although the tannery in Bošany remained an important part of Baťa’s company and still employed a lot of people from the surrounding area, its progress, as well as the progress of the municipality, never reached such dimensions as would have been the case had Baťa’s original plans come to fruition. After the industrial reorganization in Slovakia, the tannery separated from Závody 29. augusta in Partizánske and from January 1, 1953 an autonomous national corporation Koželužne Bošany (Bošany Tannery), which employed approximately 580 people, was established.14 At the time of its greatest expansion, the company employed about 2,000 employees. After 1989, the privatized corporation went quickly bankrupt, and in 2008 the company Koželužne Bošany was expunged from the Companies Register. However, 150 years of tradition in tanning in Bošany 12 13 14

SAN-PT, OUT, sign. 1136/1939. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, sign. II/8, Daily press cuttings; Budovateľ, Volume 1939. Osemstoročné Bošany. Monography of the municipality (Bošany, 1983), 66.

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did not cease to exist. Nowadays, several limited-liability companies operate in the complex of the former tannery (Koželužne, Garbiareň, etc.), and they carry on the production and the processing of leather as well as shoe production. Let us turn back to the year 1938 and move a few kilometers upstream on the Nitra River. Here, on some 700 hectares, the municipality Šimonovany was situated, with a population in the 30s of 483 inhabitants. On June 1, 1938, the MAS company signed a purchase contract with the manor owner Eugen Salzberger and started to make preparations for the construction of a factory, which should employ approximately 2,000.15 In addition to Salzberger’s lands, the MAS company also bought lands from the municipality and was also negotiating with the owner of the second manor, Lujza Šimoniová. Initially, the company rented her grounds for five years.16 A big advantage in this case was the fact that a free, vacant area allowed the realization of plans for building an ideal town from the beginning, just as Baťa preferred. The first construction workers came to Šimonovany in summer 1938. They had to wait until the last crops from the fields were harvested, and immediately after the harvesters and the threshers had gone they started to perform the first excavation works. Officially, the construction of the MAS engineering factory started on August 8, 1938 and continued at a speed typical for Baťa. Already on August 12, 1938 the building license for the construction of 20 family houses was issued; at about the same time, the building license for the construction of the first three-floor production hall was issued as well, because its construction had started a short time before that.17 The building of the town was undertaken according to the regulatory framework. Its main author was architect Jiří Voženílek. It was a plan for a modern industrial town of 5,000 to 15,000 inhabitants, which, as Baťa’s architects believed, guaranteed a balanced development of the town in all its aspects – work, social and leisure.18 From this perspective, Šimonovany had a great advantage in comparison to nearby Bošany, where Baťa’s intentions could be carried out only within the area for construction that already existed in the municipality. Antonín Špot from Zlín managed the construction of the plant and of the settlement. Vojtěch Baťa was charged with leading the emerging plant. The promising construction start was stopped by political circumstances. The Munich Agreement, the declaration of Slovak autonomy on October 6, 1938 and, finally, the establishment of an independent Slovak state on March 14, 1939 created a completely new situation, to which Baťa’s corporation had to respond. At that time, Baťa owned a great deal of property in Slovakia – in addition to the factories in Bošany, Baťovany, Batizovce and Nové Zámky, he possessed almost 300 retail shops (294 retail shops in 1938), and therefore he had to find a way to solve the situation. In Šimonovany two two-floor production halls, some family houses and a hotel called Spoločenský dom were in the process of construction. It was also ur15 16 17 18

SAN-PT, fond Obvodný notársky úrad Šimonovany (ONUS), Document No. 4097/1938 adm. Ibid. Rental contract dated January 27, 1940. Ibid. Document No. 2803/1938 adm. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, sign. XV – Regulation plan 1938.

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3.4. First buildings in Šimonovany – Baťovany.

gently necessary to solve the presence of the Czech construction workers and master craftsmen, who should be present also at the beginning of the production. Namely, after the foundation of the Slovak state, Czech inhabitants were suspended from their positions and had to leave Slovakia. In special cases, the state granted exceptions. District authorities in Topoľčany dealt daily with applications from Baťa’s company asking for granting exceptions for the Moravian experts, so that they would not have to leave Slovakia. Of course, the workers and master craftsmen from Zlín in Bošany were also included. According to the preserved documents, the authorities did not make too many problems in this case, and the residence permits were issued mainly because the employees were professionally irreplaceable.19 The situation changed after Jan Baťa signed a 1-million-crown “present” for the Slovak government, a gift meant for the economic renewal of Slovakia. This contribution enabled his further business activities in Slovakia. This business was managed under a new company name, Baťa, slov. účastinná spoločnosť. The construction of the plant and of the settlement started up again after May 18, 1939, after Jan Baťa definitively decided in Bošany that instead of the intended engineering plant, footwear would be produced in Šimonovany. Evidence of the speed of the construction works is also the fact that on July 15, 1939 the first pairs of shoes were produced. The production started literally on the run. In Zlín, complete sets of sewing machines and sole machines were loaded on trucks. A semi-finished daily plan 19

SAN-PT, ONUS, Document No. 1434/1939.

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of production was also packed and transported from Zlín to Baťovany. Here, the production was placed on conveyers of the prepared machines, and the unfinished work continued. The same people as in Zlín operated these machines. They were mostly Slovaks trained in Zlín, but many Czech people came, too. They were gradually joined by the workers from two shoemakers’ workshops in Bošany, which were moved to Baťovany. The production started in an unfinished building, where there was not even glass in the windows. It happened that women workers were turned away from the machines by the rain. The power plant was not built yet, and therefore the industrial steam necessary for the footwear production was made by the locomobile standing under the windows of the production hall. Despite these hard conditions, 940,000 pairs of leather shoes were produced in Baťovany by the end of 1939.20 At the same time, the employees started to move into new flats in a newly built street. In 1940, the hotel “Spoločenský dom” and the cinema were also christened. The problems with traveling were solved with the construction of a railway stop between the municipalities of Šimonovany and Veľké Bielice. The stop opened on June 28, 1940. Already during the first months of the construction of the new factories in Slovakia, company representatives were considering the creation of their own import and export company, which would serve production purposes on one hand and sales purposes of their own products on other. And so in 1939 Slovenská účastinárska spoločnosť Kotva was established in Šimonovany. Its initial phase was pioneering, as well as the initial phase of the whole corporation, which was starting at that time. The increase of international business activities almost demanded the transfer of the company activities to Bratislava, which was the seat of central authorities who were making decisions in issues dealing with foreign trade.21 After the liberation of the country, the name of this company changed to BATEX. The arrival of the Baťa company to Šimonovany was truly a blessing for the municipality. A small, unknown municipality became literally overnight one of the best known municipalities in Slovakia. Besides a fast growing settlement, thanks to the income from the company Baťa even the parent municipality was developing; paving, construction (1939–42 a modern town hall) and repairs (the church) were performed, a brook causing frequent flooding was regulated, the main road was paved, etc. The manor under the direction of Baťa’s people was reconstructed into a modern, prospering agricultural company. Šimonovany had been so modernized within three years that in 1942 the village aspired for a title Model Village of Slovakia.22 In 1942 the construction of 50 semi-detached houses and a school started.23 In 1943 the construction of an eight-flat block of flats started. In that year, 2,067 inhabitants were already living in the municipality, and it was still growing.24 If we con20 21 22 23 24

Pavol Kapusta and L. Bedus, ZDA Partizánske 1939–1989 (Martin, 1989), 9. Laco Paška, Aby národ žil: Baťovany (Partizánske, 1948), 98. SAN-PT, ONUS, Document No 1258/1943 adm. SAN-PT, OUT, Document No 161/1942 adm. SAN-PT, ONUS, Document No 703/1943 adm.

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3.5. Town built on a greenfield site.

sider that this massive development was taking place during the war, which caused destruction almost everywhere else, it was really a moment that must have necessarily been reflected in the attitudes of people toward the political course of events. But Baťa’s people were knowledgeable, so many of them participated actively in the Slovak National Uprising.25 From the liberation of Baťovany until February 1948 the municipality was (still) living in a special atmosphere. Two contradictory ideologies coexisted next to each other here: the factory, even though under the national administration of Jozef Trojan, who still possessed “Baťa spirit,” and the management of the municipality, which was under the control of the Communists. Despite the fact that the political crisis in the society was coming to a head, a kind of ideological tolerance existed in Šimonovany–Baťovany. A report about Baťovany even appeared in the American newspaper New York Herald Tribune. The journalist Maurice Hindus wrote at that time that: “The Communists and the Democrats were proud of their town and were so happy because of the success achieved by their corporation that they showed friendship and ideological tolerance toward each other.”26 February 1948 ended this idyll, however. The violent withdrawal of democratic parties from public life soon also was visible in the atmosphere in the town. In spring 1948 it was time to solve definitively the question of the name and the character of the municipality Šimonovany–Baťovany. The official name of the mu25 26

Partizánske – staré a nové epochy (Partizánske, 2000), 103. Mesto Partizánske. Chronicles of the town, Part 1.

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nicipality was still Šimonovany, but the name Šimonovany–Baťovany had been used by the company Baťa from the beginning. The settlement of Baťovany had surpassed its parent municipality in importance a long time before. In 1948, 3,450 inhabitants lived in Baťovany (650 in Šimonovany), and this number was still growing. The municipality already had all the attributes of a town: paved roads, sidewalks, parks, sport stadium and a sewage system. The Interior Commission granted the request on November 18, 1948, and from January 1, 1949 Baťovany became a town. In February 1949 the town was renamed Partizánske and the Baťa company renamed Závody 29. augusta [August 29th Works], abbreviated to ZDA.27 The history of this socialist corporation is another story. It is perhaps enough to remark that the corporation was a leading company in the footwear industry in Slovakia until 1990, and throughout those 40-some years, life in Partizánske was inseparably connected with factory life. In the 70s, for instance, more than 11,000 people were working there. The majority of the inhabitants of Partizánske and also of the surrounding area were employed there. The privatization process after 1990 and the division of the corporation into several limited-liability companies, accompanied by the collective layoffs of employees had an effect on life in the town. Today, several companies dealing with the footwear production exist in the town, but the “Baťa spirit” can be found only in the meetings of “Baťa’s people” – graduates of the Baťa School of Work, ageless people spreading a typical “Baťa spirit” and enthusiasm even today.

27

Partizánske – staré a nové epochy, 106ff.

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4. THE ESTABLISHMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE BAŤA FACTORY IN SVIT (1934–45) Božena Malovcová Spiš is one of the most picturesque areas of northern Slovakia. The beauty of the region under the High Tatras was noticed also by Baťa, who had been interested for a long time in Slovakia and its unused workforce. In the early 1930s there was no village or settlement from Lučivná to Poprad. There were only two pubs, which were famous in the region for several decades or perhaps centuries. One of them was known as “Závadka,” and the second one was called “Stupava.” On one side of the road between the pubs there was a marsh and some pastures, through which flowed the Poprad River. Farmers worked on vast fields, unaware that soon there would grow an industrial city that would radically change not only the surrounding of the countryside but also their previous life.1 Jan Antonín Baťa was the founder of today’s Svit, which successfully realized a grandiose idea to establish a new factory and new town under the High Tatras. Much negotiation was necessary to acquire the land, although eventually the ground was soon to produce a greenfield town. In a short time, the vast and flat Štokava region had noticeably changed. Baťa’s company from Zlín showed an interest to buy the land belonging to Veľká (a part of Poprad city since 1946) and presented its demand to the area’s representatives in March 1934. On March 17, 1934 a deputy of the Baťa company attended a meeting of Veľká representatives with an interest to buy 85–100 cadastral acres2 of the land to build the factory and family houses. Disputes arose concerning the price of the land, the railway station name, the colony name, to whom would the company employ, etc. The mayor of Veľká, a man named Trompler, prodded the municipality in his letter dated May 28, 1934, saying that “the matter is very urgent because the Baťa’s company after the land sales approval will immediately start building of the factory which is the interest not only of the village Veľká but all the region as well because the company will employ workers there.” The contract between Veľká and the Baťa company was signed in June 1934. The land acreage of 59 hectares, 97 ares and 74 sqm was purchased for 250,000 Czechoslovak crowns.3 Construction started about three weeks after the signing. In the interim an access road and a dwelling with gatehouse were built.4 1 2 3 4

Marcel Ganlanský et al., SVIT 50 rokov (Osveta, 1984), 18; Ján Teťuľa, Začiatky výroby vo Svite (manuscript, Svit, 1965), 4; Private archive of Ladislav Glórik. Katastrálne jutro (cadastral acre) = 0.5754642 hectare. Štátny archív v Levoči, pobočka Poprad (SAL-PP), Okresný úrad v Poprade (OUP), 6933/1934. Galanský et al., SVIT 50 rokov, 22–23.

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Along with masonry and preparing the ground, samples of Poprad River water were taken and checked for suitability. Tests proved that the water was acceptable, and the process of the producing artificial fibers was tested in a small trial station. On June 16, 1937 it was mentioned in the news that the Slovak Zlín was growing like mushrooms after rain. According to the provisions issued on February 6, 1936, the Svit corporation in Batizovce was established on the basis of the permit for the Baťa company as well as for Jan Antonín Baťa with unlimited validity. The permit was issued by Interior Ministry based on the agreement with the Foreign Trade, Finance and Public Works Ministry. The name of the company was “Svit, účastinná spoločnosť.” The board of directors’ members were Jan Antonín Baťa , the factory owner from Zlín; Dominik Čipera, mayor of Zlín; Hugo Vavrečka, factory director in Zlín; Dr. Pavol Fábry, lawyer; Dr. Jozef Kallay, County Committee member; Ján Pálka, factory owner from Liptovský Mikuláš; and Július Stano, County Committee member. On June 4, 1937, board Chairman Jozef Kallay gave power of attorney to Čipera. The corporate seat was Batizovce. The company was also entitled to establish its branches and warehouses throughout the country and abroad. The share capital of the company was 10 million crowns, divided into 10,000 shares worth 1,000 crowns per share. The inaugural general meeting of the company, presided over by Jozef Kallay, was held on May 24, 1937. The following activities were mentioned in the annual report from 1936: The company produces Svit artificial silk and Priesvit transparent film. In autumn 1936 the building of the halls for production of artificial silks, Svitna and Slovlna, started to show properties similar to the wool. The company hopes that this new production – the first of its kind in the Czechoslovak Republic and one of the first in Europe – brings foreign exchange to our national economy in place of the previous imports of cotton and wool. During the very short time since the establishment of the factory, the company paid the state over 1,600,000 crowns in tax payments, dues and charges. The number of employees exceeded 500 at the end of 1936. Everybody came from the area, so the company thus decreased the unemployment rate of the region.5

The machines in the trial station were launched for the first time on September 24, 1934. The first employees of the station were Štefan Grác, Ondrej Javorský, Ján Povetz, Anna Olexová and Gizela Olexová. The staff, not fully skilled when it began, was led by a man named Weil; after long and difficult work they produced the first artificial silk yarn on September 28, 1934.6 In 1935 the production of the artificial silk in the trial station became stable. At the same time the run-up to the first real production was under way. As part of the process, a new road was made on area toward Poprad that had not been built up. Three new houses for workers were built next to the public road. In February 1936 the production of silk yarns was launched. The number of workers employed in the new factory grew from 90 to 530.7 5 6 7

SAL-PP, OUP, 4560/38. Teťuľa, Začiatky výroby vo Svite, 7–9. Ibid., 10–11.

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4.1. The Experiment Station. Smoke rises from the chimney of the first power plant.

The Baťa company worked out labor relations with the workers. The provisions were a part of the employment contract and valid for all the company staff including the management. An interesting employee statistic follows: It’s necessary to employ married workers and women from families which already have someone working at the company. In principle it’s necessary to keep at work only people that we will be able to move into Svit or have a house nearby. We would like to have all the people at home! The present state (in the beginning of 1936) is as follows: 90 workers, of these 30 married, 30 single men, 30 girls. Five hundred employees, of these 200 married, 160 single men, 90 girls and young 50 men were counted for the year 1937.8

In 1938 the production of cellophane film was launched under the trade mark Priesvit. In 1941 Priesvit was the most modern and proven wrapping film on the world market. It was supplied to the market as sheets or ready-made bags in many colors, thicknesses and shapes. A decorative advertising printing was also possible to use, if required by customers. It’s interesting that consumption of Priesvit was the lowest in Slovakia, despite the fact that it was the most hygienic, tasteful and cheap wrapping film at that time. It was exported to many western countries, where they always paid attention to packaging, but mainly to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. 8

SAL-PP, OUP, 6611/ 1939, šk. 125; 6611/ 1939, šk. 125.

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In 1937 the first trial of the production of artificial yarn with the properties of cotton – a yarn known as Svitna – was performed. The longest machine at the factory was assembled for the purpose. There was some disappointment with the first yarn result due to its fragility, unevenness and weakness. But all the inequalities were solved during the next six months. Another new product, Slovlna, which was a substitute for sheep’s wool, enlarged the range of products. Soon after achieving stable production, customers started calling for colored wool. Tests and production trails started once again and lasted until 1940. By that time the wool reached such high quality that it could have been compared with the yarns produced in foreign countries. In 1943 the chemical production had become stable, and weekly output by October 5, 1943 reached the following levels: Slovlna – 15,000 kilograms, Svitna – 40,000 kilograms, silk – 5,500 kilograms, Priesvit – 8,800 kilograms.9 These products proved themselves in the knitting industry, but it is necessary to point out that the products were completely new and original commodities and not alternate ones. Their properties were equal to the cotton and wool used until that time, and the price was 20 times lower. Similarly, if there had not been Svit artificial silk, then women wouldn’t have had such easy access to fine silk fabrics, cheap clothes and stockings. In 1941 the price of genuine silk was 400 crowns per kilogram, while 1 kilogram of Svit cost 120 crowns, which explained its quick acceptance in Slovak households.10 The increasing production of artificial silk prompted thoughts of ready-made products produced from the firm’s own silk, instead of selling only raw materials or semi-finished products. As a result of these considerations, the stocking shop from Liptovský Mikuláš moved to Svit in November 1939. Moreover, 40 female employees came as well. The production of stockings and knitting clothes was growing every year. Some 30,000 pairs were produced in three shifts of production in February 1940. In the same year, according to plan, the production of clothes started in small trial batches. The first knitting machines were ordered and put together. The quality lingerie under the Svit trademark coming to the shops was very popular as one of the cheapest available, so the world was open to it. About 1,300 employees worked at the company in 1941. The production capacity was about 2 million products per year. The new ready-made products – lingerie and stockings – were only sold to exclusive retailers, who numbered about 800 in 1943. Some shopkeepers were exclusively selling goods from Baťa’s Svit factory. Later, all production was sent to Baťa’s shoe shops.11 The accommodation for workers was erected along with the factory. The housing area of the factory was called Červená kolónia (Red Colony) or Záhradná kolónia (Garden Colony). The first seven houses were built opposite the factory site. The workers of the testing station were accommodated there. In the spring of 1937 9 10 11

Ťeťuľa, Začiatky výroby vo Svite, 53–54, 59. J. Janík, “Letmý pohľad na Batizovce–Svit,” Slovenská obroda, April 20, 1941, 4. Registratúrne stredisko a archív Chemosvitu, a. s. Svit (RSACH), advertisement 1941. Moderné podnikanie pod Tatrami. Zdarná činnosť firmy Baťa v Batizovciach. RSACH, advertisement 1941.

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4.2. Red Colony (also known as Garden Colony).

the inhabitants started to trim the houses and the factory surroundings. They planted 2,600 trees and small shrubs. The trimmed areas were seeded with grass and beautified by flowers. This decoration is why visitors gave it the name Zahradná kolónia (Garden Colony) or Záhradná osada (Garden Settlement). Several years before this, no one would have guessed that something so beautiful would sprout here and that the infertile soil would be used in such an ingenious way. All of this was done according to Baťa’s motto: “thoroughly, rightly, cheerfully.”12 In 1938, 16 four-room houses, 32 semi-detached houses and three boardinghouses for the unmarried were built for the workers. In 1941 the foundation stone of the new 10-family house was laid in the colony. An extension to the folk-culture school was built that year as well. The building of the family houses also continued during the Second World War.13 A district chief from Poprad described the situation in the Baťa company in 1943 as follows: “The Baťa company looks after its employees from the social, cultural, as well as hygienic point of view so excellently that it generates envy and dissatisfaction among the other companies’ workers in the surroundings, because everybody would like to have such good conditions as at Baťa.”14 12 13 14

Viliam Ríša, Do štvrtého roku, Vysoké Tatry, 1938, Issue 22, 6. RSACH. Teťuľa, Začiatky výroby vo Svite, 28, 54. SAL-PP, OUP, 186/1943 prez., šk. 81.

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4.3. Red Colony (also known as Garden Colony).

Only current employees were promoted to leadership positions; for example, after three years of practice the successful candidates could be appointed accountant, foreman, the boss of the workshop, buyer, etc. Major attention was paid to foreignlanguage learning. The employees could attend 100 hours’ worth of language lessons, studying English or German either as beginners or advanced. The employees could attend lessons of Italian as well. The top learners were delegated to England, Italy or Japan.15 The employee-education program was ensured by the Baťa School of Work, where in 1939 the following specialties were established: comprehensive chemistry school, machinery school and textile school. A business school followed in 1942. The educational process consisted of the work at the factory, education at the comprehensive school and compulsory accommodation at the boarding houses. Karol Ryšavý was appointed the first director of the Baťa School.16 In 1938, as part of the declared mobilization, many of Baťa’s employees entered military service. Due to the fact that the factory was an important one for state 15

16

The employees signed an appendix to the employment contract that required that they were able to speak at least two major languages beyond their mother tongue. The following languages were accepted: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Arabian, Hindustani, Malayan, Chinese and Japanese. RSACH, Smlouvy Svit, 1939/1, šanón 780. Noviny a výstrižky 1937 – 1938. Ľudovít Linczényi, “Baťova škola práce,” TECHNIK revue slovenského inžinierskeho dorastu, Year 4, Issue 8, 1943–44, 387.

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4.4. View of Svit today.

defense, many of them could return to work. The political changes affected the production program and caused problems with sales. Despite the war, the employees in the beginning did not feel the threat of the war. The new warehouses and boarding houses were built, and the Poprad riverbed was rebuilt and relocated and thus the appearance of the colony was changing daily. On September 2, 1944, after the occupation of Svit by the German army, the company management was required to supply the army with winter clothes. The employees of the factory sabotaged it by pretending they had a lack of needed yarns as well as knowingly decreasing production capacity. A special guard was created by the people of the German nationals and guardsmen. The company management also sabotaged the orders for the evacuation of machinery equipment; they pretended that only the management in Zlín could make such a decision. The machines, as well as a great deal material, were thus saved and later used. On January 28, 1945 the Germans mined the factory, which caused a lot of damage. They wanted to knock the factory out of production. Mostly the parts of the stocking and knitting production department were damaged. Due to its concrete structure, the building did not collapse, and production was renewed soon after. After the passage of the troops, many deserted flats, damaged buildings and encampment detritus remained.17 17

Galanský et al., SVIT 50 rokov, 22–23. Svit 1934–1945. Documentary film. Svit City Television in coproduction with K.M.K comp, 1995.

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Svit is now a modern industrial town. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the Baťa factory, the monograph História jednej myšlienky. Svit 1934–2009 [History of an Idea. Svit 1934–2009]18 was issued. It maps development of the factory and the town from its beginning to the present day and is a great contribution to knowledge not only of Svit’s history but also of the successful introduction of Baťa’s idea into real life.

18

Božena Malovcová, História jednej myšlienky: Svit 1934–2009 (Spišská Nová Ves: BAMBOW, 2009).

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5. MODERNITY ON “BRABANT’S HEATH”: BUILDING BATADORP IN THE NETHERLANDS, 1932–1959 Elisabeth van Meer In 1959, the N.V. Nederlandsche Schoen en Lederfabrieken, Bata, Best (Bata-Best) celebrated its 25th anniversary. The company was located in the municipality of Best, in the south of the Netherlands, in the province of North-Brabant. By 1959, Batadorp (Bata village) consisted of a factory complex for the production of shoes, boots, and socks; a water plant and paper mill; as well as over a hundred houses, educational and sports facilities, and a movie theater.1 As part of its 25th anniversary, Bata-Best also published a booklet entitled Ergens op de Brabantse Heide (Somewhere on Brabant’s Heath). It illustrated how this largest shoe producer in the Netherlands had been “stamped out of the soil of the heath.”2 Juxtaposing the booklet’s beautiful illustrations of modern production facilities, medical care unit, marching band, etc., with a mental image of North-Brabant’s traditional landscape, the reader could have easily concluded that Batadorp had brought modernity to a place where there was “nothing” before. This paper, however, challenges such a premature conclusion. The landscape of North-Brabant has indeed traditionally been marked by moorlands. North-Brabant’s identity, both in the eyes of its own inhabitants as well as in the eyes of the rest of the Netherlands, has also been predominantly agricultural. But this traditionally Catholic province is also marked by its long history in export-oriented consumer goods production. This paper, therefore, argues first of all that North-Brabant’s existing modern features made it an attractive location for the Baťa company to come to in 1933 (rather than the other way around). Secondly, the architectural modernity that Baťa did bring to Best was not fully unprecedented either. As we will see below, several Dutch companies, including the Philips company in nearby Eindhoven, had been offering family housing, outfitted with relatively luxurious facilities, set in an architecturally distinct community to select groups of their employees since the late 19th century. Thirdly, in the first decades of its existence, Batadorp was modified further by the peculiarities of its Brabant locality. By 1959, although still a company town, local elites anchored Batadorp to the new municipal community of Wilhelminadorp within the new Catholic parish of Saint Antonius of Padua. Finally, this paper concludes with a brief look at today’s Batadorp, as recently Bata Industrials, Best municipality, and North-Brabant province have begun to cooperate to preserve Batadorp’s architectural, industrial, and landscaped heritage. 1 2

Ergens op de Brabantse Heide (Best: N.V. Nederlansche Schoen- en Lederfabrieken, BataBest, 1959). Ibid., 3.

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5.1. NORTH-BRABANT BEFORE BATADORP: CONSUMER GOODS PRODUCTION AND AN EXPORT-ORIENTED INFRASTRUCTURE, 1800–1932 In 1933, the Baťa company purchased a production site near Best, a small town in the heart of a historic region called the Meierij, in the Bishopric of Den Bosch, in the south of the Netherlands. The Kingdom of the Netherlands, as it emerged in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, was traditionally a predominantly protestant country. However, its southern provinces of North-Brabant and Limburg were traditionally predominantly Catholic.3 The Province of North-Brabant consists of two bishoprics: Den Bosch (established in 1559) and Breda. The city of Den Bosch, as the traditional seat of the bishop and of the provincial government, was the Meierij’s oldest urban center. Over the course of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the region saw the rise of two additional metropolises: Tilburg and Eindhoven. These two cities especially grew on the basis of export-oriented consumer goods production. Tilburg, and its neighboring communities, gradually became centers of textiles and footwear production in the 19th century. Dutch shoemaking, tanning, and other leather industries became especially concentrated in “the Langstraat.”4 From the onset, Langstraat production was made for export to surrounding towns and regions. Whereas traditional urban guilds had sought to monopolize high-quality footwear production, the Langstraat specialized in cheap, non-customized shoes instead. Cheap leather shoes were an attractive alternative to wooden shoes in rural markets. Moreover, as new shoes, they also competed successfully with secondhand customized shoes; first in Brabant’s urban markets, then in extra-regional Dutch markets. Consequently, in 1820, 2,600 of an estimated total of 11,000 Dutch shoemakers were located in North-Brabant. By 1890, Brabant produced half of the total Dutch shoe production of 4–5 million pairs. By 1930, just before Baťa’s arrival, the annual Dutch production was 10 million pairs a year, with about twothirds of these made in North-Brabant.5 The rapid rise of Eindhoven in the late 19th century was especially shaped by the success of the Philips electronics company. Brothers Gerard and Anton Philips established the first Dutch incandescent lamp factory in an old textiles plant in Eindhoven in 1891. By 1914, Philips already employed 2,370 workers. The com3

4

5

For a brief history of the formation of the Dutch Republic in the 16th century, the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Belgium in the 19th century, and related confessional divides see, e.g., Paul Arblaster, A History of the Low Countries (Palgrave Essential Histories) (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006). The Langstraat (Long Street) referred to a 35-km-long road connecting Den Bosch to Geertruidenberg. In the early 19th century, shoe production especially concentrated in the towns of Waalwijk, Besoyen, Kaatsheuvel and Sprang. Tanneries followed in a string of towns more to the south, including Tilburg, Gilze and Rijen, Oosterhout, Dongen, Alphen and Riel, and Oosterwijk by the mid-19th century. C. A. Mandemakers, “De ontwikkeling van de schoen- en lederindustrie, ca. 1800–1990,” in Textiel- kleding-, leder-, schoen- e.a. lederwarenindustrie. Een geschiedenis en bronnenoverzicht (Amsterdam: NEHA, 1993), 53, 55–6. Mandemakers, 54–5, 59; see also Drs. Jan B. L. Verster, De Nederlandsche Lederindustrie tot 1939 (Doetichem: C. Misset, 1939), 5–31 for the history of the leather industry before 1800.

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pany continued to grow, also after World War I, when it began mass producing complete radio sets. By 1929, almost 23,000 workers, i.e. two-thirds of Eindhoven’s working population, were employed at Philips. Moreover, by 1930, Philips had become the Netherlands’ most important export company.6 Located just northwest of Eindhoven, the small town of Best developed into a historical competitor to the Langstraat long before Baťa’s arrival as well. Over the course of the 19th century, Best, and neighboring towns like Boxtel, Liempde, St. Oedenrode, Schijndel and Veghel emerged as the center for wooden shoe production in the Netherlands. For example, in 1859, there were 649 clog makers in NorthBrabant employing 1,054 workers. Best and vicinities alone employed more than 380 of these workers in 142 shops.7 Many clog makers continued to work by hand, though mechanization entered in the 1920s. When construction for Batadorp began in 1933, Best was one of the most mechanized clog-making towns. Not only was it home to the largest wooden shoe factory in the Netherlands, an additional twelve companies in Best used machinery for at least part of the production process.8 Regional specialization and competition in consumer goods production in North-Brabant also went hand in hand with the creation of a dense export-oriented infrastructure. Between the late 19th century and 1932, railroad and waterways provided increased access to the North Sea and neighboring Belgian and German markets. For example, in 1866, Best became a stop on the railroad connection between Tilburg and Eindhoven.9 By 1923, Best was also located on the new Wilhelmina Canal, which linked the Zuid-Willemsvaart to the Mark River. In the year it opened, 8,000 ships used the Wilhelmina Canal. In 1924, the number was up to 10,000 and, by 1930, a total of 19,000 ships passed through. Best was to be connected to Eindhoven through the Beatrix Canal as well. Construction took place between 1930 and 1932. The economic crisis caused a shortage of funds; the Beatrix Canal was ultimately not completed until 1940.10 Moreover, beyond an extensive rail and canal network, North-Brabant had one additional infrastructural attraction: “the first airport in the south.”11 On September 16, 1932, Eindhoven officially opened its new large, civilian, airport. The Baťa company would thus find likeminded airplane enthusiasts in the Philips company. 6

7

8 9 10 11

Don Kalb, Expanding Class: Power and Everyday Politics in Industrial Communities, the Netherlands, 1850–1950 (Durham: Duke UP, 1997), 81, 103–4. More specifically, Kalb called Philips “by far the country’s single most important earner of sorely needed foreign currency” in the interwar period. C. A. Verkuylen, Brabantse klompenmakers en hun geschiedenis (Amsterdam: Princeneiland, 1991), 12–13. The exact figures given for 1859 were, e.g.: Best with 21 clog makers and 108 workers; Boxtel with 24 companies, number of workers unknown; Liempde with 11 clog makers and 65 workers, St. Oedenrode with 16 companies and 57 workers; Schijndel, with 50 companies and 116 workers and Veghel with 20 clog makers and 41 workers. Jean Coenen, Te Best Wart: De geschiedenis van Best en zijn vroegere grondgebied (Best: Rabobank Best, 2000), 330; “Restauratiesubsidie Batafabrieken en schoorsteen Oirschotseweg,” Groeiend Best, March 16, 2010, 15. Coenen, 215–216. Coenen, 280–281. “Het eerste vliegveld in het Zuiden,” Geillustreerd Zondagsblad van de Nieuwe Tilburgsche Courant, September 17, 1932, 7.

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5.1. Construction of a factory building, Batadorp, Best.

Welschap airport was located just west of the Philips factories. In 1933, Frits Philips, the son of Anton, headed the new North-Brabant Aeroclub and, in 1935, gained his pilot license.12 By 1934, Eindhoven was also already an important hub on Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Brussels connections. KLM, the royal Dutch airline company, provided a twice daily service to, for example, Amsterdam. From there, the passenger could use regular KLM services to most European countries, including Czechoslovakia.13 In sum, when in 1932 Baťa representatives began scouting out the Netherlands for a suitable production site we may understand why, by 1933, their choice had fallen on 160 hectares of “heath” in North-Brabant. The municipal government of Best was prepared to sell this area, called the Breeven, for 62,250 Dutch guilders14 – a relatively cheap price to pay for a site located in the heart of the Netherlands’ competitive consumer goods industries. Moreover, the site was already linked into modern infrastructure aimed for export. Bata-Best would be built right where the Wilhelmina Canal and the Beatrix Canal were planned to connect. The company therefore had ready access by canal, rail, and road to Brabant’s leading export town of Eindhoven, and its airport, just to its south, as well as to the older centers of Tilburg and Den Bosch. At the same time, the land was fairly isolated from the town 12 13 14

“Off. Opening clubhuis N.B.A.C. te Eindhoven,” Algemeen Handelsblad, May 1, 1933, evening edition, 7; “Vliegen in Brabant,” Het Vaderland: Staat- en Letterkundig Nieuwsblad, April 3, 1935, 3. “Eindhoven en het Internationaal Luchtverkeer, Een dubbeldagsche dienst,” Het Vaderland: Staat- en Letterkundig nieuwsblad, May 1, 1934, 3. “Baťa naar Amsterdam, Belangrijke besprekingen,” Het Vaderland: Staat- en Letterkundig Nieuwsblad, March 16, 1932, morning edition, 1; “Een Bata-fabriek te Best?,” Het Vaderland: Staat- en Letterkundig Nieuwsblad, August 11, 1933, evening edition, 1; Coenen, Te Best Wart, 335.

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of Best itself, which lay on the other side of the Wilhelmina Canal, initially without even a bridge between them.15 Likewise, this meant that the company was at considerable strategic distance from its immediate competitors in the Langstraat. This gave Batadorp the potential to develop into a distinct community within an already modernizing region. 5.2. DUTCH COMPANY TOWNS BEFORE BATADORP: THE MODERNITY OF AGNETAPARK, HEVEADORP, PHILIPSDORP AND DRENTS DORP, 1880–1932 Batadorp’s modernity certainly stood out in comparison to the average farm or workman’s house in Best or in the Langstraat. In 1930, Best municipality consisted of only about 833 houses.16 Some of those had just begun to be connected to electricity, but water and sewage systems would not be built until after World War II.17 Similarly, a typical Dutch working family in that time period only had two rooms for all activities. A traditional shoe-worker’s house in the Langstraat even had only one room.18 By contrast, between 1933 and 1938, Batadorp came to consist of 123 large family houses, all connected to Bata-Best’s own water, sewage, gas and electricity systems. Each house also had a plot big enough for a garden. Yet if we compare Batadorp to older Dutch company towns, we may recognize the longer history of cultivating this modernity. After all, Batadorp was certainly not the first company town in the Netherlands (this was Agnetapark), nor was it the first company town to produce footwear in the Netherlands (Heveadorp did this already), nor was it the first company town in North-Brabant (the Philips company had already constructed Philipsdorp and Drents Dorp). As we will see below, all these company towns already offered spacious family housing with relatively luxurious facilities in architecturally distinct communities to carefully selected groups of their employees. First of all, Agnetapark, near Delft in North-Holland, was the Netherlands’ first company town. It was built between 1882 and 1885 by Jacob Cornelis van Marken. The first chemical engineer to graduate from Delft technical college, van Marken started several chemical companies in and around the town. One of the most successful was the Koninklijke Nederlandse Gist and Spiritusfabriek (Royal Dutch 15

16 17 18

Early attempts to construct a bridge in the 1930s failed for lack of finances. In 1942, Best municipality and Bata-Best agreed to split the costs and a wooden foot bridge was built. However, in September 1944, this bridge was blown up by the German army. A permanent, iron, Batabrug (Bata bridge) was only built in the fall of 1947 and officially opened on December 6. Wim Berkers, Wilhelminadorp tussen Bata en Best: Geschiedenis to 1960 (Best: Motest, 1983), 7–10. Coenen, Te Best Wart, 273. The estimated population was 4,253. An above-ground electric grid was built in the mid-1920s. Water and sewage systems were only gradually installed between 1947 and 1960. Until that time people relied on water pumps. Coenen, Te Best Wart, 284. “Woningbouwvereniging Domein 100 jaar”, Groeiend Best, Maart 22, 2011; “Aflevering 31, Schoenenindustrie in Waalwijk,” Accessed June 30, 2011, www.omroepbrabant.nl/?news/ 99860752/Aflevering+31+Schoenenindustrie+in+Waalwijk.aspx.

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Yeast and Methylated Spirits Factory). Agnetapark was built for its workers. Dutch garden architect Louis Paul Zocher was hired to design the street plan, and architect F. M. L Kerkhoff and E. Gugel designed the first 108 houses. Inspired by English garden towns, Agnetapark consisted of large housing blocks topped with straw roofs in a park (rather than a village) setting. Agnetapark also already had its own school, bakery, and grocery, as well as sports and recreation facilities. Yet not all houses were built equal: There were 2 blocks of 28 houses, 11 rows of 4 houses, and 1 block of eight houses. Jacob and Agneta van Marken themselves occupied the town’s only villa in the center of Agnetapark; allowing them to set the example and keep an eye on the hygiene of their workers. In addition, van Marken pioneered the first company canteen in the Netherlands, where employees could eat their own home-brought lunches. Moreover, van Marken also offered the first Dutch company newspaper, the Fabrieksbode, encouraging a shared interest in the achievements of the company in particular and modernity in general.19 Secondly, in 1921, Heveadorp was the first Dutch company town to become engaged in footwear production. Dirk Frans Wilhelmi, founder of the Vereenigde Nederlandse Rubberfabrieken N.V. Hevea (Hevea rubber company) established Heveadorp, in 1915, on the Rhine River in the forest-rich Veluwe region in Gelderland. As Baťa would a decade later, Hevea thus strategically chose a site near a major waterway for transporting raw materials and finished goods, surrounded by cheap land for future expansions, yet isolated enough to build an independent community. By 1921, at least 143 residencies were built to accommodate the start of the production of “cress shoes” (rubber soles with leather uppers) in 1922. By the 1930s, the Hevea company made a variety of rubber footwear including boots, house slippers, and plimsolls, as well as rubber military products such as gasmasks. Wilhelmi hired architect Jan Rothuizen to design Heveadorp, including the factory complex and the houses. Rothuizen chose to build in the English cottage-style, not unlike Agnetapark. Each house in Heveadorp also had electricity and sewage. Yet, again, not all houses were equal: Some of the 120 block-residencies designed for lower-level employees had built-in kitchens, and some did not. There were also 23 detached houses designed for administrative employees. The Hevea company also had a canteen where employees were offered hot lunches. In addition, Heveadorp pioneered a central radio system that streamed from the factory into each individual house. Moreover, just as in Agnetapark, the hygiene in the house and in the factory were carefully checked, particularly by the wife of the director. For example, all lights had to be off by 9 p.m.20 19

20

Leendert Bikker, ‘Helaas! De Holen Der Menschen’: Geschikte Woningen voor de Lagere Klassen, fragmenten uit de geschiedenis van fabriekswoonwijken (Den Haag: SDU, 1988), 12–13; “Idyllische erfenis van een sociaal bewogen industrieel,” Accessed June 30, 2011, www.architectuurgidsdelft.nl/? menuid=470,; “Agnetapark,” Accessed June 30, 2011, www. architectenweb.nl/aweb/archipedia/archipedia.asp?ID=5727. Agnetapark was named after van Marken’s wife, Agneta Matthes. Because of its setting, Agnetapark has also been called the first Dutch tuindorp (garden village). Bikker, Helaas!, 31–35; “Heveadorp – De Inwoners,” Accessed June 30, 2011, www.cultuurwijs.nl/cultuurwijs.nl/cultuurwijs.nl/i000904.html,; Martijn van der Steen and Mark van der Twist, “Lang geleden, er was eens: Zorg voor arbeid, Heveadorp als company town,” in Op weg

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5.2. Aerial photograph of the company town of Batadorp in Best, 1933.

Thirdly, the Philips company built some of the earliest and largest Dutch company towns in North-Brabant in the 1910s and 1920s. Engineer Gerrit Jan de Jongh, father-in-law of Anton Philips, was hired to design the street plan and sewage system of Philipsdorp. The first two hundred houses were built between 1910 and 1912. Each house had gas and running water. But again, different types of housing blocks were designed for different categories of employees (including office staff and supervisors, foremen, charge hands, and workers). In 1916, 80 more houses were added for glass blowers. By 1921, an additional 453 houses for workers, office staff and additional skilled workers were built in Philipsdorp designed by architect K. P. C. de Bazel. Moreover, in 1927, when Philips started mass production of radios, it built a second community called Drents Dorp, which consisted of over 500 houses by 1929.21 When placed within this brief history of Dutch company towns, Batadorp did not bring radical modernity to North-Brabant or the Netherlands. Especially com-

21

naar de Doe het Zelf Democratie: van Burger Participatie naar Overheidsparticipatie (2008). Accessed June 30, 2011, www.nsob.nl/files/pdf/De Doe het Zelf Democratie – Van der Steen en Van Twist.pdf. In 1912, Wilhelmi had initially established the Hevea company in Hoogezand, Groningen, for the production of bicycle tires. Soon, however, the local population protested against the smell this rubber factory produced. In 1915, Wilhelmi searched for a more welcoming site to build a bigger factory. This became Heveadorp on the Rhine River. In addition to the strategic advantages mentioned in the text above, the smell also drifted away more easily along this big river. A. Heerding, The History of N.V. Philips’ Gloeilampenfabrieken, v. 2, A company of many parts (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988), 263–5; Kalb, Expanding Class, 169.

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5.3. Factory residential district, Batadorp, Best.

pared to Philips’ towns, Batadorp was only of modest size. Moreover, similar to the older Dutch company towns, Batadorp’s architecture still reflected the hierarchy of the factory floor. Overall, sources suggest that Batadorp’s “123 houses on the heath” consisted of nine different types. All were designed by the company’s own architects and construction department. Who designed the main factory complex is unclear, but Antonín Vítek appears to have been the main architect of the houses built between 1933 and 1938. In 1941, one larger house designed by Rossmanith was added as well. Nearly all were duplexes, two-floors in height, offering three bedrooms, made from machinated bricks, and topped with the signature flat roof. The main factory complex – consisting of the shoe factory itself, the office building, and the sock factory – was three floors in height. Each of these three buildings included an elevator tower, was made from reinforced concrete, and had foundations strong enough to add two more floors. To be even more specific, Batadorp’s first houses, completed in 1933, were five duplexes for lower-level employees (type I) and four duplexes for higher-level employees (type II). Both designs included bathrooms, but only the latter had their own garages. In 1935, twelve duplexes for lower-level employees were added, again all with bathrooms. The last housing blocks, completed in 1938–9, were all for lower-level employees. This included seventeen duplexes of type V outfitted with a shower.22 22

For further specifics about the buildings, see their respective entries in the register of Rijksmonumenten (National monuments): “Rijksmonument nr. 512318,” www.kich.nl/kich2010/rapport.jsp?id_qualifier=ODB:Rijksmonumentnr&id=512318; “Rijksmonument nr: 512319,” www.kich.nl/kich2010/rapport.jsp?id_qualifier=ODB:Rijksmonumentnr&id=512319; “Rijksmonument nr: 515262,” www.kich.nl/kich2010/rapport.jsp?id_qualifier=ODB:Rijksmonumen tnr&id=515262; “Rijksmonument nr:512323,” www.kich.nl/kich2010/rapport.jsp?id_qualifier =ODB:Rijksmonumentnr&id=512323; “Rijksmonument nr: 512328,”www.kich.nl/kich2010/ rapport.jsp?id_qualifier=ODB:Rijksmonumentnr&id=512328; “Rijksmonument nr: 512324,” www.kich.nl/kich2010/rapport.jsp?id_qualifier=ODB:Rijksmonumentnr&id=512324; “Rijks-

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5.4. Family houses in the factory district, Batadorp, Best.

But why and to whom specifically were these modern buildings and facilities offered? Notably, Batadorp only housed a very limited number of employees. When Bata-Best started production in 1934, it already employed a total of 1,400 workers. Batadorp only provided housing to 123 families (by 1938). The majority of its employees therefore commuted. Some came from neighboring Best, while others arrived by rail or bus from elsewhere in North-Brabant, or even from Belgium.23 Bata-Best was, again, not unique in this. As mentioned in the previous section, the Philips company employed 23,000 people in 1929 – more workers than could be housed in Philipsdorp and Drents Dorp combined.24 Similarly, in 1957 the Hevea company employed around 1,800 workers. Heveadorp still offered housing to over one hundred families, but the majority of its workers commuted in on 22 different bus lines as well.25 Only employees who were deemed essential for the start of a new production process were offered the modernity of the company town. These employees were typically drawn from outside of the company’s immediate locality. For example, when the Philips company began producing new metal-filament lamps in the 1910s, it needed a significant number of skilled engineers, metal, and glass workers. They had to be recruited from outside of rural North-Brabant, including other parts of the

23 24

25

monument nr: 512332,” www.kich.nl/kich2010/rapport.jsp?id_qualifier=ODB:Rijksmonumen tnr&id=512332; “Rijksmonument nr: 512333,”www.kich.nl/kich2010/rapport.jsp?id_qualifier =ODB:Rijksmonumentnr&id=512333. Coenen, Te Best Wart, 335. It should be noted that Philips built more communities than Philipsdorp and Drents Dorp. For example, Woensel (521) and Tivoli (500) also expanded to accommodate for radio production in the late 1920s. (Kalb, Expanding Class, 169). Nevertheless, total company housing provided by Philips remained substantially below the size of its workforce. Bikker, Helaas!, 36.

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5.5. Factory buildings, Batadorp, Best.

Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and even from Bohemia.26 The modernity of Philipsdorp was offered to this select group of skilled workers, with the goal of convincing them to grow roots in North-Brabant and remain loyal to the company even when they had employment opportunities elsewhere. In addition, the modernity of Drents Dorp was aimed at a select group of unskilled laborers. They too were recruited from outside of North-Brabant. With the support of the Dutch government, Philips selected large families from Drenthe’s rural peat region to move to Drentsdorp and take up employment in its new radio factory. Significantly, Philips selected only families who had at least three daughters over the age of thirteen (who showed dexterity and discipline for low-skilled work in psychotechnical testing), and who had additional children who could join the Philips production line at a later age. 27 In the 1920s, the growth of Heveadorp had followed a similar corporate modernity to accommodate the new production of cress shoes. Hevea recruited large families from agricultural areas in Groningen, Drenthe, and by the 1930s even from North-Brabant. Fathers had to agree their children would take up employment at Hevea once they came of age.28 In these latter cases, carefully selected unskilled 26 27 28

Kalb, Expanding Class, 149–50. Kalb, 171–172. Bikker, Helaas!, 35; “Lang geleden, er was eens: Zorg voor arbeid, Heveadorp als company town,”18.

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working families were offered the modernity of the above-mentioned company towns with the goal of securing a reliable, and well-disciplined, labor reserve for the expansion a new labor-intensive production process. The building of Batadorp between 1934 and 1948 can be understood in a similar historic light. Its first occupants “were about twenty families and bachelors from Czechoslovakia,” who were said to have “slept on the factory floor until their houses were finished.” Experienced in managerial and other skilled positions at the Bata company, this select group of employees was deemed essential to the successful start of a new production facility in a foreign country. It was only “later that Dutchmen found housing in Batadorp” as well. 29 Moreover, the recruitment of large families was part and parcel of Batadorp too, at all levels of employment; as we have just seen, the layout and facilities of each housing type differed, but they all were outfitted with three bedrooms. 5. 3. BATADORP IN NORTH-BRABANT: BECOMING A CATHOLIC PARISH WITH A NEW NEIGHBOR, 1933–1959 Originating from outside of Catholic North-Brabant, Bata-Best did face initial skepticism upon arrival in Best in 1933. In particular, local political and religious elites worried that the company and its immigrant labor force would reintroduce “socialist ideals” to the town.30 And as a sign of lingering “outsider” status, several Batadorp inhabitants recall being referred to as “Batajoekels” living in the “Bata Colony” by their neighbors across the canal.31 However, from the 1930s onward, Bata-Best and existing local leadership actively worked to overcome Batadorp’s outsider status.32 The result of their negotiations, by 1950, was a Batadorp anchored 29 30

31

32

Vanda van der Kooi, “Elke dag om zeven uur opstaan met de Batafluit,” Eindhoven’s Dagblad, August 20, 2010; “Aflevering 5. Batadorp in Best,” Accessed June 30, 2011, www.omroepbrabant.nl/?news/969761063/Aflevering+5+Batadorp+in+Best.aspx. Berkers, Wilhelminadorp tussen Bata en Best, 3; Coenen, Te Best Wart, 275–6. In the 1920s, a communal farm whose participants were dedicated to socialist and anarchist causes briefly existed on 143 hectares of heath just south of the Wilhelmina Canal. The Ploeg (Plow), as the farm was called, drew several journalists and visitors from all over the Netherlands. By 1928, however, the Ploeg had fallen on hard times, closing down completely in 1930. When Batadorp brought newcomers again to the south of the Wilhelmina Canal just a few years later, some wondered if they were the new “Bolsheviks on the heath.” Recollecting her childhood in Batadorp, Mimi Hanusch noted that children from across the canal yelled “Batajoekels” at them. She and her friends simply hurled back “Kaaskoppen” (cheese heads; common slang for Dutchmen). van der Kooi, “Elke dag om zeven uur opstaan met de Batafluit.” According to the recollections of one former Bata-Best executive, the Baťa company organized a trip to Zlín for Mayor Strik and Pastor Vos during the negotiation process over the sale of the Breeven. That way, “they could see for themselves what kind of people were coming to Best. They returned without any objections.” Jan Vogels and Wim van Laarhoven, “Interview met dhr. Van Genuchten over Bata,” in Uit de Kelder: Driemaandelijkse uitgave van Heemkundekring ‘Dye van Best’ 41 (April 2010), 8–11, Accessed June 30, 2011. http://www.heemkundebest.nl/image1lib/uitdekelder201004.pdf.

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to the new municipal community of Wilhelminadorp within the new Catholic parish of Saint Antonius of Padua. In the 1930s, Best municipality was led by mayor Peter J. C. Strik, a prominent member of the Roman Catholic State Party (R.K. Staatspartij). He appears to have perceived newcomer Baťa especially as a provider of much needed employment and revenue. Like so many towns, Best was significantly hit by the Great Depression. Strik sought to combat it, in line with the policies of the Dutch government, through spending cuts, including lowering the salaries of civil servants. The arrival of Bata-Best provided revenue through the sale of municipal lands. It also diminished the number of people the municipality needed to spend funds on for work creation projects (werkverschaffing), and benefited some of Best’s unemployed clog and farm workers.33 In the 1930s, the Bishopric of Den Bosch was led by Mgr. A. F. Diepen. As was customary, he claimed spiritual leadership over the new inhabitants of Batadorp. Bata-Best accommodated his involvement. Pastor Gerard Vos, who presided over the Catholic community of Best, blessed the new plant and the community at the opening.34 Pastor Vos continued to tend to Batadorp after the opening as well, using the canteen as an impromptu “church” by 1937. Then, in 1939, the Bishop of Den Bosch assigned a new pastor, Jozef Duffhauss, to administer to Batadorp only. Bata-Best again accommodated his extended presence, providing Duffhauss access to all the buildings, terrains, and activities of the factory and its employees. Each Tuesday and Sunday, mass was celebrated and confessions were taken. There was even a regular visit by a Czech-speaking pastor for Czech confessions.35 By 1941, it was clear to all those locally involved that Batadorp would not just be a company town; it would be a Catholic company town, for in 1941, the bishop of Den Bosch invested Duffhauss with the task of building a new Church community. Bata-Best wanted to keep Batadorp at the center of this new parish by building the church in its midst. The amount of hectares that Bata-Best had purchased in 1934 had already incorporated the possibility of considerable future expansions. Duffhauss, however, insisted the new parish would include Batadorp, but have its church on the other side of the Wilhelmina canal. The provincial government of North-Brabant had similar ideas. It sought to better “integrate industrial and agricultural Brabant,” and favored a new community between Best and Batadorp. By 1950, the result was Wilhelminadorp, located on the other side of the canal from Batadorp and part of Best municipality. Duffhauss’s vision of a new parish not centered in Batadorp was realized. The new St. Antonius parish securely tied Batadorp to the new Wilhelminadorp, with the church located in the latter. Bata-Best ultimately supported these new developments by providing significant financial contributions to the stained-glass windows of the new St. Antonius Church and the con33 34 35

Coenen, Te Best Wart, 288, 337. Strik served as mayor of Best from 1929 until his death in 1941. De Baťa Koerier: Uitgave van de bedrijfscel der communistische partij, 1935, 2. Archief Internationaal Institituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis (IISG). Berkers, Wilhelminadorp tussen Bata en Best, 6; Coenen, Te Best Wart, 310.Vos had just been installed as pastor of Best in 1933.

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struction of the parochial house. Consequently, when Bata-Best celebrated its 25th anniversary, it clearly dominated the economy of Best. Yet many of its workers by then also lived, and worshipped, in Wilhelminadorp. Although never a radical break from Brabant modernity to begin with, by 1959 Batadorp had become even more thoroughly integrated into existing municipal, and local Catholic, structures and identities.36 5.4. POSTSCRIPT: BATADORP TODAY37 Today, Bata-Best is the headquarters of Bata Industrials, which specializes in safety footwear. This means that shoes and socks are still being produced in the original factory complex. However, Batadorp is no longer a company-owned town. BataBest sold most of the “heath” purchased in 1933 back to Best municipality in 1978, including all of the 123 houses. The municipality subsequently sold the houses over to their inhabitants.38 Batadorp consequently became a community of homeowners within the larger municipality of Best. Yet at the start of the 21st century, the community also appears to still identify with Batadorp and to have remained relatively close-knit because of it. Today’s inhabitants, together with Best municipality, North-Brabant province, and Bata Industrials, have shown an increased commitment to preserving Batadorp’s architectural, industrial, and landscaped heritage. First of all, in 2006 Batadorp inhabitants protested against municipal plans to build new housing on the site of the former Baťa director’s villa. The Bata-villa, on Batalaan 12, has thus far been preserved in its original setting; surrounded by over 100 trees on 2,400 square meters of land. However, Best municipality planned to divide the villa into two apartments. In addition, a three-story glass-walled complex (for six studio apartments) and a block of six row houses were to be newly built on the site. The purpose of these building plans, Best municipality explained, was to attract a new generation of young first-time homeowners to Batadorp. In the eyes of existing inhabitants, however, the proposed complex simply did not fit Batadorp. They especially objected to the architectural incongruity, both in terms of the height, style, and building materials, as well as in the dramatic loss of green space proposed. Faced with continued resistance from Batadorp, Best municipality finally shelved its plans for rebuilding Batalaan 12 in 2008.39 36 37 38

39

Berkers, 13–16; Coenen,278–279, 312, 336. The author especially thanks E. and F. van Meer for retrieving current source materials for this section. The tanneries, the rubber factory, and the paper mill were closed down by the 1970s. The Bata company kept ownership of the main factory complex and 5 hectares of land. Best municipality subsequently resold the houses to its inhabitants. Vogels and van Laarhoven, “Interview met dhr. Van Genuchten over Bata.” “Bewoners Batadorp voelen zich geschoffeerd,” Groeiend Best, December 27, 2007, Accessed June 30, 2011, www.bata-dorp.nl/level1/ARTK/GB 27-12-2007 Bewoners Batadorp voelen zich geschoffeerd.pdf; “Boominventarisatie Batalaan 12, Best,” Accessed June 30, 2011, www. bata-dorp.nl/level1/ARTK/Inventarisatie tuin Batalaan12 260307.pdf; “Enquête bouwplannen

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Secondly, even more recently, Bata Industrials, Best municipality and NorthBrabant province have begun to cooperate in the actual restoration of Batadorp landmarks. The shoe and stockings factories, the office building, and six duplexes (representing different building types) have all been included in a national list of protected historical monuments (rijksmonumenten).40 In 2009, Best municipality selected Bata Industrial’s application to compete for funding from the province as part of the Netherlands’ Cultureel Erfgoed (Cultural Heritage) regulations. “The company had done so much for the development of Best,” the municipality argued. In addition, the municipality appreciated the responsibility Bata Industrials took on by financing the restoration of its shoe factory itself.41 In 2010, North-Brabant province subsequently awarded Bata Industrials €320,000 to aid in the restoration of the stockings factory and office building, recognizing their significance to Brabant’s industrial cultural heritage.42

40 41 42

Batalaan,” Accessed June 30, 2011, www.bata-dorp.nl/level1/ARTK/Batadorp Enquete Oct 2007 V02.pdf; “Herontwikkeling Batalaan 12 uitgesteld,” Groeiend Best, February 9, 2008, Accessed June 30, 2011, www.gemeentebest.nl/Internet/Bijlagen/Wijkontwikkeling/In de Pers/BD-Herontw.Batal.12-020908.pdf. “512318,” “512319,” “512323,” “512324,” “512326,” “512328,” “512332,” “512333,” and “515262.” In 2004, Bata Industrials itself financed the restoration of the shoe factory (i.e. building “512318,”or “building 11” in the company’s own numbering system).“Restauratiesubsidie Batafabrieken en schoorsteen Oirschotseweg.” Ibid.

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6. “A BIT OF EUROPE IN MARYLAND”: THE BAŤA COLONY IN BELCAMP Eric J. Jenkins 6.1. INTRODUCTION Established under the nearly direct supervision of Jan Baťa, Belcamp exemplifies the Baťa company’s vision, optimism and energy and how its philosophy and practices interacted with and were ultimately misinterpreted and, perhaps, mismatched to the United States. In a greater sense, Belcamp was a microcosm of how the Baťa approach toward the built environment, community, business management and manufacturing (some of which were literally based in American practices) caught within national and geo-political and economic turmoil at the end of the Great Depression and at the outset of World War II. Despite the best intentions, the company or Jan Baťa did not seem to anticipate the setting or the reaction to the Baťa enterprise in the United States. Forces such as special interest groups, the press and even the United States government forced the hand of the Baťa company in implementing and developing its policies. In this respect, Belcamp faced similar issues to those of the early twenty-first century: globalization, conglomeration, immigration, cultural imperialism and isolationism that would help companies both rise and ultimately fall. The intention of this paper is to describe Belcamp and to suggest reasons why the town failed to mature into its original vision. 6.2. RAISON D’ÊTRE Like other Baťa satellite towns, the Baťa company established Belcamp to 1) circumvent U.S. tariffs (which were as high as 25% after 1938), 2) use natural resources in the United States and South America, 3) reduce shipping costs to markets in the United States and 4) establish a foothold in the eastern and mid-western United States footwear market.1 Jan Baťa’s Belcamp plan was quite grand and optimistic: He envisioned Belcamp as the U.S. headquarters and beachhead for manufacturing in North America. The town would house between 20,000 and 30,000 persons (approximately 10,000 workers) and provide all that was needed for a thriving modern community including churches, community center, retirement home, schools and recreational facilities.2 1 2

Alfred Henderson, “Bata at Belcamp,” Current History, May 1940, 34 “Bata Coming to Inspect His Belcamp Unit,” Baltimore Sun, July 6, 1939.

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6.1. Headline from an article on the Bata Company town; Belcamp, Maryland under construction.

Unfortunately, it did not mature into this vision. The company added only four, single-storey manufacturing buildings after 1939; the single school building was a warehouse; the community building, though occupied through the mid-1980s, was more of a hotel than a community center and the only a small group of employees and their families occupied the duplex houses. Though the factory produced footwear through early 2000, the company razed the houses, community center and school in 1999, and the factory buildings in 2004. 6.3. LOCATION Belcamp was located in northeast Maryland approximately 30 kilometers north of Baltimore, Maryland and 100 kilometers south of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. On the edge of the Bush River (a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay) on what was then a small summer resort community called “Belcamp Beach,” the surrounding area was, in the early twentieth century, primarily agricultural land. Vladimír Karfík purchased 600 hectares on behalf the Baťa company beginning in 1933.3 Karfík, who had apprenticed with Holabird and Root in Chicago and then with Frank Lloyd Wright in Arizona, was more than likely chosen for this job because of his familiarity with American practices.4 3 4

Land Records of Harford County Maryland, Liber SWC, Number 227, Folio 355, November 24, 1933. Bradley Storrer and Louis Wiehle, “A Conversation with Vladimír Karfík: Architect Worked with Both Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright,” Journal of the Taliesin Fellows 11 (1993): 8.

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6.2. Aerial photograph of Belcamp, Maryland.

“Belcamp Beach” and its surroundings offered several advantages to the Baťa company: First, an existing transportation infrastructure would easily link the town to natural resources and markets throughout the United States. The national highway (U.S. Route 40) that bisected the site was, at that time, the newest and most advanced east–west highway in the United States. Opened in 1926, the 3,678 kilometer highway crossed twelve states from New Jersey (near New York) to Colorado in the Rocky Mountains. Parallel to U.S. Route 40 was the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) railroad line. One of the oldest and most extensive railroads in the United States at the time, the B&O linked the east coast with markets in the mid-west (Chicago, St. Louis, etc.) and natural resources (leather, cotton, rubber production). The Bush River itself (if dredged) would allow access to Chesapeake Bay and the Port of Baltimore – one of the busiest ports in the United States and allow Baťa to ship to international markets and for access to cowhide from South America.5 Two additional advantages were reduced labor and land cost. Like other Baťa satellite towns, Belcamp would take advantage of inexpensive agricultural land but also to recruit young high school age workers from the region. These students, most of whom would be raised on farms or small towns, would be lured away from agriculture with promises of high wages, education and prestige.6 Additionally, this fresh labor, untainted by local industrial working habits, would be easier to train in the Baťa System – both in terms of manufacturing processes but also in establishing an esprit de corps amongst its employees. 5 6

Keith Wyatt, “New Shoes Pouring from Bata Plant,” The Sunday Sun Magazine, November 19, 1939. Henderson, “Bata at Belcamp,” 35.

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6.3. 1939 construction site plan (buildings highlighted by author)

6.4. TOWN DESIGN While the entire Belcamp property was about 600 hectares, all master plans laid out a town only in 100 hectares south of U.S. Route 40. There seems to have been no immediate designs for the remaining larger northern parcel until the Baťa Land Company developed the property as a new light industrial and residential community unrelated to Baťa manufacturing in the mid-1970s. At least three variations on the baseline plan exist – an undated, pre-1938 plan, a 1938 plan and an undated Master Plan that was painted on a large panel and discovered in Belcamp’s community building. While Karfík reputedly laid out the first design in 1933 the earliest dated plan is 1938.7 The town followed a pattern similar to other contemporary Baťa satellite towns such as Sezimovo Ústí (1939) and Zruč nad Sázavou (1939). The three Belcamp master plans were a combination grid and radial layout divided into manufacturing, public building and housing districts to separate functional zones. The common aspects of all plans were the factories, community area and radial residential areas with schools, recreation facilities, churches, and retirement home. Weaving their way through the town were ample green spaces and pedestrian pathways.

7

Vladimír Karfík, Architekt si spomína (Bratislava: Spolok architektov Slovenska,1993), 108– 112.

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6.4. Factory main entrance

6.5. CONSTRUCTION Construction began in June 1939 with the official groundbreaking ceremony in mid-July. This ceremony was a welcome event: It was seen as an important industrialization effort in Maryland’s rural communities and was attended by Jan Baťa, two U.S. Senators and other local and national dignitaries.8 Baťa veterans John Hoza (Plant Manager) and Joseph Polasek (Construction Engineer), both of whom were involved in other Baťa town projects in Europe, supervised the construction by the Price Construction Company.9 Within six months twenty houses, one factory building, the community building, director’s house and an elementary school were substantially complete. The factory began producing footwear in October 1939 (if at a slow pace and for the local market only) and in January 1940 the factory shipped its first products to national and international markets. 6.6. FACTORY BUILDINGS Initially there was only one, five-storey typical factory building; however, several one-storey buildings were added between 1945 and 1962. While the initial 1939 factory building followed the Baťa module, there was a distinct difference from its 8 9

“Bata Shoe Plant Cornerstone Laid by Tydings and Radcliffe,” Baltimore Sun, July 23, 1939. Paul Berge, “Old Harfard Face-to-Face with Industry,” Sunday Sun Magazine, June 18, 1939.

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6.5. Community building

counterparts in Europe. Though its interior columns were round, the building’s perimeter columns were rectilinear rather than the more typical round perimeter columns. The reason for the difference is unclear except that the construction processes followed more American standard construction techniques (upon which the Baťa module was initially modeled) including the use of a wood formwork rather than the mobile steel framework used in European buildings. 6.7. COMMUNITY CENTER OR SPOLEČENSKÝ DŮM Belcamp’s community center was similar to those of other Baťa satellites such as Zruč nad Sázavou. The ground level contained a movie theater, shops and the hotel lobby. The first floor was originally a ballroom and cafeteria but later a gymnasium and additional hotel rooms were added. Floors two, three and four were originally designed as a dormitory but these became hotel rooms in the 1940s and remained as such through the 1970s. The fifth floor roof level was an open veranda but part of this was, at some point before 1960, enclosed for additional hotel rooms. There were two significant differences between Belcamp and its Baťa European counterparts: First, it had two stair towers at both of its ends that were likely attributable to U.S. safety codes requiring alternative means of egress. Second, like the factory it did not use the typical round column system but square columns typical of American factory construction. An important aspect of this design was the relationship of the building’s structure to its skin. This was one of only a few Baťa buildings in which the architect manipulated the relationship between the structural frame and infill panels. In many of the large public Baťa buildings, the infill of the buildings was kept consistent

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6.6. Duplex houses

within certain types of infill. Plate glass or brick were quite often treated in a similar fashion remaining within the frame and thus keeping the concrete frame visible both horizontally and vertically. At Belcamp, however, Karfík broke this convention by allowing infill to extend or recess from the horizontal slab and column plane depending on the need. The slab extends beyond the column face by one brick wythe or width. This simple move allowed the brick or glass to act as a freely moving plane beyond the column and slab plane. This is somewhat unique; however, it can also be seen in František Gahura’s Baťova nemocnice (1927) and Antonín Vítek’s Masaryk school in Otrokovice (1932).10 6.8. HOUSES The company constructed only nineteen semi-detached, two-storey duplex houses in the town’s center and one “Manager’s House” near the waterfront. Each flat roof, brick duplex unit was approximately 100 square meters with a basement, a ground floor living room, dining room and kitchen with two bedrooms on the top floor. While the houses in the Master Plan followed the recognizable checkerboard layout, the nineteen houses in reality followed the street grid with only a limited forward and backward movement. The manager’s house was distinctly different from the Baťa tradition. Rather than a flat roof and unpainted brick the house was more “American neo-colonial” with a hipped roof and painted brick exterior walls. Baťa families occupied these duplex houses as late as 1985 and the manager’s house remained the Baťa Land Company headquarters through 2002. 10

Pavel Novák, Zlínská architektura 1900–1950 (Zlín: agentura Čas, 1993), 121.

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6.9. SCHOOL BUILDING Not much is known about the school building. While the company had planned at least three school buildings, it only constructed one. This three-storey building with a center core, one of a pair set within the center of the main town, never functioned as intended but was used for storage and some manufacturing.11 6.10. POSTWAR BELCAMP Belcamp, as a successful satellite town, had a short life span. Just as the town began to grow, the already unstable conditions in Europe completely faltered. Though the factory continued to operate through the late 1990s, beginning in the mid-1970s the Baťa Land Company renamed the area Riverside and, since the mid-1990s, developed banal, auto-centric suburban business parks, strip malls and residential neighborhoods. The enduring question is: Why did Belcamp not mature to its ultimate potential? The reasons are many and perhaps not completely understood; however, there seems to have been what might be called a “perfect storm” of events and conditions that caused Belcamp to falter and remain a low-scale operation. These events and conditions included international, national and local political and economic conditions, Baťa family disagreements and the Baťa company’s policies. A few of the events and conditions include: 1) International Crises: Construction began only two months after the Nazi annexation of Bohemia and Moravia which, of course, disrupted Baťa’s management structure and employee morale in Zlín. Not long after, World War II erupted in Europe just as Belcamp began production. Two years later, America entered the war and all production (and efforts) focused on the war effort. 2) Organized Labor and Worker’s Rights in the U.S.: Labor unions that had come into power in the late 19th and early 20th century had increased their influence during the Great Depression. Additionally, the United States Congress passed protectionist legislation and labor laws with minimum wage, working hours and other standards beneficial to American labor. 3) American Isolationism: In reaction to the devastation of World War I, Americans became increasingly isolationist, even xenophobic, as another European war loomed on the horizon. Even though the U.S. government permitted seventy-six Czechoslovaks (and their families) to move temporarily to Belcamp to train American workers in the Baťa System, their presence roused suspicions that Czechs were taking American jobs or simply violating immigration laws.12 4) Baťa Shoe Company Philosophy and Policies: The Baťa Shoe Company’s business model and practices encountered paradoxical reactions: Baťa was either 11 12

Interview with Mrs. Lillian Formanek (niece of František Gahura who emigrated to Belcamp in 1939) interview by author, Abingdon, Maryland, March 22, 1997. “Bata Denies Plan for More Czechs,” Baltimore Sun, September 30, 1939.

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too familiar or unfamiliar to Americans. On one hand, Baťa was perceived as “paternalistic” and akin to notorious company towns in the United States. Elements of the “Baťa System” with profit sharing, autonomous shops and current managerial standards were misunderstood by many and its corporate structure with divisions and legal standing in different countries was often indiscernible. In a sense, it suffered from general misunderstanding. 5) Internal Conflicts within the Baťa Family: The often-contentious internal struggle between Jan and Tomáš Baťa Jr. for control of the Baťa company also played a role in hindering Belcamp’s development. The struggle, which involved personality clashes, managerial differences, company planning and conflicting legal claims, would take nearly two decades to resolve and ultimately leave Belcamp both a remnant and reminder to Tomáš of Jan Baťa.13 6.11. ORGANIZED LABOR AND AMERICAN LABOR LAWS While each of the above reasons played a greater or lesser role at Belcamp, the most severe factor was the role of organized labor in arousing suspicions and controversy surrounding the Belcamp development. In its efforts, representatives within the CIO (Committee of Industrial Organization) and United Shoe Workers of America raised questions, concerns and rumors within the local and national press that pressured the U.S. government to investigate possible violations of labor laws by the Baťa company.14 The labor unions feared that in addition to having no control over a particular group of workers in the United States, that the Baťa company would import (and perhaps spread) its anti-union stance to United States. The primary means to levy control on Baťa was to shape public opinion and thus government action on Baťa’s supposed illegal immigrant workforce and the apparent exploitation of American workers.15 For the first five years of its existence, this effort distracted Baťa management from manufacturing, marketing and sales. In 1938, the Baťa company had arranged for one hundred Zlín-trained Baťa employees (and their families) to emigrate and instruct the anticipated 3,000 new American employees in the Baťa manufacturing process and procedures. In the end, only seventy-six instructors and their families (amounting to just over one hundred Czechs) moved into Belcamp.16 Charges of work exploitation centered around low “training wages,” on child labor and forced and uncompensated overtime. Some of the charges were somewhat legitimate as John Hoza and others did not understand the intricacies of U.S. labor laws or the correct means of reporting worker hours.17

13 14 15 16 17

Thomas J. Baťa and Sonja Sinclair, Baťa: Shoemaker to the World (Toronto: Stoddart, 1990), 154–159. Bradley Martin, “Stiegele of Bata walks a tightrope on quotas,” Baltimore Sun, May 1, 1977. “’Smearing’ charged by Bata Shoe Head,” Baltimore Evening Sun, January 28, 1941. Louis Azrael, “Some Comments on a visit to the Bata Shoe Plant,” Baltimore News Post, January 18, 1940. “Bata Company Fined $8,000 in U.S. Court,” Baltimore Sun, May 18, 1940.

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Unfortunately, the unions’ tactics worked as the accusations, investigations, fines and hearings disrupted Belcamp’s management and the Baťa organization. Even the two Senators who had helped Baťa establish Belcamp (and who had attended the groundbreaking) were accused of corruption. Fortunately, federal investigations revealed little wrongdoing and others (including the Senators) established the facts behind Belcamp. If Belcamp would have ever grown to any substantial potential, the controversies and investigations curtailed Belcamp’s expansion to that potential. The subsequent delays were further exacerbated by the outbreak of the war and the internal struggles between Jan Baťa and Tomáš Baťa. Any further development was probably unlikely and probably would have remained like other Baťa satellite towns after World War II. Following the war, Tomáš Baťa – who emerged as the head of North American market – focused his efforts in Canada. Belcamp, considered by Thomas as Jan’s ill-conceived venture, did little to promote the town. After the war, the Baťa company pulled away from town design and management, housing, and other capital investments to focus on manufacturing and on employee benefits such as higher wages, healthcare and education. 6.12. CONCLUSION Belcamp offers many lessons since the reasons it existed and reactions to its existence remain relevant today: In many ways, Belcamp, the forces that shaped it and what it encountered presage issues that we face today: globalization, labor costs, corporate complexity, company architecture, worker compensation, land development and even a degree of xenophobia as populations emigrate in search of new opportunities. Baťa was the vanguard of an industrial and cultural system that, either naively or boldly, encountered complex and interwoven forces in the early stages of a twentieth century global economy. As the advance guard in a global economic system, the Baťa concern was inherently optimistic and progressive. By the mid-1930s, the company had, among other achievements, developed progressive labor standards that encouraged worker esprit de corps, established an unparalleled international presence with its own modernist town design and architecture, maintained its own fleet of aircraft and expanded beyond shoe production into diverse product lines. Lastly, the company faced the unpredictable relationship between design intentions and public reactions. This international company designed and almost literally transplanted a European town and practices in the Maryland countryside with unconcealed optimism and anticipated only a reciprocal outlook. This remains a lesson in how these mistakes are often repeated today: The correct reading or the misreading of physical, cultural and political contexts can play havoc on any enterprise.

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7. BATAWA: A CANADIAN COMPANY TOWN NOT QUITE LIKE THE OTHERS Deborah Woodman Throughout the early 1900s, the Baťa concern established several company towns around the world – communities whose primary funding and design came from the Baťa concern, and whose primary function was the production of Baťa shoes. At first impression, these company towns appear to tell the story of a process of industrialization and modernization that is similar across all of the countries where they can be found. Upon further analysis, it becomes apparent that the concern tailored its company towns more carefully, to complement the historical and social circumstances encountered in each country. For instance, the founding of Batanagar in India in 1934 represented a realization for the company of both new consumers emerging in the worldwide market and the possibility of creating a skilled workforce in India. However, the town of Batawa, Ontario, presents something of an anomaly to both of these models (the uniform-across-countries and the tailored-toregion). First established in 1939, Batawa would quickly become the wartime headquarters for the Baťa concern. The town differs significantly from both the “standard” Baťa towns, those established within Europe early in the concern’s history (represented in this paper by the town of Zlín, in the Czech Republic), but also from the many other company towns in Canada (here represented by Iroquois Falls, Ontario, which is in many ways a quintessential Canadian company town). This paper will explore both the similarities and the differences between these three towns – Batawa, Zlín and Iroquois Falls – and the significance of these similarities and differences. Furthermore, this paper will also discuss the predicament of company towns as they change in the face of globalization and how this is helped or hindered by their relationship with symbolic capital in the form of the owner’s vision. Symbolic capital, conceived first by Bourdieu1, gives us a way of conceptualizing the view of the town as invented in both the company designer’s and the community member’s views. In other words, symbolic capital is the value given to the imagined town by some or all of the players. For each of the communities discussed here, symbolic capital is held by different actors. In Zlín and Iroquois Falls, it is contained in how the community members understand their picture of the community – the amount of value that they invest in maintaining the legacy of the original designer. In Batawa, the symbolic capital cannot be found in the community members, but rather is invested in the community founder and the ongoing reinvention of the community by the founder’s family. 1

Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1984).

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The three towns used in this article demonstrate different relationships to place and to the concept of company town. Batawa was founded in 1939 in southern Ontario, Canada, by Tomáš Baťa Jr., partly in an attempt to move some of the company’s resources (disputed in the process of World War II) to a friendly foreign location. Batawa was very important to the healthy maintenance of the company during the Second World War. Batawa, as will be discussed, is no longer a working manufacturing town; Baťa’s economic interests were not well served in Canada where labor rates are very high. The town only existed for a short period of time as a company town and is not vulnerable in the same ways as other company towns in Canada to changing employment trends, since it is close to other places where people can find employment. Batawa and its economic direction continue to be greatly influenced by the Baťa family, and this is one element that sets it apart from other company towns as well. This contrasts with Zlín in the Czech Republic which is the site where the Baťa Shoe Company started in 1894. Tomáš Baťa Sr. influenced much of the design of the community and the company’s many different factories. The town of Zlín existed pre-Baťa, unlike the town of Batawa, and although the company is implicated in the prosperity of the town, there were other manufacturing plants that supported a variety of factories in Zlín, although mainly all in shoe production. The production in Zlín was greatly impacted by the Second World War, and eventually the Communist takeover of what is now the Czech Republic would end much of the Baťa family’s influence and economic interest in the town. The town grew quickly with the Baťa Shoe Company. Even today, there appears to be a fairly persistent influence of the Baťa Shoe Company in Zlín, if only through memory and conversation. The town of Iroquois Falls, built in 1912 in Northeastern Ontario, Canada2, is not a Baťa town, but is a company town like many others that have been built in Canada. It was built in a rural and remote location, and the people who live there have had few choices about their livelihood. The town has persisted despite many layoffs and economic downturns, but it is now a mill town owned by a multinational corporation. For the townspeople, the stress of the unknown in terms of continued employment has taken its toll on community members. These three towns serve as the backdrop for this paper in particular to describe how the towns of Batawa and Iroquois Falls are similar and different in the discussion of company towns. We will commence with the discussion of Zlín as an important reference point from which to discuss the Baťa concern. Zlín, unlike either of the Canadian towns, existed before the Baťa Shoe Company came to town. That said, Baťa’s influence on the town cannot be overstated. As recorded particularly in the literature by the Baťa Shoe Company itself3, Tomáš Baťa Sr. returned to Zlín as a young entrepreneur because it was where he was born. Although Zlín at the time only had a few thousand inhabitants, under the 2 3

Much of the information given in this article about the town of Iroquois Falls, Ontario was gathered for my doctorate, defended in April 2010, „Intersection and Identity in Two Forest Dependent Communities in Northern Ontario“. The information for much of this article on the circumstances of Zlín and the Baťa Concern is courtesy of publication Zdeněk Pokluda, Bata’s Zlín: Building and Industrial and Garden City (1906–1943) (Zlín: Esprint Zlín, 2011).

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guiding influence of the Baťa Shoe Company it would grow and thrive, and become a town of over 83,000 inhabitants in just 90 years. Tomáš Baťa Sr. served multiple key positions in the town: he served as mayor for several years and influenced the town’s direction in terms of town planning and building in particular. There are several key elements which differentiate Zlín from the town of Batawa, which was the vision of Tomáš Baťa Jr. First, as previously mentioned, Zlín existed before Baťa. This meant already-existing transportation routes and inhabitants who could be pulled into the workforce at the growing shoe manufacturing facilities. Second, the Baťa Shoe Company was not exclusively the only manufacturing company in town. Third, in many ways Zlín was retrofitted a couple of different times to become the “industrial garden city” that is understood by architects as a shining example of the living industrial town; there was no singular time when the city was built but rather it was constantly revised. Zlín is similar to Batawa in that Tomáš Baťa Jr. was influenced both by his father and by the Fordist concepts of industrialization that were used in the design of Batawa and in the multiple redesigns of Zlín. Furthermore, both Zlín and Batawa are quite close to other large centers. Both communities were also based on the manufacturing of finished consumer goods. On the other hand, both Batawa and Iroquois Falls are different from Zlín because they are both solely dependent on one company for their major form of employment. They also were conceived as “pop up towns,” emerging fully formed and ready for people to inhabit in complete ways, with schools, hospitals, churches and manufacturing plants. Zlín and Iroquois Falls are different from Batawa in that they both persist as industrial communities after the plants have changed ownership. Ultimately, for the purposes of this paper I have found Zlín to be useful tangentially in noting the relationship between the influence of the Baťa Shoe Company and the town, but the particular Canadian context needs to be explored to appreciate the differences between Batawa and Iroquois Falls. We start this next section with a brief description of the particular context of Canada. Canada is a vast country. Also a relatively young country (at 144 years old), it has the second-largest land mass in the world. Until just a few hundred years ago it was virtually untouched by industrialization. The few communities that existed were either composed of First Nations peoples, having developed over thousands of years and which were not dependent on intensification, or communities composed mainly of traders and people engaged in the extraction of resources to send back to either England or France (who in the colonial period declared that what would become Canada was theirs to exploit). The first communities established in Canada by Europeans were along key trading routes, so that primary resources could be shipped out easily, initially overseas and then, more recently, south to the United States. This has meant that most of the industrial development that has occurred in Canada has been along a small strip of land that borders the United States. Over 70 percent of Canada’s population lives within this border area. It is here where the large Canadian cities are, where the affluence is most likely to be found, and where the economy resembles that of large American or European cities. The skyscrapers look the same, the apartment buildings are all similar, and the shopping centers carry the same major brands found in every large city in the world. This is the

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Canada that is familiar to most Canadians and to many of the tourists who visit. However, there is another Canada, one that is known to those of us who venture outside of the two-hundred-kilometer strip near the American border. This is the Canada that is important in understanding the company town in Canada, and how Batawa is both different from and similar to these communities. Canada started as a space contentiously shaped by two colonizers, the English and the French. Both the French and English in the late 1600s were involved in the early exploration, mapping, and claiming of much of the east coast of North America. The initial economic interests in what would become Canada4 were centered on the exploitation of cod off the east coast and through trading relationships with First Nations people for coveted beaver furs. This relationship changed as it became apparent that there were many natural resources that could be exploited, and settlers were sent to set up communities in order to facilitate this extraction. The first communities in Canada were trading posts, and then, later, centers were built from which the resources such as furs, wood, salted fish, and tobacco were exported to Europe. The early communities were set up along transportation routes, and the earliest parts of this settlement were based on extraction so that the manufacturing could be done elsewhere. As the resources exploited near communities along the natural transportation routes became scarce and the need to feed the industrial machine grew, both within the newly formed nation and to maintain and bolster trade relationships with other nations, there was a need to expand the areas of resource extraction. By this time in Canadian history, the fur trade had collapsed due to an overexploitation of the natural supply. It had become clear that there was an abundance of minerals to be exploited as well as the continuation of forest products and fish. In the mid to late 1800s, the exploration of rural areas grew, and with it the imagining of what towns should look like and how they might be designed to support the needs of industrialization. The influence of the “garden city movement,” imported from England, became one of the discussions among Canadian entrepreneurs in their search to keep skilled employees near their locations of employment. One of the points of this movement was to maintain a suitable living standard for all employees, no matter where they worked in the facilities. For some entrepreneurs, this became a way of creating communities that would fully meet the needs of their employees, thereby keeping skilled labor in areas where none existed before. This contrasts with many towns in Europe, where industrialization happened due to the proximity of the town to resources, a ready workforce, and natural means of transportation, and where the transitions from agricultural and trade centers was gradual. Company towns in Canada were designed to be instruments of industry; the people who came to work in these towns were found in the larger centers of Canada or came from other countries as skilled industrial workers. The expectations of these workers was to engage in labor on a daily basis for a set number of hours for pay, and then return to their homes where they would find the most up-to-date amenities for their particular class levels. Other authors have focused on how the immigration 4

Although there are many history books that would cover this information, I recommend Eric Wolf, Europe and the People Without History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).

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policies of Canada aided industry in finding the necessary people for the positions in the mines, mills, and factories; this is an important point in how laborers came to Canada and will be touched upon in the discussion of both communities, but for our purposes here it is only necessary to say that the Canadian government focused on supporting immigration from other countries where the workers were familiar with the industrial demands and expectations imposed on labor – thus mainly countries in Western Europe. The resulting communities, designed as industrial towns for labor needs, were what I refer to as “pop up towns.” They literally grew in a matter of a few short years from unpopulated areas in the dense forests to completed towns. The amenities in these towns were quite striking. To persuade workers to leave larger centers and relocate to the hinterlands, especially with their families (so that the workforce could be reproduced indefinitely), it was necessary that the employees did not feel a loss of services. Therefore, the towns had services that many workers would have had difficulty gaining access to in larger centers. These were completed towns with their own food supplies, power generating facilities, and social services, including hospitals, schools, and town centers. Roads were wide and well lit, golf clubs were built, as were parks, a couple of different denominations of churches, hockey arenas, and dance halls. Most of the desired goods could be purchased or ordered in the company store, so that anything available in larger centers could be had by the wellpaid workforce. The company made sure that there were appropriate players for the hockey teams, often “hiring” players by offering jobs in the industry. The workforce rented homes, telephone services, hydro, and water from the company on the basis of their position in the industrial facility. The homes were large and spacious, and for many people were many steps up from the crowded urban apartments that labor relied upon in the large southern cities. Hierarchy in terms of status in the company was very important to living standard, as the higher a person’s position in the facility, the more elaborate the home. The hierarchy of the inside of the facility was replicated within the town for a seemingly seamless existence for the workers. The management of the company held important positions in the working of the town and were instrumental in reinforcing the symbiotic relationship between company and town. Of course, all was not quite so benign. The only people who could rent homes in the planned community were employees of the industry, meaning that other people who came into the area to collect the raw resources for the manufacturing plants were excluded from the amenities of the townsite. Hiring practices in the industrial facilities were often on the basis of stereotyped expectations of ethnicity, race, and gender, and therefore most people did not find themselves offered the coveted and well-paid roles unless they fit a very narrow identity. For many in northern Canadian towns, these values of ethnicity were supported by the Canadian government’s ideas of desirable immigrants. People from England and the British Isles were considered the most desirable, with others from Europe understood as less desirable on a sliding scale. Many of the less desirable ethnic immigrants could be found in the service towns. Parallel service towns quickly grew on the outskirts of the planned communities, usually separated by a railroad track or a road. These towns were not nearly as well planned and did not offer the same level of facilities

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to their members. They often became like the poor cousins on the outside looking into the planned communities. During hard economic times, it was these service communities that would feel the brunt of the downturns in the economy. The growth of the planned community in Canada represented a period of high growth in Canada’s industrial past, although this was not without short periods of crisis. During the depression (the mid-1930s), the growth in the Canadian economy slowed, and for many workers in these towns this meant shorter hours and a period of reduced affluence. However, most of the workers in the towns proper were protected and were able to continue working, buying their food from the company store. The service towns that had developed on the outskirts were not so fortunate, and fell into crisis. Many of these areas never recovered. Often, this meant that the varied ethnic groups that had came to the area left, and for some towns never returned. Once World War II started, however, economic growth returned and the industrial facilities rebounded to their former periods of affluence. This continued until the 1970s, when a period of decline commenced once again. Some have argued that this was due to the change in economy to a post-industrial economy,5 others suggest that this was influenced by declining supply of natural resources, and still others suggest that other countries started competing with Canada in the prices of natural resources.6 No matter the reason, the impact on these communities was intense. Many companies started selling off their assets, including the homes (to individual workers), hydro and water facilities (often to the incorporated towns), and telephone services (usually to other companies). Many of the companies went through periods of retracted growth, consolidating their assets and selling off industrial facilities that were outdated and no longer meeting government-mandated environmental expectations. For many scholars, this represented the end of industrial growth in Canada,7 and signaled the shift to a primarily service-based economy. For the company town, the close relationship between town, company, and employee receded, and the relationship changed so as to be similar to the industrial work relationship found in most industries. The process of company town development that happened with the Baťa concern in Canada was in some ways similar to the creation of company towns elsewhere in Canada.8 The design and vision of the town was held by one person, 5 6 7 8

See Tony Winson and Belinda Leach, Contingent Work, Disrupted Lives: Labour and Community in the New Rural Economy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002). Robert Bone, “Resource Towns in the Mackenzie Basin,” Cahiers de géographie du Québec, vol. 42, n° 116 (1998): 249–259. Ray Bollman, “An Overview of Rural and Small Town Canada,” Can. J. Agric. Econ. 39 (1991): 805–817. There are many authors who have done some work on resource towns some of these are company towns in Canada. See Rex Lucas, Minetown, Milltown, Railtown: Life in Canadian Communities of Single Enterprise (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971); T. J. Barnes and R. Hayter, “The Little Town That Could: Flexible Accumulation and Community Change in Chemainus, British Columbia,” Regional Studies 26 (1992): 647–663; Ray Bowles, “Singleindustry Resource Communities in Canada’s North,” in Rural Sociology in Canada, eds. D. Hay and G. Basran (Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 1992); H. Clemenson, “Are Single industry Towns Diversifying? An Examination of Fishing, Forestry, and Mining Towns,” in

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Tomáš Baťa Jr., with the collaboration of the Canadian government. Baťa viewed the construction of the townsite as an important function of being a considerate industrial owner, and the Canadian government were quick to welcome an entrepreneur who offered support for the allied, Canadian war effort. The people who came to work in the shoe factory were fleeing a Europe at war (WWII), and Batawa was a sanctuary. Although Canada participated actively in the war on the allied side, there were few attacks on Canadian soil and certainly they did not happen in southern Ontario. These were definitely strong justifications for the location and the formation of Batawa. However, for the purposes of this article it is the differences between Batawa and other company towns in Canada that sets Batawa apart. The first and most obvious difference is the time period in which the town was built. Most of the company towns built in Canada came into being during the early industrial period – the early 1910s. The towns that were built at this time represented the idyllic aesthetics of the era, including wide streets and lovely gardens within a circular town planning scheme. Batawa was built using the aesthetics of the late 1930s, when a Second World War aesthetic meant the introduction of more rigid uniformity, and the roads and homes became more linear and, therefore, “efficient.” Batawa, unlike almost all other company towns in Canada, was not designed to take advantage of the natural resources but rather was designed to manufacture finished products, in fact consumer goods. The design of the company town used by Baťa was in keeping more with the aesthetic of the Fordist model and not the garden town concept familiar to most other company towns in Canada. The production and locations of the homes were to support efficient production of shoes and not necessarily to support a high standard of livelihood for a captive population. This is probably because the labor in Batawa had choices, whereas in most company towns the terms dictated by the company needed to be respected by the labor force because there was no access to other forms of employment due to distances. The differences between Batawa and other company towns continue in this light: Batawa was much closer in proximity to large population centers than most other company towns which are known as greenfield sites (sites that are close to natural resources and far from large population centers). Whereas other companies had only one company town site, the Baťa company demonstrated a formula of being able to design towns in a myriad of different locations. The Baťa Shoe Company had established and was establishing company towns all over the world. The most significant difference that remains is that in the case of Batawa – despite the closure of the manufacturing plants in the town – the symbolic capital of the owner’s vision persists. The Baťa family continues to be an active part of the community and the visioning exercises of the community. In Batawa, a member of the Baťa family continues to hold key interests, and her vision is one that can be understood by the people in Batawa as wholly significant. We see this significance in the very name of the community: “Batawa,” the story goes, was chosen because it combines the Baťa name with the Rural and Small Town Canada, ed. R. D. Bollman (Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc., 1992); James E. Randall and R. Geoff Ironside, “Economic Geography of Resource Dependent Communities in Canada,” Le Géographe canadien 40(1) (1996): 17–35.

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name of Canada’s national capital, Ottawa. The symbolic capital in this case is actively engaged and represents not the industry itself, but the close relationship with the founding family. An example of the kind of company town most often found in Canada is seen in the case of Iroquois Falls, a town in Northeastern Ontario, some four hours by road from the nearest population site of over 100,000 people. This town follows the process described above. It was founded in the 1910s as an outcome of the design and industrial plan of Frank Anson. He was an independent entrepreneur who had financial backing from wealthy friends and government interests. The town of Iroquois Falls was quickly developed as the industrial site for a pulp and paper mill based on the availability of both tree species appropriate for paper making and a falls that could be used for hydroelectric power to run the manufacturing plant. The falls were quickly dammed and the townsite was constructed. By the end of the 1910s, a completed town site was ready to receive skilled labor from much farther south. The group originally targeted to be appropriate mill workers and managers were descendents of English immigrants living in Montreal. Workers arrived to a fully conceived town, with homes, a company store, health clinic, churches, mill, and a working farm to supply food for the population. The town continued to be prosperous, except for a short time during the depression (shortly before WWII), experiencing growth until the 1970s. In the 1970s, citing expensive labor, a need to retool the equipment, and a declining market for paper, the company started to withdraw from the community, selling off homes, telephone services, and other services. Since that time, there has been a declining relationship between the town and the company, although the mill remains the single most important employer. One cannot discuss the shift in the view of the company without an understanding that the company has become a multinational corporation with interests as far afield as China and Brazil. What remains – and this has been described by some as a paternalistic relationship9 – is a loyalty by the town members to the idea of the original company. This relationship, although no longer understood by the company, is one that carries much social value for the community members. In a way that can be described as symbolic capital, the mill itself is understood as the place which holds value in the community. It was the mill owner who designed the community, and the company – as his representative – is perceived to continue to hold a vision of the community. Although the original owner is long since dead and the original company has morphed into many different configurations, for the people living in the community, the mill site, the original townsite, and employment at the mill locate a person’s symbolic value and serve as an embodiment of their symbolic capital. The physical structure of the town demonstrates this view. All of the homes built on the original townsite reflected a person’s employment in the mill; the mill manager’s home was and is at the top of a hill overlooking the mill, with people who have lesser occupational roles in the mill living in smaller homes lower on the hill or around the mill. The dominant view of the townsite is the mill, reflecting its 9

Michael Shulman and Cynthia Anderson, “The Dark Side of the Force: A Case Study of Restructuring and Social Capital,” Rural Sociology 64(3) (1999): 351–372.

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importance in terms of roles to the people within the community. Even though many people have lost their positions in the mill, the mill continues to dominate the view of people’s understandings of themselves. The town has experienced a number of economic ups and downs, with the population numbers reaching close to 12,000 at one point. However, this did not last for long, and the town has mostly been in the population range of 5,000 for most of its life. All of the town’s members reflect the influence of the company in everything they do. A representative of the company continues to serve on the local Chamber of Commerce, and is consulted on any and all large changes made in the town. However, this is no longer the position of the company, as it does not consult with changes that it is making to its economic structure and which will have impacts on the citizens of the community. For instance, in the past year the company decided to separate out the hydroelectric part of the mill and sell it off as a separate asset. The town and the manufacturing plant must now buy electrical power from a subsidiary of the larger company. This adds vulnerability to the town, due to increased energy costs, and although the community’s citizens discouraged the company from taking this action, they were ignored. Nevertheless, a person’s value in Iroquois Falls is still understood in terms of how they relate to and how they can demonstrate their connection through employment or relationship to other employees in the mill. The mill is at the center of the old townsite with all of the best views of the town looking towards the mill and its wood piles. Any comparison in this brief of an article must be done with caution, but there is enough here to discuss the differences and the few similarities between Batawa and Iroquois Falls, representing the “typical” Canadian company town. Batawa was built later than the garden city movement and was influenced by an aesthetic that came from a period of wartime; this influenced the structure of the homes. Homes in Batawa tended to be small single-family bungalows, and the perception of the purpose of the town was one of utility; in contrast, Iroquois Falls was built on the model of the garden city concept, which included an aesthetic of quality-built twostory homes, many of which are still standing, complete with gardens and a golf course. Agricultural sites to supply the townsite with food were built on the outskirts of the town in keeping with the garden city movement. One of the other comparisons that can be made between Batawa and Iroquois Falls is the focus on finished consumer goods. Most company towns in Canada exploit primary resources and do some of the manufacturing, but most do not finish the products for the consumer market; Iroquois Falls, for instance, is involved in extraction of raw resources as well as the production of the semi-finished paper product – but the paper produced in Iroquois Falls is still not the finished product. After leaving Iroquois Falls, the paper must still undergo further processing before it reaches the end consumer. Until 1999, Batawa was a place where completed shoes were being manufactured: a finished product as opposed to raw resource extraction or semi-finished product manufacture. Furthermore, the people who first moved to Batawa were mainly Czech immigrants who came over as skilled labor in 1939. Notably, this group is one that had not been targeted for employment in company towns ever before in Canada. As noted, most of the desired immigrant populations came from

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Western Europe, and in the case of Iroquois Falls this meant almost predominantly people of English origin, with those of French origin taking related jobs outside of the primary corporation (i.e. in the woodlots rather than in the paper mill). Another difference is that Batawa is located near large population centers in Southern Ontario, which is quite unlike most of the rural and remote locations of other company towns. Batawa is close to other centers and even though this has meant that the community members were quite vulnerable when the plant closed, it still means that they were able to leave and find jobs in other communities close by. Iroquois Falls, on the other hand, is quite remote and in this it is much like most other company towns; the employees of the mill are not in a position to find other employment in the area. When people are laid off at the mill, they have to leave town, disrupting their families on a personal level as well as the social structure of the community on a larger level. As well, Batawa was also not as vulnerable to the fluctuations of the prices of natural resources. Although the plant has closed, this was more due to labor costs in Canada as compared to labor costs globally, rather than due to the costs of fluctuating natural resource prices which affect Iroquois Falls. Iroquois Falls is vulnerable to fluctuating commodity prices in the international pulp and paper market, and over the past few years these prices have been volatile. Since Batawa is no longer a functioning manufacturing plant, this has also changed the purpose of the community to that of a commuting community. Iroquois Falls, on the other hand, has experienced a decline in the levels of employment over the years but remains a pulp and paper manufacturing plant. It cannot be stressed enough that Iroquois Falls will never have the option of transforming itself into a community of commuters, as Batawa has done: there are no other employment centers to which current residents of Iroquois Falls could commute. In considering symbolic capital in both communities, Batawa no longer has the industrial plant, but has persisted in the vision of the founding family. The practice of symbolic capital in Iroquois Falls is due to the persistence of the town citizens’ vision, which continues to be influenced by how they have understood the company vision. For Iroquois Falls, this has meant that the people in the community are constantly searching for a company that will fulfill the same role as the original company. They are convinced that if only they can find another large company, the town will regain its high standard of living and the people will continue to have jobs for generations. The people of Batawa have had to deal with changes in their livelihoods as the manufacturing plants owned by the Baťa company closed a few years ago. The original townsite other than the manufacturing plant building for the most part no longer exists. The main manufacturing building is now being converted into highend condominiums to complete a vision of the owner, one of the Baťa family members. The symbolic capital in this way is largely vested in the “idea” of Batawa, but not in any existent building. The one similarity between both towns is that they were completed as company towns, places dedicated to the employment needs of the companies for which they were designed. Although this might not seem like a great similarity in the history of Canadian industrial development, this has been an important consideration. The industrial needs of companies have had an important function in the development of Canada as a successful industrialized country.

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In conclusion, what we see is that Batawa is a company town unlike any other in Canada. Batawa as part of the Baťa concern was pivotally important in the continued success of the Baťa company. Batawa was a refuge during Word War II; it was also a place for Tomáš Baťa Jr. to set up headquarters at a time when Europe was not the most hospitable. Batawa is also an example of the range that company towns can include. Batawa had a focus on completed consumer goods and skilled labor, and a location that did not require alienation for its employees. In terms of changes as a result of globalization, we have seen that both communities have been vulnerable due to changing expectations of labor rates and natural resource commodity prices. The ways that both communities have dealt with these changes have little to do with the employees of the companies, but rather with the expectations of profits of multinationals and their shareholders. How community members cope with these changes to the company’s directions in Iroquois Falls is a discussion that needs to include the concept of symbolic capital. The community members can do little to mitigate their experiences in the face of globalization and multi-national interests; however, holding to ideas of the imagined company town seems to hold the community members together. The imagined community is something that holds meaning and is constantly negotiated in discussion. For Batawa, the founding family has never deserted the idea of the community, and continues to have a very active presence; in Batawa it is not the community members who hold symbolic capital in this community but the persistence of the Baťa family.

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8. Jaroslav Fragner and the Unrealized Project of an Industrial Town in Kolín-Zálabí

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8. JAROSLAV FRAGNER AND THE UNREALIZED PROJECT OF AN INDUSTRIAL TOWN IN KOLÍN-ZÁLABÍ Michal Novotný The unrealized project of an industrial town of the Baťa company in Kolín, by the architect Jaroslav Fragner, represents one of the less known episodes in the concern’s history, and relates to the period of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, or, more precisely, the years 1940–1942. At first glance, this issue may seem superficial. A more detailed examination of the problem, however, shows that this episode offers an interesting insight into the company’s strategy under the German occupation administration, and an interesting view of the architect’s work in the period of restricted building activities during World War II. The episode takes place in the village of Zruč nad Sázavou and in the town of Kolín. Until the subsidiary of the Baťa plant was built, Zruč nad Sázavou (German Srutsch an der Sasau) was just a small agricultural settlement with about 1,200 inhabitants.1 During the Protectorate, Zruč was administratively subordinate to the Oberlandrat in the town of Německý Brod. By contrast, Kolín was showing promise in both industrial and regional development. In the aims of its municipal representatives, Kolín aspired to become an important industrial center, and this is why it had been called the “Czech Manchester” in the contemporary press of the 1920s.2 These aims were based on efforts to develop industry, promoted by making the Elbe River navigable. There were also considerations of building of the still unrealized Danube-Elbe-Oder Canal, which could connect the town with a network of overseas routes, thus making it an important crossroads of foreign trade. The urbanists’ ideas – based on the envisaged implementation of these projects – foresaw that the prewar town of Kolín with 19,000 inhabitants would reach 80,000 inhabitants by 2000 (in fact, the town has little more than 30,000 inhabitants in 2011). The abovementioned ambitions – which fell on fertile ground in Kolín – have to be remembered in connection with the intentions of the German occupation administration to win the Baťa company’s support for the town’s development. The establishment of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia over the remainder of Czechoslovakia after March 15, 1939 also brought – in addition to many tragic social, political and economic changes – an administrative transformation: a German civil administration was installed alongside the Czech regional civil administration. The so-called Oberlandräte3 were offices subordinate to the Office of the 1 2 3

Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, Státní okresní archiv ve Zlíně (hereinafter ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín), fond Baťa, a. s., Zlín (hereinafter Baťa), XV, písemnosti týkající se vybudování průmyslové části města Kolína; I/4, inv. no. 663, fol. 62. E.g. Supplement of Národní listy, May 1, 1925. The same term Oberlandrat is used both for the office and its head.

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PRAHA PRAGUE

Nymburk Kolín

Zruč nad Sázavou

Sezimovo Ústí

Německý Brod (Havlíčkův Brod) BRNO

the present area of the Czech Republic the area of the Protectorate Böhmen und Mähren 1939–1945

Zlín

the area of the Oberlandrat Kolín the area of the former Oberlandrat Německý Brod (now Havlíčkův Brod) connected to the Oberlandrat Kolín in October 1940

8.1. The Protectorate and Kolín in the 1940s.

Reich Protector. These were offices of the lowest instance, dealing with matters of the Reichsnationals, and they also oversaw the functioning of the Czech offices in their regions, in particular at the district and municipal levels. During the first years of the Protectorate, both the boundaries and number of these regional administrative units varied, while the range of their authority was increasing.4 Klára Zubíková has demonstrated in her thesis that the Oberlandrat Herbert Eugen Eckoldt – a representative of the Oberlandrat in Kolín – was the primary author of the idea to build Baťa’s industrial town on the estates of the town of Kolín; by forbidding construction of a factory in Zruč nad Sázavou, Eckoldt tried to force the Baťa company to implement the project in Kolín.5 Eckoldt’s role as the project initiator has been fur4 5

Stanislav Šisler, “Příspěvek k vývoji a organizaci okupační správy v českých zemích v letech 1939–1945,” Sborník archivních prací 13, no. 2 (1963): 71–80. Klára Zubíková, “Architektura a urbanismus města Kolína 1850–1950” (master’s thesis, Olomouc: The Faculty of Arts of the Palacký University, 2005), 139–140. Zubíková documented this fact with an extract from the protocol with the former Oberlandrat, dated October 18, 1946, in which Eckoldt said in interrogation: “As for the reconstruction of the town of Kolín, I am stating the following: I have been interested in the building problems in the town in general, and, regarding the building problems, I have recommended to the town administration to follow the example of the town of Hradec Králové, and to act in accordance with a precise plan. I was told that there is Fragner’s plan, which I asked to be presented to me. Later, the matter was investigated in detail by the Baťa company, which originally wanted to establish a large plant in Zruč. However, I prohibited the latter and recommended building in a town which has the preconditions for a successful development. I have pointed out the town of Kolín in parti-

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ther confirmed and emphasized by studying preserved archive materials. The project works cover the period of October 1940 until August 1942. The project’s beginnings correspond closely with October 1, 1940, when Zruč nad Sázavou, where the Baťa company was building a new factory, came under the purview of the Oberlandrat in Kolín. Until then, Zruč had been under the Oberlandrat in Německý Brod. The final end of the project works came in the late summer of 1942, although a significant weakening of work intensity can be seen as early as June 1942, when Hebert Eckoldt left his position as the Oberlandrat in Kolín (on June 15), as a result of the administrative reform introduced by Reinhard Heydrich. The close association of the whole project with a single person leads one to consider that the idea of building an industrial town of the Baťa company may not have been part of a broader economic conception of the German occupiers, but rather a manifestation of the power ambitions of an administrative official who acted in his office “as if he was Lord of his Domain.” This characteristic of the Oberlandrat is also corroborated by postwar testimony, according to which Eckoldt: [...] felt himself to be an absolute ruler in his position as Oberlandrat, and reserved for himself the right of personal decision-making, sometimes on trifling matters. Even on the last day before his departure from Kolín he demonstrated that it was he who was giving the orders, and – contrary to the relevant instructions from Prague – he departed with all the furnishings of his office, including the official car.6

The project of the industrial town in Kolín belongs to the period following J. A. Baťa’s departure for America in June 1939.7 The main actors of the episode representing the Baťa concern, are the Director Hugo Vavrečka and Dominik Čipera, the latter being also the Minister of Public Works of the Protectorate government at that time. The increasing influence of the occupying power on the enterprise’s operations manifested itself – among other things – in the gradual Germanization of the concern’s executive board. On June 1, 1940, the Reichsdeutscher Albrecht Miesbach – the former director of the A. Wessels shoe factory in Augsburg – was appointed there, and his main task was “to adapt the enterprise to the needs of the Reich and Wehrmacht.”8 Miesbach was also involved in negotiations on the project. Josef Zelinka – an employee of the Baťa company’s Building Department – was entrusted with negotiating the project in Kolín (e.g. negotiations on the purchase of

6 7

8

cular and the Baťa company carried out a thorough survey and elaborated a complete project, which it submitted to the Board of the Community. The German director of the Baťa company, Miesbach, negotiated the matter with me, and also Dr. Vavrečka visited me once, who tried to reverse my ban on building in Zruč. No one else has collaborated with me on this plan, because it was intended for the peacetime period and, naturally, it was assumed that Germany would win the war.” Archiv bezpečnostních složek, fond Mapy zpráv zpracované Studijním ústavem MV, sign. 10P-330. The history of the Baťa concern in the period of World War II is still waiting to be critically elaborated. The anti-Baťa monograph by Bohumil Lehár, Dějiny Baťova koncernu (1894– 1945) (Praha: Státní nakladatelství politické literatury, 1960), 240–257, represents the latest synthesis dealing mainly with the period of World War II. Lehár, Dějiny Baťova koncernu, 246.

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land).9 The project works themselves, carried out in the Building Department, were connected with architects Vladimír Kubečka and Jiří Voženílek of Zlín.10 Jaroslav Fragner was a distinguished Czech architect and the author of many remarkable functionalist buildings in Prague and its surroundings.11 His name is very closely linked to the town of Kolín, due both to his family ties and a series of interesting implementations.12 From 1939 until the beginning of the 1950s, Fragner’s name was connected with the territorial planning of the town of Kolín. At the beginning of the Protectorate, Fragner was entrusted with elaborating the complete land use plan of the town as well as several partial urban studies (e.g. the railway station and its surroundings). Many architects made their living from such urban studies and plans for the peace period, and this actually took place under conditions of the fledgling war economy accompanied by gradual restrictions on civil construction and its subsequent ban on the territory of the Protectorate (in August 1941). At the very time when Jaroslav Fragner was engaged in designing “a new face of the town,” the Baťa company asked him to prepare the land plan of an industrial plant with a settlement. The Baťa joint-stock company’s interests in expanding into the Elbe region can be dated to 1937. At that time, the company was searching for suitable land “for building not only a larger industrial plant, but also for establishing a modern garden settlement for its employees,”13 These were not found, however. The most suitable candidates appeared to be premises in the vicinity of Lysá nad Labem, Nymburk and Kolín, but which suffered from many drawbacks: in Lysá and Nymburk there was aggressive ground water, and in Kolín the premises were divided among several owners. For these reasons, the company gave up the idea of expanding into the central Elbe region and focused its attention on Sezimovo Ústí and Zruč nad Sázavou, starting construction in these locations in 1939 of its own machine works and 9 10

11

12 13

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 663, fol. 2. Jiří Svoboda, “Architekt Jiří Voženílek ve Zlíně” (PhD diss., Brno University of Technology, Brno 2010), http://www.vutbr.cz/www_base/zav_prace_soubor_verejne.php?file_id=24376. The author of the thesis deals – within the scope of Voženílek’s activities – also with the issue of the Kolín project. The work is valuable for its comparative analyses of individual urban planning projects and its utilization of earlier neglected archive materials of the Moravian Regional Archive in Brno. In places, however, the work suffers from certain flaws: there are many literal quotations of source material, and the placement of events into a broader historical context is missing. Nevertheless, the author is the first to have compiled part of the life and work of the architect Jiří Voženílek. The catalogue of the exhibition “Jaroslav Fragner. Náčrty a plány 1898–1967” deals with the architect’s collected works. See Benjamin Fragner, Jaroslav Fragner. Náčrty a plány 1898– 1967. (Praha: Galerie Jaroslava Fragnera, 1999). See Michal Novotný, “Jaroslav Fragner a urbanismus města Kolína,” Královéhradecko. Historický sborník pro poučenou veřejnost 7 (2010): 237–263 on regional planning in Kolín. Among the most important implementations, we must mention construction of the ESSO power station in Kolín in the 1930s, the building of the Tatra outlet , and project for a settlement of the poor in Kolín-Štítary. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XV, Písemnosti týkající se vybudování průmyslové části města Kolína; I/4 Ředitelna, inv. no. 664, fol. 93.

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a shoe factory, respectively.14 Interest in the Elbe region was revived again in 1940.15 At that time, the company focused its attention on Kolín-Telčice, for which the architect Voženílek designed a project for an industrial town oriented towards rubber production.16 However, the company’s management decided to first establish a river dock and loading facility at Kolín. In 1940, a survey of the riverbank terrain was initiated, followed by the necessary arrangements to acquire the lots. Hugo Vavrečka decided to acquire lots on both banks of the Elbe in Kolín, and the purchase of land began immediately. This was not particularly successful, however, due to the owners’ reluctance to sell during the uncertain wartime conditions.17 It should be noted here that the same difficulties arose again a year later when the company was seeking land for the prospective industrial town. At the time, however, the concern’s representatives did not have the slightest idea that another project, in addition to the river dock and loading facility, was to be implemented in the Kolín area. The company’s attention was focused mainly on building the factory and settlement in Zruč nad Sázavou, where new premises were slowly going up, as designed by architects Richard Podzemný and Jiří Voženílek.18 The very beginning of the project of the industrial town in Kolín was marked by a supervisory visit by the Oberlandrat Herbert Eckoldt to Zruč nad Sázavou on October 15, 1940.19 Approval of the construction of Baťa’s shoemaking school was supposed to be the agenda issue, but events soon took another direction. The discussion between the Oberlandrat and the company’s representative, Leopold Klátil, resulted in following: Eckoldt rejected the architectural design of Baťa’s residential houses with flat roofs because he probably preferred houses with roof timbres and pyramid roofs, in accordance with the German Heimatstil. However, several of Eckoldt’s suggestions for territorial planning were of greater significance for the future, and these he wished to discuss with the company’s competent representatives. Further talks took place at the Oberlandrat in Kolín on October 22, 1942. The concern was represented by Arnošt Sehnal (the builder), Leopold Klátil and J. Čelůstka. Eckoldt, unpleasantly surprised by the absence of anyone from the concern’s management, presented his vision in part, asking whether the concern would discontinue construction in Zruč and start building in Kolín instead.20 This was followed on October 30 in Kolín by a meeting of his deputy, Hassel, and 14 15

16 17 18 19 20

Miloš Hořejš, “Firma Baťa a její počiny na poli strojírenství (1903–1945),” In Tomáš Baťa, doba a společnost. Sborník příspěvků ze stejnojmenné zlínské konference, pořádané ve dnech 30. 11. – 1. 12. 2006, edited by Marek Tomaštík (Brno: Viribus Unitis, 2007), 166–190. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 664, fol. 93–96, transcript of a letter by H. Vavrečka to Nymburk, on the establishment of an industrial town. Emil Zimmler was a promoter of the idea of building the industrial town in Nymburk. (Emil Zimmler, “Studie o průmyslovém městě u Nymburka na středním Labi,” Stavitelské listy 24 (1928): 9–10. The project was analyzed by Svoboda, “Architekt Jiří Voženílek ve Zlíně,” 52–53. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 663, fol. 24. Svoboda, “Architekt Jiří Voženílek ve Zlíně,” 47–51. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XV, Písemnosti k průběhu plánování průmyslové oblasti na Kolínsku, Nymbursku, Zruči n./Sázavou, I/4 Ředitelna, inv. no. 665, fol. 12. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 21–24.

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Albrecht Miesbach, which was later joined by Hugo Vavrečka.21 It became obvious early on how the negotiations would proceed. It appeared that the company’s construction of a new shoemaking plant in Zruč represented a significant problem for the Oberlandrat, and would bring “unrest into the region, which, in sense of Raumordnungsplanung, should remain permanently agricultural.”22 He tried every which wayto persuade the Baťa concern to focus its attention on Kolín. Vavrečka countered with the arguments that had led to the company’s decision to expand into a non-industrial region, also pointing out that if the company was to give up Zruč and move to Kolín, it would prefer not to expand outside of Zlín at all. Among Vavrečka’s many arguments, the Oberlandrat was most persuaded by Vavrečka’s experience that shoemaking is not perceived by the youth as a prestigious profession in traditionally industrial regions, where a career in mechanical engineering is rather preferred. This is why Vavrečka contended that the concern could not count on production in Kolín, even if it received support. He did point out, however, that Kolín was a suitable place for many other industrial sectors, especially those dependent on waterway transport and related to the chemical industry. Eckoldt responded with a compromise solution: “Let us say that I come to the conclusion that I can leave Zruč as it is. Could you promise that you would establish an industrial plant in Kolín? Because I care about this region, which is predestined to be an industrial town, and I wish for it to continue to develop favorably.” (We would like to reiterate here the abovementioned dreams of the prewar urbanists about Kolín – the “Czech Manchester”). Vavrečka could not decline this compromise offer, which made it possible for the company to continue with construction in Zruč, and so he replied that the company would build a dock and storage premises in Kolín. In addition, the company was seeking sites on which to establish plants in a range of industrial branches, such as chemical and rubber industries. It was agreed that negotiations would start immediately.23 The fact that Eckoldt did not mean, quite sincerely, an indefinite promise that construction could continue in Zruč is documented by the transcript of a letter to the Office of the Reich Protector dated October 23, 1940. In the letter, the Kolín Oberlandrat tabled proposals for placement of new Wehrmacht garrisons in the region and among the sites to be considered were the premises of the Baťa plant in Zruč.24 The concern’s management did not make light of the situation, and this is documented by the fact that the negotiations on the issue of Kolín started immediately. In a letter from Vavrečka to Eckoldt dated October 30, 1940, Josef Zelinka was 21 22 23 24

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 30–34. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 30. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 30–35. Státní oblastní archiv v Praze, fond Oberlandrát v Kolíně, box 7: “In Ergänzung dazu wird zur weiteren Durchdringung des Sasautales der Gedanke erwogen, die entstandenen Betriebsgebäude der Baťa-Werke in Srutsch bei einer Űbersiedlung des Betriebes nach Kolin Wehrmachtszwecken zur Verfügung zu stellen. Der seit Jahresfrist entstandene Betrieb der BaťaWerke in Srutsch stösst auf meine ordnungsmässige Bedenken, die vielleicht dazu führen könnten, dass das Projekt nicht weiter verfolgt, sondern der Betrieb nach Kolin verlegt wird. /Diese Angelegenheit ist vorerst vertraulich zu behandlen!/”

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presented to the Oberlandrat, entrusted by the concern to carry out a survey.25 As early as October 31, Zelinka held talks with the Mayor of Kolín, Vilém Pelzbauer, where Zelinka expressed his interest for Baťa company representatives to be admitted into the preparatory committee for the building of the Kolín dock; the chairman of the committee was Jan Tille, deputy director general of mining and metallurgical company Báňská a hutní společnost. As Zelinka said, the resolution by the concern’s representatives to focus on Kolín was acknowledged positively by municipal officials.26 Very soon, probably as early as November 8, 1940, the company contacted Jaroslav Fragner, who at that time was working for the municipal administration on a complete regional plan for Kolín. During this meeting, Fragner was not asked to plan the industrial town; they only discussed the treatment of the long-distance roads in the vicinity of the sites under consideration.27 On November 14, however, collaboration on the regulation plan was negotiated.28 Eckoldt’s strong influence of on the overall concept of the planning is obvious especially at the very beginning of preparations. At a meeting on November 11, 1940, the Oberlandrat expressed his wish “that the Baťa joint-stock company establish an industrial town in Kolín, which would be dissimilar to the existing method of building by the Baťa joint-stock company.” A dissimilar method of building would involve constructing an industrial town connected with the town of Kolín, and not forming an independent unit. Eckoldt wished the industrial town to be located on the Elbe’s left bank, not far from the railway station. The concern’s representatives were aware of the fact that the site was not suitable because of the presence of ground water and the danger of flooding,29 but they began surveying work despite this. The Baťa company also considered another site for the project, and a thorough survey of the area on the right bank called Kolín II commenced in addition to that of the left bank area called Kolín I, which was preferred by Eckoldt.30 For this reason, primary attention was focused on the Elbe’s left bank, where the town was planning to establish the industrial area. Supporting arguments included the proximity of the railway as well as of a never-realized dock, which had been planned by the Directorate for Construction of Waterways.31 On November 23, 1940, Hugo Vavrečka decided that “the architect Fragner of Prague is to elaborate a regulation project of the area of the town of Kolín and its surroundings,” with the assistance of Jiří Voženílek, Karel Cehák and Josef Zelinka.32 It should be mentioned that Vavrečka recommended asking the architect Bo-

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 43. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 44. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 48. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 51. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 49. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 663, fol. 38. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 663, fol. 48. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 663, fol. 6.

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huslav Fuchs for advice,33 but this probably did not happen. An office was established in house no. 80 in Kolín, which was to serve the needs of the architects.34 On the basis of this appeal, Fragner presented his work concept and financial requirements.35 Substantial interference on the part of the Oberlandrat with issues of regional planning is also documented by a lecture by the Building Advisor of Saxony presented in the Kolín Theatre on November 25, 1940, at which the main principles of building the towns were formulated. The representatives of the Baťa concern had to be present, “because Herr Oberlandrat wishes to behold – in copious participation of all the building officials – support of his efforts to eliminate all the imperfections in the building culture”.36 As for the question of the “management and planning of the building of towns and villages,” Saxony was presented as the most progressive state in Germany.37 The most important principle heard was the emphasis placed by the German architects on “a convenient fitting of buildings in the countryside panorama, a simple arrangement of buildings within the town complex, and preservation of the original ambiance of historical buildings.”38 The Baťa company had to show good will for reaching an agreement, and decided to adjust the planning to conform to the abovementioned principles. Voženílek was given the task of modifying the regulation plans of Zruč, when necessary.39 At the beginning of November 1940, Jaroslav Fragner was officially entrusted with elaborating the regulation plan. Based on approval from the Kolín Town Council, the architect accepted the order and began work on January 7, 1941. The Kolín representatives conditioned their approval on the requirement that the materials resulting from these activities be rendered to the Town Council for the town’s needs.40 This is how the almost two-year collaboration between Fragner and the Baťa company officially started. Only a few conceptual sketches of the industrial settlement were preserved, and after the collaboration ended, all that was almost forgotten. Certainly this was not an easy collaboration due to the fact that none of the participants – except for Eckoldt – were very interested in the project’s implementation. The Baťa concern in particular investigated possibilities of continuing construction in Zruč, and interest on the part of the town of Kolín was certainly less than that of the nearby town of Nymburk. The uneasy work was also complicated by the reality of wartime conditions. The problems connected with acquiring carto33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 663, fol. 7: “[…] that the architect Fuksa(!) – who has elaborated a conceptual regulation project of the Greater Brno area – is also asked for advice”. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 44. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, fond Baťa, a. s., Zlín, XV, Průmyslové město Kolín, ev. no. 44. F. L. Gahura, Dipl. Eng. Červenka, Vladimír Kubečka, Jiří Voženílek, and Jaroslav Krauz were nominated. Cited from the invitation by Mayor Pelzbauer of the Town of Kolín (ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, ev. no. 44). ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 53. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 52. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 52. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 58–59; draft letter by the Town Council to Fragner in Archiv architektury a stavitelství Národního technického muzea, fond 139 Fragner, Upravovací plán města Kolín, 1939–1946, box 20041102/02 (hereinafter AA NTM).

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graphic data should be mentioned to demonstrate the difficulties during project works. The impossibility of obtaining necessary up-to-date cartographic and statistical data presented an objective obstacle in planning, and resulted in significant delays in the project works. These materials were withheld by the occupation authorities, and in some cases were provided with significant delay or were censored.41 In February 1941, the first major discord occurred between the Baťa company and Eckoldt. In a letter dated February 19, 1941, the Obelandrat issued a ban on building in Zruč, where the new construction season was being readied after the winter break. Perhaps Eckoldt had assumed that the company had violated his restrictions imposed on construction works in Zruč and had begun work on several new buildings. The ban was relaxed after Hugo Vavrečka’s assurances that the Oberlandrat’s worries were unfounded, and after Albrecht Miesbach’s intervention. It was agreed then that the issue of the possible resumption of work on the factory in Zruč would be negotiated at a meeting on March 13, 1941. The negotiations with Eckoldt took place in Zruč with numerous participants. The concern was represented by Vavrečka, Miesbach, Karfík, Voženílek, and others. The Mayor of the Town of Zruč and the Regional Governor of Ledeč were also present, and the Office of the Reich Protector was represented by Supreme Government Councilor Bollacher and Building Councilor Frank.42 The most interesting aspect of the overall negotiations is the fact that the occupying power’s argumentation had shifted somewhat since the autumn. Both the councilors as well as Eckoldt now underscored an urban planning problem, namely “integration of the new buildings into the landscape setting, and preservation of the skyline of the old built-up area.”43 In Eckoldt’s arguments there was no more mention of problems of building in a traditionally agricultural region, and he even expressed support for the factory in Zruč, saying that “Zruč nad Sázavou is lucky to have the Baťa plant in its land register.”44 Stated simply, the original sticking point of disrupting the agricultural settlement of Zruč and its surroundings had changed to the assertion that Baťa’s functionalist architecture and urbanism did not comply with the Nazi concept. Eckoldt strictly conditioned a possible lifting of the ban of further work on the factory in Zruč on the elaboration of a new regulation plan. Under that plan, the industrial town – originally separate – was to be connected with the old part of Zruč. This strict requirement was somewhat relaxed after intervention by representatives of the Office of the Reich Protector, and approval of the regulation scheme alone was ultimately sufficient for Eckoldt to relax the ban. Eventually he permitted completion of the factory building, partial completion of a dormitory and community center, and 41

42 43 44

Transcript of a letter by Fragner to the Mayor of the Town of Kolín, dated February 27, 1941 (AA NTM, fond 139 Fragner, box 20041102/02): “Under the unexpectedly difficult conditions for the work to progress, I tried – both with my own work and in collaboration with the Technical Department of the Town of Kolín, as well as with the Technical Office of The Baťa jointstock company, which was put at my disposal in Kolín – to overcome obstacles laid by the superordinate offices.” ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 104–113. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 111. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 111.

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completion of the partly built workers’ houses on condition that “they be covered with sloping roofs.”45 Meanwhile, since January 1941 a survey had been carried out in Kolín and a study prepared which was to become the basis – both for the concern and the Oberlandrat – for the final selection of land and the subsequent start of construction on the Kolín project.46 Initial results of the survey were presented to Eckoldt as early as the end of February 1941. According to the final report of the survey of both sites prepared by the team of professionals at Baťa’s Building Department dated April 9, 1941, the right-bank site of Zálabí (Kolín II) was recommended as more suitable.47 On June 24, 1941, an analysis of the town of Kolín and of the future industrial area was delivered to Eckoldt. The study – resulting from collaboration of the architects at the Baťa Building Office (Voženílek and Kubečka) – contained a range of demographic, statistical and urbanistic data and schemes. Eckoldt also received a schematic proposal by Jiří Voženílek for the layout of the industrial area of Zálabí with several industrial plants based on Fragner’s April 1941 study.48 On the basis of these materials, Eckoldt decided to place the industrial town in Zálabí (Kolín II) and expressed his approval of the industrial area’s layout “so that it would be freely divisible among enterprises of different sizes and different types, according to the proposal by Dipl. Eng. Jiří Voženílek.” Eckoldt requested from Fragner various alterations in the layout of individual areas within the town and a final formulation of the plan as soon possible. Eckoldt also acknowledged the Baťa company’s plan to join the large industrial center. Further, he mentioned his concept of Kolín as a town of production, Poděbrady as a recreation center and Kutná Hora as a town of historical monuments.49 At the same time, Eckoldt mentioned that one does not have to count on such extensive development as envisaged by Voženílek in his proposal. It is not clear whether Fragner’s schematic sketch of the industrial town in Zálabí was also subject to negotiations; the sketch is dated prior to June 1941 and is preserved in the architect’s files.

45 46

47 48 49

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 113. On January 10, 1941, the survey was agreed on. In January 1941, Deputy Director of Báňská a hutní společnost Jan Tille and Secretary of the Economic Committee Artuš Sýkora – both members of the preparatory committee for construction of the dock in Kolín – visited Zlín. On January 13, 1941, negotiations on collaboration with the Baťa company took place. The Baťa company was acquainted with the project of the dock by the Directorate for Construction of Waterways; the working group of the Baťa company, led by Stanislav Matúš and Jiří Voženílek, completed the project with a series of comments and suggestions. The negotiations were aimed at establishing a company which would hire the new dock. Tille and Sýkora, however, drew the company’s attention to the fact that their project of the dock on the left bank of the Elbe was final and that nothing could be altered. Therefore, no mutual collaboration occurred at that time. (ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 663, fol. 42, 44, 45; ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 64–67; AA NTM, f. 139 Fragner, box 20031203/15). ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XV, Stavební oddělení, inv. no. 1687, Průmyslové město Kolín. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, Baťa, XV, sign. 219a. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 183–185.

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8.2. First design of the Kolín-Zálabí industrial town, Jaroslav Fragner, June 1941.

In any case, this scheme, which does not much respect the layout of the terrain, appeared in Fragner’s proposals for the territorial plan of the whole town of Kolín the following year. Unlike Voženílek’s, Fragner’s work addresses an industrial unit of a single industrial enterprise. One day later, on June 25, 1941, Vavrečka and Fragner met to discuss further collaboration. It was agreed that Fragner would have an office and a draftsman at his disposal in Kolín; the draftsman was to make the final drawings of the proposal after the sketches had been completed. An alternative plan, based on Voženílek’s proposal, was supposed to be elaborated in Zlín, although we have been unable to ascertain whether this actually took place.50 One of the plan’s options was a large industrial unit for mixed production (3,500 workers), and the other was a small unit for chemical production (800 workers).51 Jaroslav Fragner continued working on the proposal for the large unit.

50 51

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 183. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, ev. no. 44. Letter to Fragner dated June 25, 1941; ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 663, fol. 46.

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8.3. Sketch of the ground plan of Kolín, Jaroslav Fragner, January 1942.

Since Eckoldt’s selection of the target site, all efforts were focused on Zálabí. A vertical survey of Zálabí was started immediately, as it was needed in order to complete the task.52 At the same time, the company launched a survey of the owners of the land at Zálabí. In September 1941, after the property ownership had been established, an assessment of the land was prepared, which took about half a year. At the end of 1941, the Baťa company tried to interest Báňská a hutní společnost in a capital investment.53 However, the end of the year foreshadowed the approaching end of the whole project. Part of the reason might have been the fact that in July 1941 the Baťa company received an offer from another town in the Elbe region – Nymburk. The concern was offered land for building the industrial town there.54 The involvement of the Baťa company’s Building Office in another project apparently resulted in slower progress on the Kolín project. The idea of a new industrial town not far from Kolín certainly aroused the Oberlandrat’s fears that the Baťa company might completely lose interest in Kolín. This is apparently why drafts of letters addressed to the Oberlandrat at the end of 1941 assure Eckoldt that the Baťa company was not losing interest, and that Fragner was continuing with his work on

52 53 54

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 187. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 204–205. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 191.

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the proposals.55 This corresponds to the preserved sketches of the regulation plan. Nevertheless, based on a small number of preserved archival documents relating to Kolín (such as the architect’s sketches and the correspondence of the Baťa concern) we can surmise that the project works were not as intensive as in the previous year. Another meeting with the Oberlandrat on the territorial plan and the specific method of purchasing the land in Zálabí took place in January 1942. Soon after, however, something must have happened to cause the entire project to be terminated. The immediate impetus why the Baťa company gradually gave up all project work in Kolín is not clear. There could have been several causes, including the wartime economic conditions and the loss of the Oberlandrat’s power in Kolín. One reason may have been a dispute between the Baťa concern and Protectorate Supreme Building Councilor Saupe. The circumstantial evidence is a letter by the concern dated June 1942 and addressed to Saupe, who was the local representative for construction in the Protectorate. In the letter, the Baťa company defends itself against the accusation that it had circumvented relevant offices in its planning activities, and described Eckoldt as the sole instigator of the project.56 It is obvious that this split between the concern and the Protectorate Office strained relations with Eckoldt. This also follows from the last mention of the Kolín industrial town in a letter from Eckoldt to the concern dated June 4, 1942, in which Eckoldt protests the concern’s decision to close the Planning Office in Kolín and to discontinue preparatory work on planning industry in the area of the Kolín dock.57 The sharp reply from the concern, written in German, is startling: I confirm herewith, that both the Baťa company and myself personally, have had significant and persistent difficulties and inconveniences due to the industrial planning in Kolín. According to the explanations which I have received from the official side, our planning works do not have the relevant permission, and I have been warned that these works are not admissible without such required permission. Thus, our taking this attitude is substantially justified. Provided that you confirm to us the required permission, we will approach the official authorities in order to continue the works. I will be at your disposal in Kolín for oral negotiations on the matter in the course of July (after my return from holiday).58

Such a tone toward the official because of whom the company had recently invested great effort and finances into the project is indeed striking. Moreover, the company did not prioritize the project. A clear explanation is offered by the fact that the Oberlandrat in Kolín was shut down on June 15, 1942 following an administrative reform, and Herbert Eckoldt was reassigned. Thus, the originator of the whole plan and instigator of all the complications departed. This fact was certainly known to the letter writer; the question is whether the offer of a meeting after returning from holiday was intended sincerely. The defiance on the part of the concern’s representatives is perhaps also explained by the increased German influence on the Baťa 55 56 57 58

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 226–228. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 263. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 280. ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 665, fol. 279.

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8.4. Design of the Kolín-Zálabí industrial town, Jaroslav Fragner, ca. August 1942.

company’s executive board after 1941.59 Under these circumstances, it is conceivable that the German representatives of the Baťa company felt they could challenge an official of the lower German administrative instance. 59

Lehár, Dějiny Baťova koncernu, 249.

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It is not known whether any further negotiations on the matter with the German administration took place; to the contrary, it looks as if the company gave up on the project, although Fragner’s work on the plans continued for a short time. This is perhaps explained by the existing contractual relationship between Baťa and Fragner, who had been promised remuneration for elaborating the project and was thus obliged to complete his task. Fragner finished the conceptual proposals in the agreed form and sent them to Zlín, together with a cover letter dated September 7, 1942. Instead of the originally intended conceptual proposal of the overall site in the scale of 1:2880, the packet contained cadastral maps of Kolín, Tři Dvory, Sendražovice, and Konárovice, and a design sketch had to be subsequently transferred into the cadastral maps. Together with these maps, Fragner submitted a design of the site in the scale of 1:2880, 2 terrain sections and a panoramic view of the settlement. The study clarified Fragner’s concept of a triangular town with streets fanning out in real terrain. On September 12, 1942, the Building Department of the Baťa company acknowledged delivery and asked Fragner to lend it the matrix in order to be able to print the design on the cadastral maps glued together, because “the manual transferring of data is too expensive.” Less than one week later, on September 18, 1942, Fragner sent the matrix to Zlín, together with a request for its return as well as the return of the originals as soon as the copies had been made; this actually happened.60 The fact that Fragner submitted his new conceptual proposal more than a year after his first conceptual scheme indicates that the project was not as topical for Fragner or the Baťa concern in 1942 as it had been in 1941. Jiří Svoboda has drawn the critical conclusion that Fragner’s: [...] regulation plan is – for Zlín norms – non-standardly concentrated, without large-scale ambitions or possibilities for further growth, needlessly compact, but aesthetically attractive and even academic. As if the author was unable to take a breath and let things flow with their own rhythm and direction, he subordinated the existing locality to his own image of it. The project goes beyond the Zlín urbanistic school, and all the tributes which had been indicated to the author in the preceding study are senselessly overlooked [...].61

In our opinion, this view is too strict on Fragner. Since the project’s very beginning, Fragner was supposed to elaborate an alternative to Jiří Voženílek’s plans. Therefore, it is not necessary to consider Fragner’s divergence from the planning of the Baťa Building Department as a drawback. It must have been clear to Fragner that he was designing a town that would never be erected, and this fact might have played a role in his completion of the proposal. This is why Fragner could propose to the concern his own alternative vision of the industrial town, restricted to a single industrial plant and circumventing the conventional scheme of Baťa’s ideal industrial town. 60 61

Preserved correspondence in AA NTM, f. 139 Fragner, box 20030710/16. Svoboda, “Architekt Jiří Voženílek ve Zlíně,” 62–63. In our opinion, Svoboda’s critical view of Fragner’s proposal is unduly strengthened by his comparison of Fragner’s 1942 project with Voženílek’s of June 1941. This comparison is not completely appropriate, however, because Voženílek’s assignment for the industrial area concerned three industrial plants, while Fragner was to propose an option for the industrial town with a single enterprise.

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The hypothesis that the Baťa project to construct an industrial unit was rather worn out by the end is clearly documented by Hugo Vavrečka’s message forwarded to Nymburk in August 1942: We have elaborated the projects in question and general proposals, carried out probes, executed a listing of properties, etc., all in agreement with the town of Kolín and the local political authorities. It cannot be ruled out that we shall come back to the project at some point; however, the complexity of the further working process has led us not to pursue the Kolín project further at this time [August 11, 1942].62

In summarizing the project to build a Baťa industrial town in Kolín, one can agree with Jiří Svoboda’s contention. In his thesis – on Jiří Voženílek – Svoboda interprets the Baťa company’s efforts to build in the Kolín region as “a grandiose libation to the state administration of that time,” which conditioned the implementation of the Kolín project on completion of the industrial town in Zruč nad Sázavou.63 It must be stressed, however, that the Oberlandrat of Kolín, Dr. Herbert Eckoldt, who was the personification of state power, was also the originator of the idea for the project. The German official’s behavior leads one to speculate that the idea of building an industrial town in Kolín was not just part of the occupation administration’s broader economic, but also a manifestation of the efforts of an executive to cause his administrative center to flourish. This hypothesis is supported, among other things, by the fact that the end of the project works almost coincides with Eckoldt’s departure from Kolín, following the closure of the Oberlandrat there.64 The fact that Eckoldt was the main initiator of the industrial town in Kolín is supported by comparison with the nearby town of Nymburk, where great interest was shown on the part the town administration in building a Baťa industrial area.65 By contrast, Kolín’s representatives were relatively passive, and it may have been only the Oberlandrat who welcomed the project’s implementation there. There is no doubt, however, that many other circumstances also played a role in terminating the proj62 63 64

65

ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 664, fol. 93–96, transcript of a letter by H. Vavrečka to Nymburk, on the establishment of an industrial town. Svoboda, “Architekt Jiří Voženílek ve Zlíně,” 44. The grandiose economic plans of the Oberlandrat Herbert Eckoldt in Kolín can also be documented by his efforts to build a new hotel, which was also to be financed – at the Oberlandrat’s request – by the Baťa company, in addition to Báňská a hutní společnost and the Chemical Association. Noteworthy is Eckoldt’s wish that the newly built hotel should be primarily used for the business meetings of the local companies: “He [Eckoldt] imagines that the hotel has a large lobby, where visitors coming to Kolín on business could meet their business friends, if this was not possible directly in factories or on business premises. This is why such a lobby would have the nature of a bourse.” (ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 663, fol. 15, Letter dated May 9, 1941). There is a somewhat ingenuous comment, however, which strikes the reader: A representative of the Chamber of Commerce in Prague inquires at the Baťa company about their interest to take part in the business, and he mainly wants for “good will to be demonstrated to the Oberlandrat.” The documents concerning the preparation of the project for Baťa’s industrial town in Nymburk, which come in the years 1941–1944, are deposited in ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín, inv. no. 664.

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ect, such as the war’s impact on the economy, related cost-saving measures and restrictions on building. As an epilogue to the story, we must note that the architect Jaroslav Fragner later resumed planning work for an industrial area in Kolín – the abovementioned project on the left bank with the dock, although this project was not implemented, even after the war’s end.

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Preface

IV. ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM

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Martin Jemelka and Ondřej Ševeček

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1. BAŤA’S ZLÍN – SPACE FOR THE INDIVIDUAL COLLECTIVE? Theresa Adamski From an architectural point of view, Zlín has always been interesting. Numerous exhibitions, conferences and publications1 showcase the extraordinary buildings, the revolutionary master plans and the modern social institutions of the town. Zlín’s architecture is and always has been a representation of the Baťa brand. But today Zlín is no longer known for shoes or Baťa – Zlín is known as the city of functionalism, the city of modernity. If we take a closer look at the space, not only the architectural but also the social, this space helps us to get a better view of what daily life in Zlín might have looked like during the Baťa era. Because the structure of the town remained nearly the same since that time, it is possible to compare the town within the Baťa system and without it. It is obvious that the space only worked as part of the system and didn’t create it. The recent adjustments undertaken by the inhabitants of the Baťa family houses – as seen in the work of Lucie Galčanová and Barbora Vacková2 – show that, without the system, the space has lost its former power. Apparently neither Tomáš nor Jan Antonín Baťa have ever said or written anything about their intentions of achieving anything else other than social welfare by building the town the way they did. Of course social welfare (schools, workers’ housing, libraries, sports facilities and so on) has been used as well by many entrepreneurs in history not only to have healthy and hardworking employees, but also to create a relationship of dependence between workers and factory. One example is the Endicott-Johnson shoe factory that Tomáš Baťa visited during one of his trips to the United States.3 But the Baťa system seems to be a step ahead in many ways.

1

2 3

Exhibitions: Baťa: architektura a urbanismus 1910–1950 (Státní galerie, Dům umění Zlín: 1991); Satelity funkcionalistického Zlína: projekty a realizace ideálních průmyslových měst – továrních celků firmy Baťa (Státní galerie ve Zlíně, Dům umění: 1998); Zlín 1900–1950: Une ville industrielle modèle – Model industriálního města (Ecomusée du Creusot-Montceau: 2002); Fenomén Baťa – Zlínská architektura 1910–1960 (Národní galerie v Praze, Krajská galerie výtvarného umění Zlín: 2009); Zlín – Modellstadt der Moderne (Architekturmuseum der Technischen Universität München: 2009). Conferences: Zlínský funkcionalismus (Zlín: 1991); A utopia of modernity: Zlín (Zlín: 2009). Publications: Pavel Novák, Zlínská architektura 1900–1950 (Zlín: agentura Čas, 1993). Lucie Galčanová and Barbora Vacková, “The Project Zlín. Everyday life in a materialized utopia,” Lidé města 2 (2009): 311–37. Anthony Cekota, Entrepreneur extraordinary: The Biography of Thomas Baťa (Roma: E.I.S. Edizioni Internazionali Soziali, 1968), 147.

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constructed until

1918 1926 1930

1936 1947

1.1. Development of Zlín until 1947 (grey areas after 1947).

Space always affects the people living in it. Neutral spaces barely exist. Space is always an expression of culture, but can also influence, stabilize or even change social habits, roles and hierarchies. When doing research, an architect doesn’t have to rely on words someone in the past or present has written. The architect is able to work with the actual built space, which is very much able to speak for itself. Analyzing architecture means inverting the design process. Design is strongly influenced by the architect’s background and ideals, even if he or she is not aware of it during the design process or even when looking at the finished design. The structure of the town Zlín creates a unique environment and therefore can’t just have happened. The pattern used for the family housing quarters in Zlín today is used even again in social housing to create defined, semi-public space between urban villas (houses with about eight units). The pattern consists of three rows of houses which are skewed at an angle to the street and with the middle row arranged out of phase. The resulting space is neither private garden nor public park, but it provides the inhabitants with their own green space with which they can identify. For both inhabitants and passersby, it is clear that this space is part of the residential buildings. This allows the development of communities. During the Baťa era the concept was used to create control, but today it is used to provide people in cities with their own green spaces. The way the Baťa system works can be compared to the work of a machine. The built structure of this machine is the town Zlín. Once the mechanisms in the machine are activated, the system works without the need for control – it is self-

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regulating. But like a machine, the town first had to be developed, and the single parts that were to lead to the final product had to be designed. The machine needs not only an inventor, but also someone who checks on the correct functioning of the machine while in progress. Zlín’s inventor was Tomáš Baťa, and the checks were performed by Baťa’s Osobní oddělení, the human resources department of the Baťa shoe factory. The perfectly working machine could only be achieved by experimenting over many years. Zlín is a laboratory, and the different stages of development can be found in Zlín’s town plan (fig. 1.1.) In the same way as the Baťa shoe factory, it is a product that is the outcome of the machine that is Zlín. The design and the arrangement of the buildings encourage the development of a homogenous society. The products in the factory are shoes, while the town produces Baťamen and Baťawomen. The elements of the city work like machines that sculpt those people. The smallest element in the structure of the town is the family house. This type of building represents the smallest element within the hierarchy of the factory: the work station. Industry and town planning are strongly linked in the history of Baťa and Zlín. Scientific management – Frederick Winslow Taylor’s way of organizing a factory – uses human motion as an object of research. Studying these motions makes it possible to standardize chains of movements and to save time and energy. To standardize town planning, floor plans have to be researched and rationalized. These floor plans can have certain effects on the inhabitants of the family houses, depending on the intentions of the builder. Starting with the smallest element in the factory – the human motion – and the smallest element in the town – the floor plan – the system explains itself. Inside the factory, the machines and movements have to be arranged thoughtfully to achieve the highest possible outcome. The buildings and functions in the town as well have to be organized according to the goals that should be achieved. In Zlín the goal was to create close relationships between the people in the housing districts. Those relationships increased competition and policing among the inhabitants. Town planning played a major role in creating this environment. The standardized architecture helped to create strong communities and better integration into the collective. This paper demonstrates how the processes in the town worked and how they affected the inhabitants of the family houses. These conclusions can only be reached by looking deep into the town plan and the patterns used in it. When first looking at the town plan, it’s not the structure that attracts the observer’s attention, but the modernist architecture. The architecture is what defines today’s Zlín. Even if the representative function of architecture didn’t play any role for Zlín’s inhabitants during the Baťa era, it is very relevant for the reception of the Baťa concern from outside – outside the factory and outside the Baťa company towns. Today Zlín’s popularity, or what’s left of it, still exists because of its architecture and even because of individual buildings. Building 21 (Budova 21) and Jan Antonín Baťa’s office in an elevator are some of the more famous Czech landmarks (fig.1.2.).

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During the Baťa era, architecture also played a major role in the reception of Zlín and, even more than that, of the Baťa brand. Not only the functionalist high-rises, but also Baťa’s retail stores for their shoes played an important part in the positive reception and success of Baťa shoes all over the world. Experiments like Building 21 and the office-elevator are of course very interesting from today’s perspective, but for the people actually living and working in Zlín they were rather irrelevant. They were symbols and didn’t have much influence on daily life in Zlín. So what did the space in Zlín actually do to or for the people who were living in it? What where the mechanisms that the Baťa company used to shape their workers in a way that was useful for Baťa? Zlín’s architecture is part of the Baťa system and is a major participant in the journey to the success of Baťa shoes. The decision to build family houses instead of collective housing already gives a hint that there must have been more to Zlín’s town planning than creating a quickly and cheaply built company town. Tomáš Baťa’s will to make the world a better place doesn’t seem to be a sufficient explanation for the way the town was built. To understand the town plan and to find out about the intentions of the planners, it is necessary to look at the types of buildings used, analyze the organization of spaces and declare what is private and public. The mechanisms created by Zlín’s town planning will be demonstrated in this paper.

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1.3. Children on the streets of the Letná quarter during the Baťa era.

1.1. FAMILY HOUSES – A NEW TYPE OF HOUSING The family houses in Zlín are not single-family houses, as one might think when first hearing this term. They’re houses with up to four independent units and entrances (fig. 1.3.) . The word “family” reveals the determinant of these houses. The family is not only the smallest element in Baťa’s system; the system is based upon the family. The families bond with the family house and therefore accept it as their home and property. This should increase the efficiency of the workers. The houses conform to Baťa’s ideals of how the layout of roles in a family should look. At home the responsibilities of the worker are the house, the garden and the family: a small field of responsibilities which allows a high level of identification with the space. The worker is not only responsible for himself, but also for his whole family. If the worker fails in his job, then the family loses its home. The house rules for the Baťa family houses say: “The right to use the apartment is linked to employment at the factory. With the end of employment status, the right to use the apartment terminates.”4

4

All translations by the author. Domovní řád v domech fmy Baťa, a. s. Zlín (Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, pracoviště Zlín: 1937–39).

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The comfortable apartments in the Baťa family houses were not something people put at risk with levity. Most of the workers grew up on farms under miserable circumstances. A large number of people had to share one room, where they slept, ate and lived. The apartments in Zlín had a kitchen, two bedrooms (one for the parents and one for the children) and a bathroom – all for just one family. 1.2. THE WOMEN’S ROLE IN THE FAMILY HOUSES Space demands a certain behavior from the people living in it. It implies gender roles, different cultures and ideals. An apartment with separate kitchen and living room implies other structures than an apartment with just one living space. The ideals of the designer influence not only the way the building is realized, but the building influences the way the people using it act. Architecture can enforce roles, but – used properly – architecture can even control and direct the layout of roles. To understand the impact of the floor plans and the relevance of the family in Baťa’s system, it is necessary to explain the ideal as well as the real life of a woman in Zlín. After all, the house was the women’s workplace, just as the factory was the men’s. Industrialization is the reason for the picture of the classic family that we have had during the last 100 years and even today: a man working and paying the bills and a woman taking care of children and household, living together as a small family. Industrialization weakened the man’s role as head of the family. He didn’t have to do the hard work of a craftsman any more, and work in the factories was possible for both males and females. The relationship between men and women, as well as the role of the family, had to be defined once more. The family is the smallest element in the structure of Baťa’s town and industry. The whole society of Zlín, or “working family” as Tomáš Baťa liked to call it, was based upon this element. The man was intended to be the head of the family, and the woman had to take care of the household and kids. Tomáš Baťa put it this way: “The word man stands for provider.”5 Entrepreneurs noted that women’s energy decreased when they did hard physical labor for many years. This was the reason why many industrialists such as Ford, just to name one, decided to introduce the family concept into their work philosophies. This concept is definitely one that works: instead of the collective, the family takes care of the education of the children, housing, food and domestic affairs. Women were allowed to work in the Baťa factory and have a short career, but as soon as they got married they had to quit their jobs and orient all their attention toward their children and the household. Unmarried women mostly worked as seamstresses, shop assistants or in the offices (fig. 1.4.). The image of the busy and caring mother and wife was advertised by many of Baťa’s magazines. An article in Der Pionier, one of Baťa’s propaganda publica5

Tomáš Baťa, Thomas Baťa – Wort und Tat (Zlín: Baťa a. s., 1936), 166.

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1.4. Seamstresses at the assembly line in the Baťa factory, 1927.

tions, describes the end of the women’s political-emancipation movement in the United States, which he said had taken place since 1900. It tells how the reputation of being a housewife had gotten better again and how some women even thought that working women had demoralized the economy.6 The women in Zlín attended Baťa’s schools and worked in the factory, but the work was only temporary. The girls’ schedule in the Baťa schools differed markedly from the boys’. Already in school the women were prepared for their predetermined lives. One of the women’s assignments was to provide an environment as comfortable as possible for their husbands. The workers would be satisfied, well rested and ready for a hard day at the factory. An even more important challenge was the education of the children in a way that was suitable for Baťa. After all, they were going to be the Baťamen and Baťawomen of the future. Just like a man without proper employment, who without agitation is a broken reed, easily blown away by the wind, a woman without a challenge as well is a bodiless shadow. Nothing. There are only two types of women: the ones who help their men to greatness, and those who pull their men into deep valleys.

6

“Frauenemanzipation in USA und ihr Ende,” Der Pionier 1 (February 1, 1935), 5.

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Theresa Adamski The woman is the one who pulls the strings for either a happy or an unhappy marriage. Depending on how she is capable of pulling those strings, the life of the family will continue. Happy or unhappy. Is it possible there is a woman who decides for an unhappy life on purpose? Untidiness and dirtiness are reasons for conflict. Two things that will disgust every tidy man and make him turn against his wife or resign. Two paths that lead to unhappiness. Most men are educated by their work to keep everything neat and clean. They expect the same from their wife and their household. So the woman’s duty is to provide the man with a neat and clean home after a hard working day. Neat and clean means comfortable, and comfort means a satisfied, tidy man – a happy family.7

The floor plans of the family houses were barely modified during the Baťa era, which is a sign that the women’s role didn’t change either. But in the beginning, the women were confronted with a modern environment that was completely new to them. Here their challenge was to live the lives of modern housewives. The new living conditions, the mechanized kitchen and the rationalized floor plans changed the people’s lives dramatically. Those who were not born into this environment slowly had to adjust to the new circumstances. Each Sunday a group of women took a walk through Zlín’s housing quarters to “help” the women who came mainly from farms get used to their new lives. They investigated the conditions of the houses and how healthy the food was that the women cooked, as well as the tidiness and manners of the children. The families never knew when it was their turn, because each Sunday some houses were chosen as a random sample. The monitoring of the women and their households played a role similar to mechanization in the kitchen: by standardizing and supervising the women’s work, time and energy are to be saved. The women became a working part of the machine that was Zlín. 1.3. MECHANIZATION OF THE HOUSEHOLD Mechanizing the household means the organization of the work processes in the house and the transfer of hard work to machines. Particularly our living quarters are miserable. The furniture in our apartments is not suitable and forces our women to do hard physical work over the whole day. A woman who is that exhausted is neither a good educator for her children or good company for her husband when he comes home from work.8

The mechanization of the household barely differed from the mechanization of industry. Changes were – just as in industry – based on studies of movement and work.9 Those studies were promoted by a women’s movement in the late 19th cen7 8 9

“Der Tagesarbeitsplan der Frau,” Baťa Bericht – Zeitschrift im Dienste der Mitarbeiter der Deutschen Schuh-A.G Baťa Ottmuth 11 (October 22, 1932), 5. Baťa, Thomas Baťa – Wort und Tat, 189. Sigfried Giedion, Die Herrschaft der Mechanisierung, ein Beitrag zur anonymen Geschichte (Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlags-Anstalt, 1982), 557.

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tury. The movement, led by Catherine Beecher, was not a political one and had the goal of achieving inner strength for women. This means that the woman should support the economy by doing her work in the house conscientiously, without the help of any servants. Beecher suggests a way to organize the kitchen to save as much time and energy as possible. Furniture, as well as the house itself, should be simple and well organized.10 With the development and growing popularity of Taylor’s scientific management after 1910, the mechanization of the household reached a different level. Not only movement within the factories was an object of research, but also the movements of American housewives. Christine Frederick, who tried to bring scientific management to the home, played a major part in the research. As in the factory, the processes of work in the home had to be rationalized. An article in Baťa-Bericht describes a perfectly planned working day of a woman in Zlín. The goal of this routine is to save energy and avoid unnecessary movement. Get up at 5:30 a.m.; breakfast at 6 a.m., dress child; bring the dishes to the kitchen and remove leftovers; air the bedclothes. Bath for the baby at 7:30 a.m.; baby sleeps from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Wash the dishes, prepare meals, 8:30 to 10 a.m. (in the meanwhile the child plays either on the porch or in its room) Make the beds, sweep and dust from 10 to 11 a.m. while the child is awake (clean the children’s sheets twice a week). Prepare lunch, sew and mend, meanwhile the kids play, from 11 a.m. to noon. Eat together with the kids. Leave the dishes from lunch to sleep for an hour, as well as the kids. At 2 p.m. dress yourself and the kids; go for a walk, shopping or visit friends. Be at home again at 5 p.m.; give dinner to the kids and prepare your own. Bathe the kids and have dinner at 6:30 p.m. alone with the father. Clean the dishes from lunch and dinner and prepare to cook fruit and porridge in the meanwhile. Finished at 7:30 p.m.11

Rationalized work processes were followed by the urge to have a uniform design in the kitchens. For that reason, the styles and sizes of furniture and machines had to be standardized. In the United States from 1934 this new kitchen was called the “streamline kitchen.”12 In Europe scientific management was only used after 1927, and standardization was widely promoted by the architecture movement. Baťa was probably influenced by both the American role model of a responsible housewife as well as by European design, which was studied by the architects who worked for Baťa. 1.4. MAKING ARCHITECTURE SCIENTIFIC Baťa’s magazine Der Pionier published an article by Dr. Elsa Goder-Herrmann saying that the housing problem was a female problem. Goder-Herrmann didn’t suggest that women should start to construct buildings themselves, but that more atten10 11 12

Giedion, Die Herrschaft der Mechanisierung, 562. “Der Tagesarbeitsplan der Frau.” Giedion, Die Herrschaft der Mechanisierung, 566.

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1.5. Workers’ housing in Zlín (older type of workers’ row housing dating from 1918).

tion should be paid to their opinions. She also said that it was important to educate the women in economics and introduce them to the new way of living. Education as well should be undertaken by women, because they are the ones who have to bring up the new generation in those houses.13 Depending on different popular family constructs, the floor plans accompanying those constructs differ. Therefore it is possible to also read family constructs from existing floor plans. A floor plan with combined kitchen and living room assumes the 13

Elsa Goder-Herrmann, “Wohnungskongress und Frau,” Der Pionier 22 (June 27, 1935), 5.

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kids play inside the house. The woman can look after the kids while she is cooking. The kitchen is the main room in the house, where most daily life takes place.14 In contrast, the kitchens in Zlín were always planned as separate from the living rooms. This can be explained by the close neighborhoods in the living quarters. The women didn’t have to look after their kids all the time. The children could play outside of the house, unwatched by their mothers, because there would always be someone else to watch them. A second reason for the separate kitchen is the relationship between husband and wife. The man should not be confronted with the woman’s work and dirty dishes when coming home from a hard day’s work. He should relax in a comfortable, tidy environment. In a separate kitchen the woman could do her work without being seen by her husband. The woman’s role didn’t change during the Baťa era. The floor plans of the family houses also barely changed over those 25 years. Baťa was probably satisfied with the early floor plans. Since those plans seemed to work, there wasn’t any reason to change them, as long as the concept of the family wasn’t going to change. The first types of Baťa houses in Zlín did not match the later massively expanded concept and design. The houses were traditional houses in a rural style, and most of them were row houses (fig. 1.5.). This type of house doesn’t seem to have any concept and therefore was not satisfying for Baťa. Some of the single-family houses for the managers of the Baťa concern were done in a rather traditional style. But this design was no longer used for the worker’s houses for two or more families or in the Baťa colonies. 1.5. TRANSFORMATION OF THE FLOOR PLANS In the year 1920, the development of the new type of family houses started. During the entire Baťa era and even after that – disregarding a few exceptions – only one concept and design of housing was used for Baťa employees. This concept was redesigned over and over again. The first family houses were planned by Jan Kotěra in the Letná quarter of Zlín. His aesthetic shaped all the following designs until the 1940s. The floor plans from 1920 for family houses with four units were adjusted – they got slightly larger and more luxurious – but the organization of space and rooms barely changed. One unit was not larger than a small, two-room apartment in a collective apartment building. The single rooms are tiny. The first floor plans don’t yet include a separate kitchen, but from the structure it is obvious that kitchen and living room were not seen as one unit. The following floor plans all include a kitchen that is separated from the living room by a wall. In the first plan, as well as in following ones, the space for the kitchen is minimal. This was only possible with modern, standardized and precisely designed furniture. Despite the small size of the apartment, the bathroom includes a toilet and a bathtub. Hygiene and comfort played a major role for Baťa. For the people who 14

Giedion, Die Herrschaft der Mechanisierung, 627.

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1.6. Variation of the floor plan with staircase in the center, 1928.

came to Zlín, this environment must have seemed pure luxury – something worth working for. Every unit in the family houses has two floors. The staircases take away space and make logistics complicated. It would have been easier to plan one unit on just one floor with just one staircase per house. So there has to be another reason why Baťa decided to choose units with two floors and independent staircases. The reason for this decision again originates in the concept of the family and Baťa’s interpretation of family houses. Two floors are used mostly in single-family houses, while apartments in collective apartment buildings usually have only one floor. The organization of the family houses in Zlín combines the advantages of collective buildings and single-family houses. Building ground, heating costs, installa-

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tions and technical effort can be reduced. Except for its size, the interior of the apartment isn’t very different from that of a single-family house. As with the floor plans, the design of the houses didn’t change much until the 1940s. For the family houses, as well as all the other buildings in Zlín and the Baťa colonies, raw brick was used. The windows in the family houses are divided into three sections. Most of the houses have flat roofs, but also variations with saddle roofs can be found. This type was not only built once, but repeated a couple of times. So the style doesn’t seem to have been unsatisfying. It is more likely, however, that every architect preferred different types of roofs, and Baťa didn’t mind. One example where saddle roofs can be found in Zlín is the Zálešná quarter, the next quarter built after Letná. The blocks of houses are arranged in three rows. The two rows of houses next to the streets consist of houses with saddle roofs, and the houses in the middle row have – because they were built later – flat roofs again. In the Zálešná quarter we find only houses with two units. As the Baťa factory’s success grew, the houses got larger and better. The houses with two units were also built in the Letná quarter for to make the population dense, and soon single-family houses were also added. The single-family houses were planned mainly for employees in higher positions within the company. The two-family houses with saddle roofs were first planned and built in 1927. Despite the sloped roofs, the houses are only a little taller and have two floors just like the houses with flat roofs. There’s not enough space for an attic, so saving space can’t have been the reason to choose sloped roofs. The living space in each unit is 10 square meters larger than the space in the first family houses. In some of the two-family houses the staircase is used to separate the living room from the kitchen and the other rooms on the ground floor (fig. 1.6). This organization of space is very hard to modify. The rooms have to be used for the same or similar tasks. Modernity and rationalization led to rooms in apartments having predefined uses. Every detail of the rooms was planned, and therefore they couldn’t be used for anything else. But the rooms could be organized in a way that saved a lot of space.15 Even though the floor plans of the family houses of the Baťa company were planned in a very rationalist way, to a small extent individual furnishing and arrangement were possible. It may seem that, for Baťa, flexibility might have been something to achieve, but since the houses were planned only for one generation, flexibility was not necessary. Furthermore, predefined rooms don’t allow flexible floor plans. Flexibility makes it hard to influence the inhabitants’ lifestyle. Today, living in those predefined spaces can be complicated. Modifications are only possible to a small extent. Most of the inhabitants removed the wall that separates the kitchen and living room.16 The type of building with the staircase in the center makes modification impossible. To create a bigger living space, major adjustments have to be made. 15 16

Christoph Hackelsberger, Plädoyer für eine Befreiung des Wohnens aus den Zwängen sinnloser Perfektion (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1985), 25. Galčanová and Vacková, “The Project Zlín. Everyday life in a materialized utopia.”

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Baťa’s employees were expected to pay a lot of attention to furnishing and arranging their apartments. When a new Baťa housing quarter in Möhlin in Switzerland was finished, the new inhabitants were told to arrange their apartments as simply and rationally as possible: Everyone – surely a little nervous – giving a hand must remember how extremely important the arrangement of their living space is. The apartment should not only be a familiar and useful environment for the modern human, but also an expression of his personal style. [...] Our new houses in the Baťa quarters, especially the two-family houses with two separate entrances, definitely appear friendly, simple and cozy. All employees who are going to live in the houses should make an effort to keep the same impression that exists on the outside as well on the inside and even increase the effect, which is more possible in smaller apartments. [...] A modern apartment has to be light, friendly and homelike; this is today’s demand, and it surely is right. If this demand is fulfilled, comfort will definitely be achieved! [...] An excessively decorated room always appears narrow and thus not comfortable! Therefore: the first guideline for every ‘interior decorator’: leave space space! [...] Our new single-family houses give an applicable example for this task: the actual porch is rather small and usually is sufficient, but not if more people enter at the same time. In this case the door to the living room, which takes most of the space of the ground floor, has to be opened. This case should be taken into consideration. Space has to be left; why should the entering persons immediately be stuck between heavy chairs? Why not first give the impression of a lounge, a cushioned bench or a small chair on one side of the living room? The table doesn’t have to be located in the exact middle of the room. Our employees who furnish their own homes must not be afraid of the space not being ‘valuable’ or completely ‘done’. Useless objects in bad style are the least help for improvement.”17

Even without standardized furniture, the Baťa houses should be furnished carefully by their inhabitants. The small spaces allow only a few variations of arrangements, therefore individuality is again restricted. The floor plans of the family houses didn’t change a lot during the following years. What changed were the different annexes – garages, loggias and porches – caused by the changes in Zlín’s society. More and more people owned cars, for which they needed garages. Teachers who came to Zlín to work at the Baťa School of Work or in one of the other schools needed offices in their houses. The more heterogeneous Zlín became, the more the houses differed, but the floor plans still remained the same. Already in the 1930s many variations of types of houses could be found. Only a small part of the development of the newer Baťa towns happened during the Baťa era. During World War II the Nazis also changed the appearance of the houses. They preferred a rather traditional style. Zlín’s influence on the building departments in the Baťa colonies was small, because Jan Antonín Baťa and the management had already left Czechoslovakia. In the areas that were occupied by Germany, the influence of traditional German style rather than Baťa’s modern style shaped the appearance of the towns. The management in Zlín, which was directly under German control, disapproved of “Bolshevik or American projects.”18 17 18

“Wie wollen wir wohnen? Richtlinien für den Umzug ins Baťa-Viertel,” Baťa Bericht – Zeitschrift im Dienste der Mitarbeiter der Deutschen Schuh-A.G Baťa Ottmuth 2 (January 9, 1936), 2. Henrieta Moravcíková, Baťovany – Partizánske: An exemplary Slovak industrial town (2003), http://momoneco.kotka.fi/seminars_uk_03_Moravcikova.html.

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1.7. Zálešná quarter, 1927.

1.6. THE NEW PATTERN – AESTHETICS Aesthetics and stylistic ideologies didn’t play any role when planning Zlín. This was one of the reasons why a collaboration between Le Corbusier and Baťa was not possible. The first buildings in the Zálešná quarter from 1927 were built with saddle roofs (fig. 1.7.) This shows that the flat roof was not obligatory for Baťa. Later a third row of houses, between the ones along the streets, was built. After the time those houses were built, a type of houses with a flat roof was common; this third row has flat roofs as well. The quarter’s uniform style was lost, just because aesthetics were not relevant. In an article in Der Pionier an expert says that it is logical to build tall buildings with rooftop terraces in cities where the plots are expensive. But in the countryside there was enough space for gardens between the houses. “These fashionable architects who only want to show off their personalities are reprobate.” He says that if everyone insisted on their own ideas just to attract attention, the harmony of the city was disturbed. Villages in the Alps could be used as an example, because they stayed true to one style.19 A uniform aesthetic in Zlín was only possible because of Baťa’s power, which survived for decades. Uniformity was more important than any architectural aes19

“Wie das moderne Haus sein soll”, Der Pionier 1 (February 1, 1935), 5.

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thetic or ideology. The town’s appearance should represent Zlín as the town for a collective – a modern town for Baťamen and Baťawomen. Even though many different types of family houses with either one, two or four units can be found, the differences are small enough to perceive every house as part of a whole. Baťa’s employees and Zlín’s population became more and more heterogeneous, but this doesn’t show in the styles of the buildings. Single-family houses were more luxurious, and it was obvious that employees with better jobs lived in them. But the design of the houses was still the same as all the other buildings in Zlín. The similarity of the houses represents the community and strengthens the feeling of belonging together. The architecture of the town is uniform, just like the town’s inhabitants. 1.7. COMPETITION WITHIN THE COLLECTIVE Tomáš Baťa’s ideas were strongly influenced by the ideals of the Czech-nationalist gymnastic club Sokol. Tomáš was a member most of his life, and even though he didn’t use Sokol’s principles without adaptation, many of his principles are very similar to the ones of the club. Sokol’s philosophy has the goal of gaining political power and creating a strong nation by mental and physical training. “Tužme se” – “Let’s get stronger” – is Sokol’s main principle.20 The training is based on competition and integration into a group.21 Another principle is to always believe in progress, which means that a status of perfection can never be reached. Tomáš Baťa believed that technical progress would lead to a better world: I believe in man. I believe in his betterment. I am sure that technical inventions will play a major part, because they are the children of man’s mind. The children of a man’s mind that has worked to get better, enriched with courage and wisdom, willing to share its wealth to find happiness and meaning of life.22

Baťa doesn’t want to strengthen a whole nation, but the employees of the Baťa company and the company. Tomáš Baťa explained that only a healthy, well rested worker could be a good worker. One goal of Baťa’s system is to develop the environment as well as the circumstances for working and living to a point where they can give as much energy as possible to the workers. Since Baťa doesn’t claim to know the future, the demands are permanently changing. But at every point the best solutions for existing problems should be found. Miroslav Tyrš, one of the co-founders in 1862 of the Sokol movement, used a sentence that could just as well describe Baťa’s point of view concerning progress: “Věčný ruch, věčná nespokojenost” – “Unceasing agitation, unceasing dissatisfaction.”23 The aim is an unreachable ideal. 20 21 22 23

Daniela Materna, “Das Werden und Wirken des tschechoslowakischen Turnverbandes Sokol bis 1948, unter besonderer Berücksichtigung seiner Turn-Kongresse” (Thesis, University of Vienna, 1991), 17. Cekota, Entrepreneur extraordinary, 29. Baťa, Thomas Baťa – Wort und Tat, 178. Materna, “Das Werden und Wirken des tschechoslowakischen Turnverbandes Sokol bis 1948,” 28.

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1.8. Parade of the students from the Baťa School of Work, 1935.

The idea of competition of individuals on the one hand and integration into the collective on the other can be found not only in Baťa’s way of managing the factory, but also in the concept for the city. Through individual longing for improvement to perfection, the collective gets stronger. For that reason, as in sports, rivalry had to be created. In one of his speeches from 1922 Tomáš Baťa said: Competition at work is something great, something holy. The man who loses a competition is still better than the one who didn’t show up on purpose. All positive characteristics were only achieved through competition. Our company’s task is to increase productivity as well as wages and with it the wealth of the workers. […] The man must believe that the profit is his own. Only then he will use his time wisely.24

Competition makes the people long for higher positions in the factory, more wealth, better houses, their own cars and more financial resources. To reach those goals they have to work better and harder. Those individual interests have to be regulated, because uniformity must be sustained. Schools, housing and infrastructure are all organized by Baťa. Therefore the company has a huge influence on what the people want and what their personal goals are. Sokol’s principles demand a democratic attitude and strong solidarity in every part of life. Every single member of the club has to work as hard as possible for one great goal: “Jedinec nic, celek vše.” – “The individual is nothing, the whole is everything.”25 Siegfried Kracauer wrote in 1926 that a worker in an industrialized society first had to lose all of his personal characteristics, the physical and the mental. That way he could become part of a predictable mass. To select the ones who were more 24 25

Baťa, Thomas Baťa – Wort und Tat, 66. Materna, “Das Werden und Wirken des tschechoslowakischen Turnverbandes Sokol bis 1948,” 30.

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qualified than others, companies ran psychological tests and evaluated motion.26 Baťa’s system was barely criticized by the people who were in it. Those who were not able to adjust were rejected at the beginning or left the factory and the town on their own. Baťa’s system starts with the family – private life – and from there changes the whole society. The company interferes in private space to create uniformity (fig. 1.8). So how did this space look, and how did it influence the behavior of the people living in it? 1.8. WORK COLLECTIVELY, LIVE INDIVIDUALLY To describe the relationship between public and private, Tomáš Baťa used the sentence “Work collectively, live individually.”27 In the factory the worker should play his part for a larger purpose: to provide the whole world with shoes. At work he is just a small wheel in an enormous machine. His responsibility is small but indispensable: without him the machine wouldn’t work. After work, every worker should rest from work in a private environment with his family to regain energy for the next day. Actually, even the private in Zlín was part of a whole, part of the machine. Individuality was barely existent. Inside the houses family life was private, but definitely not more individual than in an apartment building. However, the family houses communicate individuality and independence. This feeling, of being an individual and living a singular life, increases the worker’s will to work harder than his colleagues in the factory. The goal is to create an even better home for him and his family. The pursuit of individuality prevents the system from ceasing to function. Competition among the inhabitants of the housing quarters and among the workers in the factory stays alive. The concept of competition within the collective can here be found once more. Sokol’s principles are applied to the town and its inhabitants. Competition morally and physically strengthens the collective. In the factory, competition is achieved by promising shares of Baťa’s sales. The workers feel the pressure to work harder than their colleagues and to monitor them, because not only the workers who made mistakes, but also the ones who didn’t, see that the mistake was punished. These mechanisms can also be found in daily life in Zlín’s housing quarters. The desire to achieve better living circumstances, the pressure to keep the apartment tidy, the close relationships between neighbors and the urge to be different from them all are functions that can be found in Baťa’s way of managing the factory. The family houses don’t leave a lot of space for individuality. Today, singlefamily houses often are an expression of personal style and property. In Zlín, the houses were standardized to a large extent, and the designs were based on a standard human and a standard household (fig. 1.9.). 26 27

Siegfried Kracauer, Das Ornament der Masse, Essays (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991), 50. Vladimír Karfík, Architekt si spomína (Bratislava: Spolok Architektov Solvenska, 1993), 99.

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1.9. “Baťa housing quarter at 4:30 p.m.”

Zlín is a laboratory, but many design elements used were already based on studies and norms. The functions of the rooms were already predefined, and the complex floor plans didn’t leave a lot space for individual arrangements. Despite all that, the apartments in the family houses were still perceived as personal property, as a family home. Inhabitants of apartments building usually don’t feel as responsible for their apartments. The landlord and especially the owner of the apartment is mostly an anonymous person or company. Even if known, the owner doesn’t interfere in the daily lives of the inhabitants. The tenants in an apartment building often live there only temporarily, and even if they live there for decades they can leave any time. Even though the Baťa workers don’t own the family houses, the family is meant to stay there their whole lives – or at least until the children grow up. Because the Baťa era was over after a few decades, it is not clear when the family would have had to leave the apartment and make space for a younger family. Nearly every newly founded family in Zlín got a new family house. Since there were so many young people who didn’t have a family yet, even at the end of the Baťa era more people lived in collective houses like dormitories than in family houses. In the plans for Baťa’s ideal company towns, retirement homes for former Baťa workers were planned. Today, single-family houses are built to have as much privacy as possible. The owners set up fences and hedges to be safe from the outside world. People want to own and decorate the spaces they live in. This phenomenon can be found especially in suburbs. If necessary infrastructure is missing and the workplace can only be reached by car, living spaces develop where one neighbor doesn’t know the other. In Zlín the exact opposite effect was achieved. The gardens outside of the houses were meeting places where people had to communicate. In an apartment building people meet more often, but most of the encounters are hasty or anonymous. The people living in the family houses met each other all the time in their gardens. They formed close communities in which it was impossible to stay anonymous.

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1.10. Increasing visibility and saving space.

1.11. Movement and densification.

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1.9. VISIBILITY Already in the Letná quarter every second row of houses was arranged out of phase to allow a better view from the slope for each house. But this pattern also makes sense in the Zálešná quarter, which isn’t located on a slope. This arrangement doesn’t only allow a better view, but also increases visibility. From the street it’s not only possible to see the houses in first row, but also the houses in second and even third rows. Even most of the space between the houses can easily be watched (fig. 1.10.). By organizing the middle of the three rows out of phase and additionally skewing the houses, space can be saved (fig. 1.11.). The same number of houses arranged at right angles and in phase would demand longer distances between the houses. The facades would face each other and it would be possible to see directly from one into the other. Of course this would be the easiest way to increase visibility and control, but the concept “live individually” wouldn’t work that way anymore. The people have to feel comfortable and safe in their homes, which is not very likely when under permanent observation. Supervision in Zlín’s housing quarters doesn’t work by watching each other from one window to the other. It takes place between the houses, in the semi-public areas. The continuous check-ups by Baťa’s Osobní oddělení (Human Resources) weren’t the only reason why the families in the housing quarters kept their houses and gardens in the best order. They were permanently confronted with their neighbor’s critique.

1.12. Planting bushes and hedges.

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Today, the spaces between the buildings have been privatized, which allows the inhabitants to plant trees, bushes and hedges to keep their privacy (fig. 1.12.). This is practiced excessively, and not only by the people living in the Zálešná quarter. The neighborhoods appear chaotic, and the regular arrangement of the buildings as well as the grid are only visible from a view points. This development can be seen as evidence that today’s inhabitants don’t feel comfortable with the organization of the houses anymore. 1.10. PUBLIC – PRIVATE In the Zálešná quarter the houses were consciously skewed. The houses in the Letná quarter were only skewed for constructive reasons. Baťa’s construction department found out that constructing the houses in a right angle to the slope made the building procedure much easier. The pattern that was created for the Zálešná quarter was used in most of the colonies and in the regulation plans for the ideal industrial town. The pattern consists of three rows of houses, in which the middle one is organized out of phase. All the houses are skewed at the same angle to the street. By arranging the houses like that, the spaces between the buildings become neither public nor private. The space doesn’t belong to single families, but they still feel responsible. It is impossible to define to which house these semi-public areas belong (fig. 1.13.). The area around the entrance is almost private, but it’s not clear where this space turns to public. The green spaces between the houses were common areas where every inhabitant of the town could roam freely. The spaces were owned and maintained by the company. It was prohibited to plant trees and bushes. To reach their flats, the families didn’t have to use predefined paths or streets. The houses in

1.13. The organization of space during the Baťa era and today.

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1.14. Semi-public space in the Zálešná quarter.

the middle row could be reached only by crossing the semi-public green areas. This organization of space increases communication between the families. Today, the green spaces are split between the different parties living in the houses. It seems that this must have been rather difficult to manage. It wasn’t pos-

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sible to use a grid to divide the space into equal parts. The gardens have varied sizes and forms, and the system of paths is complex. The houses in the middle row appeared to be especially hard to reach without walking through someone else’s garden. There are no connections between the streets inside the blocks of houses any more. The whole area consists of a complex system of private, public and semipublic areas. Private gardens and public streets right next to each other create critical zones (fig. 1.14). The advantages of this way of organizing a housing quarter are not effective any more. 1.11. THE FACTORY AS ROLE MODEL The work stations in the Baťa factory were arranged in a grid just like the factory buildings. The organization of the factory was extended to the whole factory area. The production cycle demands a certain arrangement of procedures and machines. This is also necessary for individual departments. The Baťa shoe factory was an example of perfect logistical organization. Tomáš Baťa was never a town planner, but an entrepreneur. Baťa always worked with what he knew, and therefore it is obvious that the same organization used for the factory was used for the town as well. Some direct

1.15. Assembly line in the Baťa shoe factory from 1927 to 1945.

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1.16. Location of the assembly lines in the shoe factory.

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1.17. Assembly line, pattern in Gahura’s plan from 1927, actual pattern.

adaptations of the structure of the factory can be found within the pattern of the Zálešná quarter. The planning of the quarter started the same year the assembly line was introduced to the factory. By 1927 production in the factory was already well structured, but the assembly line demanded a rearrangement of the work cycle. The work stations now had to be arranged along a long, moving line. The fist assembly line, called “pohyblivý kruh” (“a moving circle”), was established in the Baťa factory in 192728 (fig. 1.15.). The concept of the family houses already existed when the Letná quarter was built. But for the Zálešná quarter a completely new pattern was developed. After 28

Ondřej Ševeček, Zrození Baťovy průmyslové metropole: továrna, městský prostor a společnost ve Zlíně v letech 1900–1938 (České Budějovice and Ostrava: Veduta and Ostravská univerzita, 2009), 67.

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1927, Baťa’s town planning changed. The assembly line certainly played a major role in this progression (fig. 1.16.). It’s surprising how similar the new pattern and the structure of the factory around the assembly line are. The factory was always organized in a grid just like the Zálešná quarter. But what is really amazing is how literal the imitation of the factory is in this quarter. The similarities can hardly be coincidental. The streets are parallel with only a few connecting roads on the edges of the green space. The streets have the same use and shape in the housing quarters as the assembly line in the factory. The work stations are organized along a traffic axis. In the housing quarters the work stations were replaced by houses, but the principle works the same way (fig. 1.17.). The work stations around the assembly line were not skewed, but arranged out of phase. In the factory, as well as in the housing quarters, this arrangement was chosen to save space. When we look at Gahura’s plan for the quarter, we can see that the houses were not skewed on the original plan from 1927. The decision to arrange the houses at a different angle to the street must have happened on short notice. Of course, we can’t be sure that the pattern of the housing quarters was directly and knowingly based on the organization of the factory. But it is obvious that the introduction of the assembly line influenced every part of life in Zlín. Town planning was the effect of extending the management from the factory to the whole town. Zlín’s architecture is part of Baťa’s system. 1.12. CONCLUSION The development of industry and the town happened in parallel: Taylor’s concept of scientific management was applied not only to the factory. Baťa used the concept for the whole town, starting with the rationalization of the household. Rationalized floor plans based on predefined norms created a standardized environment for Zlín’s inhabitants. This space was to create a homogenous society. Baťa’s principle “Work collectively, live individually” has to be questioned, because living in a space that strongly interferes in the daily lives of its inhabitants, can hardly be individual. The fact that Baťamen and Baťawomen lived in family houses instead of apartment buildings doesn’t seem to be a satisfying justification to call it “living individually.” The concept of the family house was chosen intentionally to create competition among the workers. This should have led to higher efficiency. Not only the decision for family houses, but also the arrangement of the buildings – as well as the arrangement of the neighborhoods – have to be the results of Baťa’s considerations. This way Baťa’s concept, originally used for the factory, could be applied to the private lives of the workers, as well. Of course, we can’t say whether the inhabitants were aware of how the environment they lived in affected them. In the housing districts, semi-public spaces were created that supported the formation of close neighborhoods. These structures were introduced for economic reasons. Competition and strong relationships between the families in the housing

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1.18. Schema of the “Zlín pattern.”

quarters maintained (in addition to the investigations of Baťa’s Osobní oddělení) permanent control. Considering these mechanisms, Baťa’s system can be thought of as a system of control, or monitoring. Both neighbors monitoring one another and the monitoring of the Osobní oddělení were supported or even created by the structure of Baťa’s Zlín. The only private spaces that the families in Zlín had were their own apartments, and even there they were being directed. The family houses were based on predefined roles that correlated with Baťa’s ideals of family and society. By analyzing the family concept in Zlín, it is possible to see how deeply Baťa’s control mechanisms worked into the most intimate and private parts of life – all long before employees were filmed at work. Baťa always stayed true to his concept, but town planning was always connected to innovations at the factory. The organization of the houses, for example, immediately changed when the assembly line was introduced into the factory. The parallels between town planning and industry are most visible in the Zálešná quarter (fig. 1.18.). Baťa drew his ideas from all over the world and tried constantly to adapt those ideas for the Baťa factory and the town Zlín. Zlín’s uniformity might be misinterpreted. Zlín was not built at once, but functioned as a laboratory. New ideas were tested, and if they didn’t work, then no time more than necessary was invested. Just like the Sokol principles demand, the actual goal was the path to the ideal. Today the town is neither defined by producing shoes nor by the Baťa company. The architecture became the town’s symbol.

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2. ZLÍN AND THE INVENTION OF THE PANEL BUILDING Kimberly Elman Zarecor Postwar developments in prefabrication, standardization and typification in Czechoslovakia can be traced directly to the activities of Baťa architects in the 1920s and 1930s. Before World War II, their efforts focused on family houses, but after 1940 the emphasis shifted to apartment buildings.1 The first innovations in construction technology for multi-unit housing can be traced to the war years, when, under the watchful eyes of German observers, the company continued making shoes. They were also doing product research and building houses, although resources such as rubber, cement, and steel were scarce, and output of all products was reduced, especially after 1941. Only 600 housing units, including temporary accommodations, were built between 1939 and 1945, equivalent to one good year in the previous decade. In 1944, fearing unnecessarily that the factories were being used to produce munitions, the United States bombed the factory complex, knocking out 60 percent of its capacity,2 and destroying 140 homes nearby.3 It was during this time that the first organized research on mass-produced prefabricated houses began in Zlín. In 1940, the Department for Cast and Prefabricated Buildings (Oddělení pro lité a montované domky) was established (it was later renamed the Department of Prefabricated Buildings).4 As an indication of the lack of resources during the war, its first assignment was to research the construction of cast concrete houses using mixes lightened with waste materials such as slag, pumice and sawdust.5 The following year, two duplexes were constructed with prefabricated hollow blocks.6 These experimental houses were built near each other in the residential quarter called the Forest District (Lesní čtvrť), east of the factory. With their compact floor plans and cubic appearance, they resembled other Baťa houses of the 1930s including the winning competition entries from the 1935 housing competition, which were themselves takes on the standard Baťa duplexes of the 1920s. 1 2 3 4 5 6

The city of Zlín has created an online catalogue of Baťa housing types, see “In the Steps of Zlín Architecture: Baťa Villas and Family Houses in Zlín,” accessed March 12, 2012, http://www. zlin.eu/en/page/32317.in-the-steps-of-zlin-architecture/. “Corporations: Comeback for Bata,” Time, July 15, 1946, accessed on August 8, 2011, http:// www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,803873,00.html. Jiří Voženílek, “Nová výstavba Zlína,” Architektura ČSR 6, no. 3 (1947): 69. For a timeline of the institute, see Jaroslav Koželuha and Matylda Dufková, “Chronologický vývoj panelových domů od roku 1940 do roku 1960 v práci Výzkumného ústavu pozemních staveb Gottwaldov,” Stavební listy 5, special issue (1999): 17. Ibid., 15. Ibid.

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In 1942, architect Miroslav Drofa, who had worked on residential projects in the Building Department since 1928, was called back from Slovakia to coordinate housing construction in Zlín, a position he would keep for more than twenty years.7 Under his direction, research was directed towards prefabrication and higher-density projects. Bohumír Kula and Hynek Adamec from the Department for Cast and Prefabricated Buildings designed the first experimental panelized prefabricated building, the Type A, in 1943. Between 1943 and 1945, three Type A duplexes were built using panels made at the building site and mounted onto a structural frame.8 A movable crane running on a track along the street positioned the panels. This was similar to methods used in Germany and France before the war. Once again, the duplex typology remained the same and only the method of production changed. After the war, the situation in Zlín was never the same. Less than six months after Czechoslovakia’s liberation from Nazi occupation in May 1945, newly-reappointed President Edvard Beneš signed the Beneš Decrees, which among other things took “into public ownership” all industries “in the national interest” and all Czechoslovak companies with more than 500 employees.9 This sweeping declaration brought the Czechoslovak operations of the Baťa Shoe Company under state control. This included the factories inside the state’s borders, although seriously weakened by the war, and the town of Zlín. By this time, the family had fled with most of the company’s financial and technical assets, and set up a new global headquarters in Canada.10 For Baťa’s hometown, nationalization had consequences far beyond the transfer of corporate assets from private to public ownership. This bastion of paternal capitalism now became the first physical space of state socialism in Czechoslovakia. This was a full two years before the political upheaval that brought the Communist Party to power in February 1948. Paradoxically, the company’s American-inspired brand of capitalism proved to be an ideal precursor to state socialism. His role as a visionary and material provider had been a source of legitimacy for Tomáš Baťa, and later his half-brother, Jan. With the family’s departure, the state was left to assume this position. It was soon taken up by the Communist Party, which had gained control of several key ministries with a strong showing in the May 1946 multiparty democratic elections. These included the ministries of finance, information, and interior, as well as internal trade, which oversaw the Baťa Shoe Company’s production, now limited mainly to the domestic shoe market.

7 8 9 10

Petr Vasulka et al., “Biography: Miroslav Drofa,” Architect Miroslav Drofa, accessed March 29, 2012, http://drofa.com/architekt/pages/en/zivotopis/zivotopis.html. Ibid.; Voženílek, “Nová výstavba Zlína,” 84. Alice Teichova, The Czechoslovak Economy, 1918–1980 (London; New York: Routledge, 1988), 102. See Thomas Bata and Sonja Sinclair, Bata: Shoemaker to the World (Toronto: Stoddart, 1990). On the family’s court battles over their fortune, see “High Finance: The Mystery of Muska,” Time, February 6, 1950, accessed August 8, 2011, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,811866,00.html.

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The aftermath of the Communist takeover in February 1948, which ended the nominal multiparty system, showed how successful the Communist Party had already been in Zlín. It operatives were positioned in the nationalized company’s new management structure and the local government. In 1948, Zlín and several surrounding villages were combined into a new city named Gottwaldov. The moniker was chosen by local Communist politicians to honor Communist Party leader and new Czechoslovak President Klement Gottwald. At the same time, Baťa operations in Zlín were renamed Svit, distinguishing the company from the Canadian firm which claimed the right to use the Baťa name globally. A Communist-controlled executive board was put in place to run Svit. With these two changes, the Baťa name and the hometown that it was synonymous with, disappeared from Czechoslovakia. As this essay argues, the architectural culture of the Baťa company, like its corporate management style, proved surprisingly well suited to the demands of the planned economy and the expectations of collective loyalty in a state socialist system. Long before Communism was a political possibility, Baťa designers were focused on prefabrication, industrial materials, and serial building typologies – all characteristics that would later be associated negatively with architecture of the Communist era in general, but which were hopeful signs of progress in the Baťa context. There was a significant ideological difference, however, between the Baťa years and what came after. The single-family house, which had been the cornerstone of the Baťa residential building program, was abandoned in favor of low-rise high-density and high-rise high-density building types. This shifted the town’s existing street patterns, altered its silhouette, and changed the relationship between individuals and the public and private space around them. Apartment dwellers no longer had the gardens and privacy that Tomáš Baťa believed made his workers content. Zlín’s long history of innovative, high-quality design, from Kotěra to Gahura and Karfík, continued during the war and into the early postwar period. In 1937, the same year that Karfík designed the famous Baťa skyscraper, Jiří Voženílek joined the building department. Voženílek, who had been a young follower of avant-garde theorist Karel Teige and a member of a leftwing architects’ collective called Pokroková architektonická skupina (PAS, Progressive Architectural Group, also known as Pracovní architektonická skupina, Architectural Working Group) in Prague, provided a critical bridge from the 1930s into the postwar period, both for the Baťa company and the national building industry. After Karfík’s departure in 1946, Voženílek became director of the Building Department and, a few years later, he was appointed first head of Stavoprojekt, the nationalized system of architecture offices that replaced private firms after the 1948 Communist takeover. In this way, Voženílek carried his knowledge of Baťa practices directly from Zlín into the highest level of the post-1948 architectural administration. After the war and the changes brought about by the loss of the Baťa family’s leadership and nationalization, the Building Department set out to re-imagine Zlín on a regional and national scale. In a 1947 article, Voženílek claimed that Zlín had suffered more than any other Czech city in the war, not only from the bombings, but

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through the loss of productivity and housing construction that would have occurred if the war had never happened.11 A team that included Karfík, Gahura, and Voženílek quickly went to work on a new master plan for the city, although Karfík and Gahura left Zlín in 1946 before the work was complete. As a member of the Architectural Working Group, Voženílek had proposed urban plans based on Miliutin’s linear city concept as early as 1932, and his influence can be seen in this project which emphasized Zlín’s regional importance and its connections to other cities in the valley such as Otrokovice, 10 km to the west, which was on the national rail line and the site of another Baťa factory and residential settlement.12 Among the group’s proposals were the creation of a Moravian industrial belt and a regional transportation network with highways, canals, and rail lines that would connect Ostrava, Zlín, and Brno to Bohemia and Prague to the west.13 Designs were also completed for the extension of the commercial district to include more cultural buildings and public services, as well as an elevated pedestrian walkway over the main thoroughfare to connect the residential districts with the factory.14 Most importantly for a discussion of housing, the new master plan proposed a change in emphasis for housing production, encouraging more vertical construction near the city center east of the factory and limiting family house construction to “multi-unit prefabricated buildings.”15 Due to this aggressive urban plan and the resources made available by the national government to Svit, Zlín was the site of many of the first housing projects to be completed in Czechoslovakia after the war. These included projects by Karfík, who moved to Bratislava in 1946 to join the new Department of Architecture at the university, and Drofa, who designed the first high-rise housing blocks. Voženílek’s Collective House from 1947–51 indicated his more leftwing political position. In addition to these large projects, Kula and Adamec from the Department of Prefabricated Buildings continued their work on panelized duplexes; fifteen more were completed in 1947 and 1948.16 They were constructed with lightweight, hollow panels held together with wire and temporary scaffolding until roof panels could be secured to stabilize the structure. Kula made an important technological advance in 1947 when he designed two duplexes made out of ribbed panels that were bolted together from the inside; this system became known as the Type K.17 The key to this method was starting the assembly at the corners using designated corner pieces with anchors embedded in them to attach the bolts; additional panels would then fit together where the ribs met. In 1948, he used this system again to build four row houses. 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Voženílek, “Nová výstavba Zlína” (The New Construction of Zlín), 69. Ibid. Ibid., 69–72. Ibid., 73–78. Ibid., 74. Koželuha and Dufková, “Chronologický vývoj panelových domů od roku 1940 do roku 1960 v práci Výzkumného ústavu pozemních staveb Gottwaldov,” 15. Voženílek, “Nová výstavba Zlína,” 84; Koželuha and Dufková, “Chronologický vývoj panelových domů od roku 1940 do roku 1960 v práci Výzkumného ústavu pozemních staveb Gottwaldov,” 15.

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Just as in other cities, the building boom of the Two-Year Plan in Zlín ended with the events of 1948 and the restructuring of the building industry. Jiří Voženílek left for Prague in the fall to begin his new position as Director of Stavoprojekt. During the three years in this position, he embedded ideas of standardization and typification, developed in Zlín, into the design culture of the new state-run system. Issues of production, and prefabrication in particular, were secondary to the immediate goals of establishing a building module, a series of building types, and a system for assessing labor and material needs.18 Postwar interest in panel technology was not unique to Czechoslovakia. In capitalist countries, it was one of many architectural ideas being explored; innovations were also being made in the design of single-family houses, low-rise highdensity housing and upscale urban apartments. This was in marked contrast to the Soviet Union and its satellites, where panel construction was the primary and often the only accepted option. For the most part, panel technology in Western Europe was used for publicly-financed social housing. Non-structural panel technologies, such as reinforced concrete skeletons with mounted facade panels, were the most common, although the French aggressively pursued multiple methods including structural panels. French building engineer Raymond Camus patented the world’s first multi-unit structural panel building in 1948.19 The technology, called the Camus system, was used to rebuild sections of Le Havre in 1949.20 Architectural historians and the general public have long assumed that Soviet architects forced panel technology on unwilling architects in the Eastern Bloc, but by 1953 Soviet architects had not found a viable technical solution for taller structural panel building that could replace typical masonry apartment buildings on a nationwide scale. In fact, in 1959 the Soviet government commissioned the Camus Company to build 380 panel factories across the Soviet Union.21 Thirty million housing units were eventually built there using this technology.22 Because of previous research in Zlín and the extent of typification and standardization achieved by the first Stavoprojekt administration, this area of the building sector was much more developed in Czechoslovakia than in the Soviet Union or other parts of the Eastern Bloc. Even so, panel technologies were still a minor aspect of the architectural research agenda until the early 1950s, at which point the legacy of the Baťa research centers was critical. Once the move toward prefabrication was fully embraced by the regime, experiments to find the best prefabrication technology for apartment construction were quickly undertaken at multiple sites, all led by architects with a connection to Baťa – the Institute of Prefabricated Build18 19 20 21 22

For more on Stavoprojekt, see Kimberly Elman Zarecor, Manufacturing a Socialist Modernity: Housing in Czechoslovakia, 1945–1960, Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011). Marie-Jeanne Dumont and Françoise Fromonot, “Le Logement,” Architecture d’aujourd’hui 67 (Feb. 1996): 86. Raphaëlle Saint-Pierre, “The Camus System, Le Havre, 1949–1951,” Docomomo US Newsletter, Summer 2008, 3. Dumont and Fromonot, “Le Logement,” 86. Ibid.

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ings in Gottwaldov, the Institute of Building Materials and Construction in Bratislava (Ústav stavebních hmot a konstrukcí) and the Communal Public Works Corporation of the City of Prague (Komunální podnik hlavního města Prahy).23 In 1949, František Jech went to work for the Building Enterprise of the Communal Public Works Corporation of the City of Prague.24 With Adolf Benš, he had been the second-prize winner in the 1935 Baťa house competition. He was one of the most active designers of prefabricated buildings in the 1940s and the author of a 1946 book about using industrial building methods to construct low-rise family housing.25 From 1947 to 1949, Jech led an architects’ collective that worked on the Solidarita project, a 1,200-unit housing complex in Prague financed by a group of housing cooperatives and national enterprises.26 In 1949, Jech began work on an experimental tall panel building that he hoped the City of Prague would adopt as a standard housing type. He published articles about the project in Architektura ČSR in 1950 and 1951.27 The building looked like a structural panel building – each exterior panel was the size of a single room – yet it was designed with poured concrete structural “cross-walls” and light concrete cladding. The benefit of the Jech proposal over later panel technology was the flexibility of the plan. Since only the interior walls were structural, there was much greater freedom to alter the massing and floor plates in these buildings. Jech used that to great advantage in proposing multi-wing buildings that pinwheeled around a central core, as well as more straightforward bar buildings. Although prototypes were built at Solidarita and in the Michle neighborhood in Prague, Jech’s proposals were not pursued further. One could argue that it was the flexibility itself, the possibility that in each application the building might take on a different shape, that made it an inferior alternative to structural panel buildings since the building sector as a whole was moving towards typification rather than modularity. The next innovation was a hybrid system with pre-stressed concrete frames embedded in panels. Designed by Karfík and a research team from the institute in Bratislava, the first prototype was part of a temporary exhibition at the 1952 Architects’ Congress in Prague.28 After the Congress, Karfík returned to Bratislava and, along with an architect and two engineers from the university, continued develop23 24 25 26 27 28

Vladimír Červenka and Stanislav Sůva, Průmyslová výroba stavebních konstrukcí (Praha: Ústav architektury a územního plánování, 1953), 10. M. Vostrosablin, “Úkoly a organisace stavebního podniku hl. m. Prahy, kom. podnik,” Architektura ČSR 9, no. 7–8 (1950): 207–208. František Jech, Rodinný dům v kooperativní stavbě (ekonomisace, simplifikace a industrialisace nízkých staveb) (Praha: Ed. Grégr a syn, 1946). “Nové sídliště ‘Solidarita’ v Praze-Strašnicích,” Architektura ČSR 6, no. 10 (1947): 312. The other architects were Hanuš Majer and Karel Storch. František Jech, “Nájemný dům ve vysoké stavbě,” Architektura ČSR 9, no. 7–8 (1950): 171– 306. Besides Karfík’s recollection of the project, there is no documentation of the building. See Vladimír Karfík, Architekt si spomína (Bratislava: Spolok architektov Slovenska, 1993), 145. Research on the BA system in 1952 and 1953 was referenced in a 1961 book; see Karel Storch, New Techniques and Architecture in Czechoslovakia (Praha: Union of Czechoslovak Architects, 1961), 46.

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ing the technology into the “BA” system, named for Bratislava.29 It was similar to what became known in the Soviet Union as the Michailov system.30 The technology used pre-stressed concrete frames that were infilled with lightweight, unreinforced concrete to create a single panel. On the interior, the framing system allowed for hollow frames parallel to the exterior facade and some non-structural partition walls, creating the possibility of larger living spaces within the rigidity of the threedimensional structural grid.31 In 1955, the team built a permanent prototype near the center of Bratislava. In later examples, the structural frames became formal elements, often extending out from the facade creating shallow balconies.32 So although from the exterior the BA system prototype looked identical to early structural panel buildings, known in Czech and Slovak as paneláks, the frames later developed into visual counterpoints to their flat gridded surfaces.33 It was only ever used in Bratislava. The most intensive and systematic investigations of housing prototypes were underway at the three work sites of the Institute for Prefabricated Buildings (Ústav montovaných staveb) in Gottwaldov, Prague, and Brno.34 In 1950, Svit’s Department of Prefabricated Buildings (the same office that had been part of the Baťa Building Department) was transferred into the Stavoprojekt system and then became an independent national enterprise in January 1952.35 It was this new independent entity that was given the task of testing the prototypes. As presented in a 1953 manual on industrial building and articles in Architektura ČSR the following year, prefabrication had four developmental stages leading toward increased levels of industrialization: 1) large block construction; 2) hybrid system with the same large-block exterior walls, floor panels, and stairways combined with a reinforced prefabricated concrete skeleton system; 3) a completely prefabricated system with a reinforced concrete skeleton, floor panels, and stairways, clad on the exterior with lightweight concrete panels; 4) structural panels for the exterior and interior walls and requiring no skeleton. As part of the systematic testing, each one was assigned to a branch of the Institute of Prefabricated Buildings.36 Brno did additional testing on the large-block system, which was already in use in Brno, Most, Ostrava, and Gottwaldov.37 The Prague office tested system two at a site in Otrokovice and sys29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

Václav Havránek, “K architektonické problematice montovaných staveb,” Architektura ČSR 13, no. 2 (1954): 42–52. Gyula Sebestyén, Large-Panel Buildings, trans. A. Frankovszky (Budapest: Publishing House of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1965), 54–55, 92. Georgi Turzunov, “Obytný dom z predpätých panelov typu BA v Bratislave,” Architektura ČSR 16, no. 4–5 (1957): 176–179. Storch, New Techniques and Architecture in Czechoslovakia, 46–53. For examples of later BA system buildings, see Ibid., 50–54. Červenka and Sůva, Průmyslová výroba stavebních konstrukcí, 10. Today the company is known as Centrum stavebního inženýrství – CSI, and remains in Prague with a branch in Zlín. See http://www.csias.cz/, accessed August 8, 2011. All four systems, as well as the BA system in Bratislava, are discussed in detail again in 1957; see Architektura ČSR, no. 4–5 (1957): 159–182. Erich Kohn, “Architektura montovaných bytových staveb,” Architektura ČSR 13, no. 2 (1954): 52; Storch, New Techniques and Architecture in Czechoslovakia, 13–23.

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tem three in Prague, where a prototype was built in Ďáblice for a three-story apartment building with twelve units.38 The Gottwaldov branch was the site of testing for system four. Given the long history of this research in Zlín/Gottwaldov, it was logical that the most sophisticated prefabrication system would be tested at the former Baťa facility. Kula and Adamec, who had been progressing towards the goal of a structural panel building since the early 1940s, created a model of the first structural panel building or “panelák” as early as 1950, although construction did not begin until 1953. They named the series the G-buildings (G-domy), for Gottwaldov. The first panelák type using this system was the G-40, because it contained 40 apartments; another early variation was the L-shaped G-55 corner type. Both were five stories high with multiple access stairs – similar in scale, proportion and materiality to the masonry buildings of the same era. The first panelák prototypes were completed in Gottwaldov in 1954. Identical buildings were constructed in the Pankrác neighborhood of Prague the next year, and another development in Strašnice followed. For technical and aesthetic reasons, the first paneláks incorporated elements such as cornices and pilasters to close corners, hide mortar joints and cover gaps between the panels.39 On the interior, the two- and three-room units of the G-40 and G-55 corner type were similar in size and layout to the Two-Year Plan apartments and the T-series. In this first generation of G-buildings, the apartments had multiple configurations and circulation patterns, although all were comprised of a series of small rooms due to the limitations of the structural wall panels. Doors were placed parallel to the exterior facade, except for those around the staircase, and four individual room-sized panels defined each room, making them feel like separate compartments without the natural flow of spaces in older apartments. Due to the varied layouts and lack of a standardized core for the kitchen and bathroom, the first paneláks required a large number of individual panels – 103 different sizes in the G-40.40 Next came the G-57, G-58, and G-59 types, which streamlined the floor plans, and therefore reduced the number of panel sizes needed, and had varied façade expressions. The most notable innovation in the panelák designed by Kula and Adamec was the solution they found for the joints. The reinforced concrete panels were cast with two upside-down V-shaped hangars embedded in them, not at the corners where the joints would be weak, but within the interior of the panels with the joint of the “V” hitting the top edge of the panel. It was designed to be cut-away at that point to reveal a small hook at the base of the V. The hooks of the intersecting panels were then fastened together with welded metal staples. Cement mortar was poured into the space of the joint and then it was sealed with a PVC gasket. Since the joints occurred away from the corners, the weight of the panels rested on the panel below 38

39 40

Červenka and Sůva, Průmyslová výroba stavebních konstrukcí, 55–64. Recently the system three prototype received attention in the press on its 55th anniversary, see “První panelák v Praze slaví 55 let,” www.idnes.cz (Mladá Fronta Dnes online), accessed March 29, 2012, http://bydleni.idnes.cz/prvni-panelak-v-praze-slavi-55-let-stale-nabizi-komfort-a-je-prijemnelidsky-1tm-/reality_bdp.aspx?c=A100701_092402_reality_bdp_web. Sebestyén, Large-Panel Buildings, 96. Ibid., 130.

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and the hook and staples added lateral stability. The floor panels were also welded together to create a monolithic slab for structural integrity. Just as they did with their original bolted panels, there was also a special corner piece that acted as an anchor for the exposed end joint. The corner joints were also sealed with mortar and gaskets, which gave the facades of the early panel buildings their distinctive grid pattern. The structural panels were manufactured with three layers – an exterior finish, the center of the panel with structure and insulation, and a thin interior finish. Because of the thickness of the early panels, these paneláks felt like traditionallyconstructed buildings with similar finishes, reinforced concrete walls, and good soundproofing. Over time, as panels became thinner and made of flimsier materials, paneláks were known for being loud and poorly-constructed. Despite some initial concerns about the expense of this technology, G-buildings proliferated and their popularity accelerated in the late 1950s and 1960s. Infrastructure needed to be built, including a network of panel factories, to balance the cost of production and transportation. The first three “semi-mechanized” panel factories had been built in Malenovice, Toušeň and Ostrava-Šalamouna in 1953, 1956, and 1957, respectively, with a total capacity of 1,750 units per year.41 From 1957 to 1959, another seven “fully-mechanized” factories were built in cities including Karviná, Most, and Žilina, bringing the combined overall capacity in the ten factories to 7,450 units per year.42 This, however, did not translate into massive production – only 5,598 units in G-houses were constructed across the country by June 1959.43 But as the capacity grew, so did production. For 1960, plans called for Gbuildings to account for 17 percent of all new apartments – 7,061 units. Over time, the pragmatic benefits of the panelák became apparent. In a 1966– 1967 study, Slovak architect Peter Lizon concluded that a five- to six-story masonry building took fourteen to sixteen months to complete, while an eight-story panelák took only eight to ten months.44 The system of large block and skeleton construction developed into a series of types called the T01–T08 blocks, but the potential of these buildings was undermined in the 1960s by the enormous political power of the panel production industry itself, which, according to Rostislav Švácha, lobbied to keep other technologies out of the construction sector.45 During this time, housing developments also grew in scale as the low-rise compact designs of the 1950s gave way to the immense sprawling developments of the 1960s such as Jižní Město (South City).46 In the 1970s, the structural panel building, which had started off as a largely urban type in the Czech lands, made its way into the rest of the country as the post1968 regime attempted to placate its citizens with hundreds of thousands of new 41 42 43 44 45 46

Storch, New Techniques and Architecture in Czechoslovakia, 26. Ibid. Ibid. Peter Lizon, “East Central Europe: The Unhappy Heritage of Communist Mass Housing,” Journal of Architectural Education 50, no. 2 (1996): 104–114. Rostislav Švácha, “Česká architektura 1956–1970,” in Česká architektura/Czech Architecture, 1945–1995, ed. Karel Dušek (Praha: Obec architektů, 1995), 41. Lizon, “East Central Europe: The Unhappy Heritage of Communist Mass Housing,” 108–109.

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apartments during the period of “normalization.” By this time, architects were forced to use lower-quality materials including plastics and design smaller apartments in larger buildings. For example, in the massive Petržalka project in Bratislava, which started construction in 1974, the average apartment contains 3.12 rooms in only 45 square meters (484 square feet). Like Jižní Město and Petržalka, the 1960s and 1970s developments were typically at a massive urban scale – without trees, a pedestrian landscape, or usable community spaces – and nothing like the older districts nearby. Today these groups of apartment blocks dominate the edges of Czech and Slovak cities and towns. Over three million people, or one-third of the population of the Czech Republic, still live in more than 1,100,000 apartment units in 80,000 paneláks.47 More than one-quarter of Bratislava’s 435,000 people live in Petržalka alone.48 Over the years, for residents and visitors alike, these drab and often dilapidated buildings had come to represent everything that was wrong with Communism. This may be changing, however, as recent investment in building rehabilitation – including new windows, new elevators, and new colorful facades – has given these buildings new life and stabilized their value on the real estate market. Paneláks just may prove to be more resilient and desirable in the long term than anyone imagined when Communism ended more than twenty years ago.

47 48

Karel Maier, “Sídliště: problém a multikriteriální analýza jako součast přípravy k jeho řešení,” Sociologický časopis 39, no. 5 (2003): 653–66. “Petržalka,” Official Website of Bratislava-Petržalka, accessed March 29, 2012, http://www. petrzalka.sk/.

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3. BAŤOVANY/PARTIZÁNSKE: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE CONCEPT OF THE FUNCTIONAL CITY Alena Kubová “For 150 years the industrial city has been troubled by something which seems to be disorder. By something which prompted the creation of urbanism,” explains Françoise Choay, an outstanding French architecture theoretician, at the beginning of her book focused on the model of a functional city.1 According to the supporters of the Functional City, the members of the 4th Congrès international d’architecture moderne (hereinafter CIAM, International Congresses of Modern Architecture) in 1933, urbanism must determine the relations among places for living, working and relaxing in such a way that the daily cycle of the living-working-relaxing activities runs as economically as possible.2 The question is how. In attempts toward a functional city, the functional scheme prevails over the traditional urban division. An economic strategy of industrial development becomes the most important determinant. The publication of the Athens Charter in 1943 completed the radical diversion from the tradition of the European city.3 Le Corbusier’s “linear city” also dates from this period. In his polemical essays, the CIAM’s founder insisted that a city’s organization should be based on the model of the Functional City. In Baťovany, a town in a part of the former Czechoslovakia which is now in Slovakia, the development of another industrial town built by the Baťa Company was in progress. According to Jiří Voženílek, the author of the ideal plan for Baťovany, the significance of the linear scheme lies in the clear distribution of the relationship between the places of labor and living. Its cornerstone lies in the direct relationship between industrial production and spatial organization. In a simple geometrical scheme, an architect achieves the flexibility of relations between the individual functions. Therein lies also the unique importance of the linear city scheme. A very important point is that he also presumes changes in social relations within his spatial solutions. In 1946, the president of Czechoslovakia, Edvard Beneš, received the members of Blok architektonických pokrokových spolků (BAPS, The Coalition of Progressive Architectural Associations). Over a very short period of time at the end of the 1940s, the concept of the modern industrial city came to define the political strategy 1 2 3

Françoise Choay, Urbanisme: utopie et réalités (Paris: Seuil, 1965), 4. Martin Steinmann, ed. CIAM ,Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne, Dokumente 1928–1939 (Basel & Stuttgart: Birkhauser, 1979). Le Corbusier, La Charte d’Athènes des CIAM (Paris: Editions de Minuit, coll. Forces Vives, 1957).

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of industrialization of new areas.4 Members of the avant-garde who even during wartime were further developing the basic elements of functionalism, played a crucial role in defining the country’s restoration program. In their visions, long-term economic plans became an opportunity to build “a habitable country” as it was defined by Karel Teige: Certain principles were taken from projects focusing on a classless socialist society and aiming to solve the problem of how to eliminate the conflict between the urban and the rural and to create a balanced population distribution. Some elements were also incorporated into land-use plans under capitalist conditions.5

That might be why Voženílek balances on the edge between the city and urbanism when defining the ideal plan. But even though Voženílek transformed the urban system into functional lines and simplified the structure of public spaces, the aim of the ideal plan remained the construction of a city – a city with a decentralized industrial-production area in contrast to existing cities with industry concentrated on the periphery. Voženílek was able to judge the limits of experimenting thanks to his experience gained as an employee for the Baťa Company. Consequently, during the unstable political situation in 1940s Czechoslovakia, he pointed out: “Only the best-organized businesses, like ČSR Baťa, started to build decentralized factories linked to individual residential areas between the two World Wars.”6 The town of Baťovany, which was renamed Partizánske in 1949, satisfies the concepts of a functional city but still contains some aspects of a socialist town. The visions of a socialist town and attempts toward a functional city during the rebuilding of Czechoslovakia are tightly linked with the construction of the Baťa towns. One example is the dynamic industrial development in Baťovany. In 1950 Architektura ČSR published articles introducing industrial architecture from a wide range of countries – from Great Britain to the Soviet Union. In the articles there were no traces of the political rhetoric of that time. But for how long? In the 1947 article “Contribution to the Development of the Linear City,” Voženílek explains linear schemes as: [...] an example of the functional merging of a structure into a higher organism. By its clear division as well as general use – which can fulfill many quantity and quality conditions – the linear city is the basis of socialist architecture for the future, which will offer the richest variety of space solutions, thanks to a rational exploration of functional relations.7

The most remarkable result of merging with an economic-production strategy is the principle of flexibility of functional relations. The reason seems to be clear at first glance – rises and declines in industrial production. “The importance which we assign to the relation between work and accommodation in the development of com4 5 6 7

Alena Kubová, “Cecoslovacchia 1945–1948: rinventare il territorio, ricostruire il ’paessagio abitabile’,” in La citta della ricostruzione urbanistica, edilizia sociale e industria à Trieste 1945–1957, ed. commune di Trieste (Trieste: Universita degli studi di Trieste, 2004), 146–153. Karel Teige, “O architektuře a přírodě,” in Obytná krajina, ed. Ladislav Žák (Praha: SVU Mánes & Svoboda, 1947), 17. Jiří Voženílek, “Příspěvek k vývoji pásového města,” Architektura ČSR, no. 8 (1947): 229–241. Ibid.

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munities follows from the changes in production means and in economic forces which influence the development of society.”8 It was no accident that the architect, a member of the Leftist Front in the 1930s, tried to introduce the idea of a socialist society. The fundamentals for the notion of an industrial city are formed by balanced relations between the workplace and workers’ housing, which also are a sign of progressive thinking. The ideal plan is an open system, where the connection between workplace and residence into one individual unit opens up new possibilities for urban organization. To avoid simplification and dramatic changes in city concepts, the architect turns to history to support the idea. “A look into the history of city development proves that the given relation followed the principle of arrangement in which settlements had various shapes following contemporaneous advances of industrial technology.”9 Such a view of history preserves its continuity and integrity with the new city organization. Le Corbusier also took advantage of such an opportunity. In his book Towards an Architecture he pointed out the simplicity of the geometrical structure of Roman cities, which were based on the economic and political functions of the towns they established. Such is the case in Le Corbusier’s scheme for Zlín, where a clear principle for a linear city ensures the formal unity of an urban structure. Voženílek’s interpretation is connected with two names – Le Corbusier and Miljutin, whose book, published at the beginning of the 1930s, engendered a considerable response. A reader of the article published in Architektúra ČSR might feel that the concept of a linear city was an answer to the requirements of international cooperation. Voženílek belonged to the avant-garde group whose activities were based on the concept of an international movement.10 From the diagram of the Functional City, it is obvious that the basic functions – accommodation, work and leisure – should be arranged in the landscape. This, on the other hand, means rejection of the historical model of a city, which since the times of L. B. Alberti had been seen as a clearly defined unit. The grid of strictly defined streets in a traditional city thus loses its importance. Jiří Voženílek was one of the few at the time to point out an important difference between two basic notions of the city and urbanism. What difference did he have in mind? Opposed to the majority of supporters of modernity, Voženílek insisted on walking distances between the individual functions within a city. It was necessary to avoid the pointless time lost in commuting to work, explained Voženílek to back up his concept of the linear city. The extent of a built-up area and the size of a linear city is defined by the maximum distance to the workplace. This should apply to both a settlement with no need of public transport and also to an area of extensive urban development with the necessity public transport. The maximum distance between workplace and accommodation is specified as a 20-minute time loss for commuting.”11

8 9 10 11

Ibid. Ibid. Alena Kubová, L’avant-garde architecturale en Tchécoslovaquie, 1918–1939 (Liège: P. Mardaga, 1992). Jiří Voženílek, “Příspěvek k vývoji pásového města,” Architektura ČSR, no. 8 (1947): 229–241.

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He believed that a linear scheme would allow for the continuous distribution of functional relations within buildings, as well among them. As in historical towns, the objective is to create a public-space scheme and encourage social relations. It is necessary to know that for the architect of the Baťa towns, the concept of the urban community had always been a priority. At that time the reason for various disagreements had been and was the notion of a functional city. In October 1946, André Lurçat, one of the founding members of CIAM in Prague and Brno, introduced a project for the restoration of the city of Maubeuge, which, due to its urban-system resolution, attracted the supporters of the Czech avant-garde and of architects. Although Lurçat designed a grid of wide boulevards to replace narrow and winding streets and did not question the necessity for the integration of a local transport system, his aim was to challenge the concept of free building on open, green spaces as promoted by Le Corbusier. Lurçat, who was an opponent of Le Corbusier’s, attacked the notion of the functional city and defended the idea of a clearly defined urban structure. In a short time, André Lurçat, one of the founders of CIAM, accused the representatives of modern architecture, including Mies van der Rohe, of cosmologism and false universalism. If the years between the world wars were a time of urban designs touching the edges of social utopianism, the issue of the relationship to political and economic reality came to the forefront during the implementation of the postwar economicrecovery program. In 1957, on the dividing line between the functional city of the past and the nascent development of socialist estates, Voženílek was still sure of the importance of a “more generous urban concept,” which included an ideal plan for Baťovany, which in 1949 had its name changed to Partizánske.12

12

Jiří Voženílek, “Zásady socialistické výstavby sídlišť,” in Stavba měst a vesnic: urbanistická příručka, ed. Jiří Voženílek (Praha: SEVT, 1957), 23. See also Alena Kubová, Partizánske: Réinventer la ville fonctionnelle, exhibition catalogue (Saint Etienne: Biennale internationale design, 2004).

4. The Role of Brands Corporations in the Production of Space

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4. THE ROLE OF BRANDS CORPORATIONS IN THE PRODUCTION OF SPACE: THE URBAN FOOTPRINTS OF BAŤA, NIKE, AND VOLKSWAGEN Markéta Březovská Cities are both places for production and places for consumption. Following the thoughts of Henri Lefebvre in his The Production of Space (1998), we can also perceive them as objects of production, and according to Manuel Castells and his The Urban Question: A Marxist Approach (1977), as objects of (collective) consumption. The contemporary branding debate intends to reveal the mechanisms of the production as well as the consumption of urban spaces. For almost ten years in debates on urbanism, the role of architecture as a powerful tool for creating a unique identity of place and community has been critically examined. My interest1 in Baťa’s spatial practices is motivated by a rather contemporary development within urban design: the increasing role of corporations in the process of place making in a globalized urban environment. I will illustrate this phenomenon in three examples: in the Volkswagen town, in Niketowns, and in one of the Baťa satellite towns.2 Volkswagen is a traditional European automobile manufacturer based in Wolfsburg, Germany. The Volkswagen case reveals the change of corporation branding strategy and its influence on urban space over time within one particular location, based on the dialectic between the spaces of production (production plant, worker housing, and municipality – Wolfsburg) and the production of space (construction of production plant, worker housing, and municipality). In the 1990s, Volkswagen added to its arsenal of production of space a new one: a place for consumption, a new amusement center focused on customers. Today, they exist, produce, and are consumed next to each other. Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States, and manufacturing mainly in Asia. Nike Corporation prefers bottom-up strategies of place and identity making, rather than revealing the actual sites where goods are produced. It specializes in the production of space and its meaning through consumers. Almost virtual Niketowns are everywhere where Nike products appear. 1 2

I was trained as an architect and am involved in architectural and urban theory. This paper is based on my current research on model cities at the Faculty of Architecture, Brno University of Technology, and on research conducted during the 2010–2011 academic year at the Bauhaus Kolleg XII, an interdisciplinary postgraduate urban studies program run by the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation under the direction of Regina Bittner, Wilfried Hackenbroich, and Stefan Rettich.

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Baťa is a multinational corporation in the shoe industry with four headquarters and production sites in the southern hemisphere. In the Baťa town case of Batanagar, India, the historical 1930s-era company town (factory, worker housing, and municipality) has slowly disappeared, mainly due to changes in working processes and the places where shoe production currently occurs. Now, the production of a place by the Baťa branding strategy in the form of a new product is underway: a town for consumption. This transformation of one industrial town in time and space was based mainly on a re-organization of work, housing, and social relations internally as well as in its surroundings. When the conditions of a corporation’s existence or its business interests change, this influences not only the urban space itself, but also local practices of everyday life. 4.1. VOLKSWAGEN TOWN There are places created by and for multinational companies like Volkswagen’s Autostadt (“car town”) in Wolfsburg and designed by Volkswagen’s main architects, Henn Architekten.3 The town of Wolfsburg, Germany, was founded in 1938 as a modern planned town in order to house workers employed at the newly opened Volkswagen factory, which had been built to assemble the Volkswagen Beetle and remains active to the present day, although Beetle production ended there in 1978 when it was transferred to Mexico.4 From the late 1990s, the Autostadt has been a visitor attraction with the form and scale of a town situated adjacent to the world’s largest automobile plant. It includes a piazza, conference center, museum, cinema, pavilions, green hills, a fivestar hotel, and of course a sales exhibition in glass towers where customers can pick up new cars made by Volkswagen Group-owned brands such as Audi, Seat, Skoda, Bentley, and Lamborghini. VW calls the car town a “new service and communication platform,” which attracts some two million visitors annually.5 Another Volkswagen Group facility, the Volkswagen Phaeton Gläserne Manufaktur in Dresden, is a fancy factory building made of glass where Volkswagen’s luxury models – the Phaeton, the Touareg, and the Passat CC – are assembled and sold. The facility allows visitors to explore how cars are assembled. The production line is not accessible to everyone, however; the number of visitors is limited to 250 per day and reservations are required.6 Both large-scale VW facilities also attract 3

4 5 6

Henn Architekten is a German architectural practice operating internationally with more than 30 years of building expertise in the fields of culture and administration buildings, education, research and development, and production buildings. These days, 250 architects, designers, planners and engineers work in project teams in offices in Munich, Berlin, Beijing, and Shanghai. Their projects include Die Autostadt and Die Gläserne Manufaktur for VW, the Project House in the Research and Innovation Center of BMW, and a production plant for BMW in Shenyang, China. “Wolfsburg,” last modified May 22, 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfsburg. “Autostadt,” last modified May 4, 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostadt. “Besucherservice,” Gläsernen Manufaktur, accessed June 15, 2011, http://www.glaesernemanufaktur.de/de/besucherservice.

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4.1. Volkswagen Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Germany, by Henn Architekten.

the broader public through art and cultural events in the form of concerts, exhibitions, and theater festivals. The industrial tycoon takes on the role of a cultural agent in order to promote the brand, and thus to ensure its position on the market and to broaden its acceptance within society. The role of companies in such urban-environment-changing processes has been debated in architectural theory in connection with the notion of branding. A brand is a set of values associated with a product or service, and in the case of brandism® it is a set of values associated with the company and symbolized by architecture.7 Brands often have a homogenizing influence when used by major corporations to impose their brand identity on a community. 4.2. NIKETOWNS One of the most famous examples of a successful branding strategy influencing place and identity-making processes today is that of Nike, Inc. Nike is considered the world’s leading shoe supplier, and also produces sportswear and sports equipment. The company was quick to realize the importance of new marketing strategies connecting the actual space and potential users. Its Niketowns – meaning both the stores and the strategies behind branding within urban space – inconspicuously 7

Brandism® is a term coined by architect Anna Klingmann, who based her business on branding and architecture. See Anna Klingmann, Brandscapes: Architecture in the Experience Economy, Cambridge, Massachusetts – London: MIT Press, 2010), 291–303.

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4.2. NBA player Kevin Durant opens a Nike basketball court in Istanbul, Turkey.

transform the spaces especially by offering their users an experience of individual – albeit staged – leisure activities at very strategic locations within cities. Nike is thus a significant factor in changing lifestyles and how neighborhoods are used, and the production of space is – even more so than in the case of Volkswagen – connected with the creation of an experience within certain places at a certain time. On November 8, 2010, Nike, Inc. reopened its store on Oxford Circus in London covering 3,900 square meters over four floors, making it the largest Niketown store in the world. This is part of Nike’s global strategy to open some 250–300 new Nike-branded stores worldwide over the next five years.8 Friedrich von Borries, author of the book Who’s Afraid of Niketown?: Nikeurbanism, Branding and the City of Tomorrow, has presented examples of how Nike shapes public spaces and transforms them into its private company spaces, so-called Niketowns. For instance, NBA star Kevin Durant proudly presents on his blog how in September 2010 he officially opened a Nike basketball court in Istanbul, Turkey, which bears his name and is sponsored by Nike.9 Through this project, 8 9

“Niketown London Unveiled as the World’s Largest Nike Store Following Striking New Redesign,” November 8, 2010, accessed June 16, 2011, http://counterkicks.com/2010/11/08/theworlds-largest-nike-store. “Staying Focused in Turkey,” KD35 Blog, September 4, 2010, http://kevindurant35.com/2010/ 09/04/staying-focused-in-turkey.

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the company became – publicly yet unobtrusively – an integrated part of a local urban lifestyle. These actions have been viewed critically due to the company’s role in the process of privatization and commercialization of urban spaces, as well as because the Niketowns have been seen as striking examples of individualized global consumer culture – as places where lifestyle groups find the symbolic material for creating their own group identity. For example, in a specialized Nike ID Concept Store – a kind of a design studio that is usually located in a large shopping mall or in the Niketown Flagship Store – customers or just potential ones can design their own personalized shoes. This phenomenon can be seen as a new kind of individualized mass consumption. In the course of this debate, the fact that these glittering consumer places stand in stark contrast to the conditions of production itself foster more and more controversy, especially after a Nike child labor scandal became public in the 1990s. Nike experienced extensive consumer boycotts and negative campaigns after the New York Times and the BBC uncovered abusive labor practices at its offshore subcontractors in Asia. The company claimed no responsibility for subcontractors’ poor working conditions and extremely low wages, but consumers forced Nike to respond by changing its practices. Nike pledged to raise the minimum age for hiring workers at shoe factories to 18, and the minimum for new workers at other plants to 16, in countries where it is common for 11-year-olds to hold such jobs.10 Its global reputation had been seriously damaged, however, and Nike had to search carefully for new branding strategies to regain its lost position on the market. Nike’s impact in the sense of place-making thus seems less visible; rather, the company transforms the consumer and his life, the urban scenes and environments. The branded spaces have to seduce and offer an attractive consumer identity. The production of a lifestyle for masses of individuals happens first, and the production of space seems then to be a secondary but dependent product of branding in our consumerist society. 4.3. BAŤA TOWNS Although the power of branding used in the urban context seems rather an effect of the postmodern and globalized urban economy, the Baťa satellite towns could have been read in a similar way – as one of the first specific examples of how a powerful global company used architecture and urban planning as a means to create a new society. Both architecture and urban planning had always played a crucial role in the governance and control of territories. Architecture, in particular, due to its stable and long-lasting character, can be used both as a strong symbol of cultural superiority and as a means of socio-political control. Baťa’s industrial colonization of new 10

John H. Cushman Jr., “Nike Pledges to End Child Labor And Apply U.S. Rules Abroad,” New York Times, May 13, 1998, accessed December 2, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/13/ business/international-business-nike-pledges-to-end-child-labor-and-apply-us-rules-abroad. html?scp=1&sq=nike%20child%20labor&st=nyt&pagewanted=1

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territories worldwide in the historical and geographic context of colonies and colonizers played a key role in the company’s ambitions to dominate world shoe markets. Tomáš Baťa was a global entrepreneur who used offshoring already in the opening decades of the 20th century. In its endeavor to become a global leader in shoe production, his company created a whole empire of satellite towns for shoe manufacturing where town planning and architecture followed the example set by the Zlín model. Technology was thus exported along with a way of life. When expanding to new territories around the world, Baťa played the welcomed role of a modernizer, selling not only footwear, but also a promise of wealth and prosperity. Does the branding debate enable us to understand the mechanism and the logic of how the Baťa shoe company shaped and transformed places, and in so doing produced not only goods (shoes) but also localities and people? One of the critiques that have been formulated within the debate is that the branding issue is based on a notion of places, which are conceived as blind spots, as static container-like entities that can be filled with various meanings and materials. For a powerful international company operating within the reality and time of a world divided into empires and their colonies, this worldview was an intrinsic part of its self-understanding. It was the same modern concept of space, based on the idea of a tabula rasa, which gave architects and planners the power to design, to define, and to control spatial development. This concept came under criticism as the spatial change entered architectural theory as well:11 Instead of conceiving of spaces as closed entities and localities which have to be shaped, spaces are considered to be dynamic – resulting from conflicts and negotiations – and constituted within existing relations and interconnections. A shift in perspective can be identified within the discourse of 20th century architectural and urban modernity: The common narrative of influences and the export of Western town planning and architectural models to certain localities (especially colonies), have been replaced by another mode of reflection.12 Places are no longer described as blind spots that have to be civilized; rather, they are reflected in their social and spatial conflicts and tensions, in which the dual processes of modernization and destruction are embedded. As such, this approach might be appropriate for an urban study on Baťa cities; since this company operated in a wide network of interrelations, its satellites can hardly be understood without considering the prevailing world trade conditions, the infrastructure, technologies, and social and cultural practices in specific localities, as well as the political and local actors involved.

11 12

See Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx (London: Routledge, 1994). In addition to Deleuze’s “A new Cartographer” in Foucalt in 1988, this was also a new bottomup view of the spatial practices of appropriation introduced by de Certeau in his The Practice of Everyday Life (1988). See Derrida, Specters of Marx, and Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988).

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4.4. THE BAŤA TOWN OF BATANAGAR A case study of a lesser-known Baťa satellite town, Batanagar, near Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) in West Bengal, India, explores the urban footprints left there as the architecture of everyday culture, which offer important insights into the mechanisms of the production of space in the context of branding, a globalized economy, and division of labor. Why India? Why Calcutta? The historical context of Baťa’s engagement in India is complex, and the history of shoe manufacturing in the region is complex as well. West Bengal was the center of the leather industry and thus also of shoe production in India. The indigenous industry, dating from the beginning of the 19th century, had a three-tier economic division: the export of hides and skins, the curing and tanning of leather, and the manufacture of articles.13 As Bagchi points out, this traditional division was disrupted by the effects of external competition, which led to urbanization.14 Thanks to the railway, which accompanied the first industrial revolution, Calcutta became a center of urban export trade. Tanneries and factories also mushroomed in the vicinity of Kanpur, Bombay, and Madras.15 World War I caused a complete reorganization of the leather industry in India, and also offered a steady market for military equipment. In the 1920s, tanneries began closing down, mainly due to fluctuations in European exchange rates. According to a survey by J. K. De, however, in 1928 there were eight leather tanneries and two shoe factories in Calcutta – five of which were still owned by Europeans.16 De also mentions immense growth of Chinese tanneries in the region – from nine in 1914 to thirty in 1924. In the northern suburbs of Calcutta, Punjabi Muslims had workshops employing Muchis – people of indigenous origin from West Bengal who were traditionally extremely skilled in shoemaking. According to a government report on cottage industries in Bengal, even the European companies requisitioned their work.17 Thus began a local network of subcontracting relationships. The Baťa shoe company was the first multinational enterprise in the leather industry in West Bengal. Why did Baťa choose Batanagar near Calcutta? Firstly, high wages in Europe, high import duties, and labor union difficulties forced the company to search for new markets and production sites overseas.18 Secondly, Calcutta was by that time a center of modern education, science, culture, politics, busi13 14 15 16 17 18

B. Ramachandra Rau, The Economics of Leather Industry (Culcutta: Culcutta University Press, 1925), 7. Sreeparna Bagchi, “The Zlin Enterprise: A Profile of the Role of the First Multinational Organisation in the Leather Industry in Bengal (1931–1945),” The Calcutta Historical Journal 25 (2005): 47. Ibid., 62. J. K. De, Leather Industry of Bengal during the Period 1919–1969 (Calcutta: The Diamond Jubilee Souvenir of the College of Leather Technology, 1994), 38–40. Government of Bengal, Report on the Survey of Cottage Industries in Bengal (Bengal Secretariat Book Depot: Calcutta, 1929), 40. Anne Sudrow, Der Schuh im Nationalsozialismus: Eine Produktgeschichte im deutsch-britisch-amerikanischen Vergleich (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2010), 123–144.

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ness – and as mentioned above – the leather industry in India. Thirdly, Czech entrepreneurs coming from a young independent country were perceived as role models by a new Indian elite striving for national independence, especially after 1911 when, due to growing nationalism in West Bengal, the capital was moved to New Delhi, and Calcutta boycotted all British goods. Fourthly, the location of Batanagar itself – Baťa followed his proven strategy of locating new production sites near important cities (even today Kolkata is still the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal), but far enough away to keep the uninformed rural inhabitants uninvolved in real urban city life, retaining the privilege of educating them for himself and taking advantage of the cheap labor. Moreover, Batanagar was geographically positioned on the three main pieces of local infrastructure: on the famous Hooghly River (a distributary of the Ganges River), on the railway, and on the main road to Calcutta. At the end of 1922, Tomáš Baťa traveled to India to study the raw hide market and tanneries in Calcutta, and then on to Agra, Lahore, and South India to see the rubber plantations. His second visit, within a short period of time, was to secure raw materials for his plant in Zlín.19 From 1925, exports form India to Czechoslovakia increased, and in the same year the first shoes made in Zlín arrived in India. After a further survey of local markets, business conditions, and the political situation, Baťa realized how profitable it would be to locate the entire business there. Tomáš Baťa’s next visit to India, starting on December 10, 1931, in Otrokovice, Czechoslovakia, was the first business trip – a flying expedition undertaken by a continental European entrepreneur to establish new business cooperation in Asia. Tomáš Baťa arrived in West Bengal at the beginning of 1932 with the main goal of personally choosing a site for new factory premises.20 Also in 1932, the company started shoe production in a rented building in Konnagar in West Bengal, employing 75 Czech experts. Two more experimental production plants were opened later in the year, one in Bataganj in the Bihar state and one in Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka. During his stay in India, Tomáš Baťa planned in detail the basis for the future factory which, together with the colonies for employees, was to be built on the same principles on which his Zlín enterprise grew.21 Batanagar was planned as the first permanent factory with a full range of facilities – the first Baťa company town in India after phasing out production in Konnagar. Plans for the township were initiated by Tomáš Baťa and designed by František Lydie Gahura. Construction began after Tomáš Baťa’s death22 under the direction of his stepbrother, Jan Antonín Baťa, in 1934. On October 28, 1934, the foundation stone of Batanagar was laid on land purchased from the Port Commissioners and local small private landowners, as described in The First Decade of Batanagar (1945).23 19 20 21 22 23

Jan Baroš, The First Decade of Batanagar (Batanagar: Club for the graduates of Bata School, 1945), 4–6. “Indická cesta – velký příklad Tomáše Bati,” Svět. Vol. 27, Rubrika Ze světa. (Zlín, 1942): 16. Baroš, The First Decade of Batanagar, 17. Tomáš Baťa died on July 12, 1932, in a plane crash en route to the concern’s first foreign company town in Möhlin, Switzerland. Baroš, The First Decade of Batanagar, 47–49.

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Batanagar followed a tropical adaptation of the Baťa architects’ vision of a functionalist city, with clear zoning and a strict spatial division between factory premises, generous mansions for the European managers, barrack-like accommodations for the workers, schools, as well as leisure, cultural, and sports facilities. The new imposed architecture gave the place a certain character and structure, and also shaped everyday life in the city. It became a material symbol of certain cultural values and thus further objects for interpretation and narration.24 In describing the situation in Batanagar today, I will focus mainly on the presence of the corporation within space itself, on its influences on the territory and society, how space was negotiated and contested, and how it was not and is not a blind spot, but rather a space with certain experiences, knowledge, and expertise. Immediately after its opening in 1935, the new factory in Batanagar attracted more people – from as far away as Bangladesh – than the planned township could accommodate at the time. Newcomers began to settle all around the Batanagar site. They worked for the Baťa shoe company, or on their own, or both, and since then they have lived in a state of spatial tolerance with the shoe producer. The new business’ arrival and presence in the area served as a catalyst for urban and economic development, and for the overall modernization of the whole region. Over time, Baťa became the largest shoe producer in India and the company went public. Each year, Bata India Limited sets a new sales record and a new shoe production record, whereas the number of employees has decreased from 25,000 at its peak to the 2,500 employed today. Actual production has shifted to small local entrepreneurs. Some of these are local Muchis, traditionally skilled at shoemaking, and some of them previously worked for Baťa and after being laid off opened their own shoe production facilities based on knowledge and experience gained at the Baťa factory. [In addition to] the Bata India Shoe factory, another very remarkable feature of Batanagar, is that shoemaking is a predominant cottage industry in Batanagar. Countless houses and families are dedicated to manufacturing shoes of various makes – leather, PVC, jute, etc. for some of the leading shoe brands in India. For example, Khadim’s, Sree Leathers, Titas, and Liberty, which are some of the most renowned shoemakers in India, have outsourced a major portion of their shoemaking process to the various entities in Batanagar. Every other home in Batanagar houses 24

Former residents of Batanagar remember their life in the town to this day. They associate their memories of former everyday activities and special events with particular built structures. For example, the factory sirens, representing the presence and importance of Baťa like anything else in workers’ everyday lives, stood opposite the swimming pool in the Baťa Club, where only managers and their families were allowed. Special events included an annual Sports Day designed for everyone and organized by the Baťa Club on the sports field. The one piece of architecture as an object of narration would be “the big iron colony gate with the letter ‘B’ written on both sides – whenever you returned home it was an equivalent of the Howrah Bridge for the city of Calcutta – home sweet home…” as Bikram Gupta comments on the Batanagar Facebook page in the “5 things you remember about Baťa” questionnaire (2010). A comment on the same page by Shantanu Ganguly shows that even in people’s memories the streets are typically numbered like the streets in Zlín: “We used to get bread from the store that was right next to our first flat on 3rd street.”

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4.3. Lipika Das, age 18, working for Deva Footwear and earning ca. 100 Rupees (~ EUR 1.50 in 2011) per day.

a small unit which manufactures shoes. This feature was born out of necessity, as most of the families residing in Batanagar are dependent on the Baťa factory for their livelihoods, and thus whenever there is a lockout at the factory these families are very severely affected. Hence shoemaking from their homes has given them an alternative source of income.25

Outsourcing is always based on an imbalance of resources. Production is clearly mechanized inside the Baťa factory, whereas outside the company walls it relies on manual labor. The physical typology of the various production sites here ranges from a one-employee street stall to a small one-floor workshop for no more than two people, to a family workshop in a courtyard, to a factory of 40 employees, to a large complex of factory buildings employing more than 100 workers. The life stories of local shoemakers vary as well. The change from a workers society – Baťa’s historical domination – to an entrepreneurship one – private ownership or self-employment – is phenomenal. This change within shoe production influences all its aspects, its scope, its means, and its consequences. Competitive pressure and the struggle for better labor control led either to the rise of entirely new industrial forms or to the integration of Fordism with a whole network of subcontracting and outsourcing to provide greater flexibility in the face of heightened com25

“Batanagar,” last modified May 13, 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batanagar.

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4.4. Nangichalkchandul, a private factory belonging to Aditya Santra, age 42.

petition and increased risk.26 This shift in production is intimately tied to changes in patterns of production and their places. The following series of portraits of different shoemakers at their workplaces explores the way the Baťa shoe company in Batanagar operates today. Fig. 4.3. shows an eighteen-year-old girl who had to leave school at the age of 11 to work in the shoe factory. Since then, she has changed her employer several times but has never resumed her studies. On weekdays Mr. Santra works for Baťa as a regular employee and on weekends he manages his own factory, producing for Baťa and other major Indian shoe companies (fig. 4.4.). His family business is so successful that he can afford a university education for his children. The company, founded by his father 25 years ago, has more than 40 employees (including female workers and supervisors). Some materials come from Baťa, and some are bought at Kolkata’s leather markets. They franchise production for Baťa (which stamps the final product), Sree Leathers, or Khadim’s, or supply their own factory outlet. Subcontracting has become a natural part of the production process. Baťa indirectly influences the production of space and social life all around the township. 26

David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change (Cambridge: Wiley-Blackwell, 1990).

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4.5. Tapasi Das, age 23, with her grandmother, son, and husband in their family workshop, Laxmi Enterprise.

4.6. Nangichalkchandul, a private factory belonging to Aditya Santra.

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4.7. Finished shoes go back to the Baťa factory to receive the official stamp.

There are women working in factories, dividing their days between the household, childcare, and work for the family business (fig. 4.5.). Based on my subjective observations, I drew a diagram of a modern Baťa production chain, from purchasing materials to their redistribution to different production spaces, to the actual production and its means, to the final product. I traced its movement from Baťa to small entrepreneurs and back to the Baťa factory to get a stamp and approval to be sold as a Baťa product. Here, I question the contemporary means of local production: It could be described as a shift from Fordism to post-Fordism and then back again to its origins, because all the work is a manual handwork, from using chalk and scissors to click soft leather and a graver and knife for hard leather, to work on sewing machines operated by individuals, to manually assembled shoe boxes. The static model of the automated production process for a number of (Baťa) shoes has changed into a dynamic one – one of individual (sub-)contracting reacting to current market demand while maintaining its status as cheap mass production. It is an example of the globalized economy of outsourcing on a very small scale. Centralized mass production in the factory has been transformed into decentralized work by specialized individuals – handmade mass production outside the factory itself. Small entrepreneurs with cheap labor perform all the working processes and procedures not worth running on the mechanized manufacturing line at the Baťa factory: the precise clicking, gluing, sewing, pasting, and cementing of shoes (fig. 4.6). Since the 1970s, Baťa – a pioneer in the use of architecture and branding to serve its own interests – has been losing ground on the world shoe market in the

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4.8. Aerial photograph by developer “A Bata – Hiland Venture.”

areas of advertising, new technologies, and new marketing strategies. Although catching up with regard to the outsourcing process, it has waged a losing battle especially in the area of a “new” mass-produced lifestyle against “new” global players such as Nike which are mastering the strategies of place-making today. In the new millennium, Bata India Limited – perhaps not so surprisingly – is once again the main agent of change in its urban environment, while also searching for new business opportunities. It has entered a new area of activity – the real estate market. The new township on the site – Culcutta Riverside – has taken shape through a joint development agreement between Baťa and the private actor Riverbank Developers Pvt. Ltd, supported by government office of the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority.27 Under this public-private partnership, Baťa has agreed to the demolition of the architectural and urban heritage of the original 1930s-era company town in order to redevelop its 262 acres of land in Batanagar. The new gated community development comprises 3,125 housing units, an exclusive 9-hole golf course, a shopping mall, a promenade, and a marina for the rising middle class in India (fig. 4.8.). The new model of the city has once again become a business article, a brand commodity. 27

The original website of the project of Calcutta Riverside, as I found it captured by the POWERYOURTRADE blog, stated in December 2007 that the project had been conceived and created by Riverbank Holdings Private Limited (RHPL) and Riverbank Developers Pvt. Ltd (RDPL) as a 50:50 joint venture between Bata India Limited and Calcutta Metropolitan Group Limited (CMGL). Calcutta Metropolitan Group Limited (CMGL) is a 50:50 joint venture between the United Credit Belani Group (UCBG) and the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA). United Credit Belani Group (UCBG), with interests in real estate and financial services, involved in several similar projects in Kolkata, such as Hiland Park, Hiland Woods, and Hiland Sapphire. Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA), on the other hand, is a statutory body set up under the West Bengal Town and Country (Planning and Development) Act in 1979. See “262 acres of Integrated Township at Kolkata,” POWERYOURTRADE, accessed on December 3, 2011, http://power-your-trade.blogspot.com/2007/12/262-acres-of-integrated-township-at.html.

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Eighty years after the first Baťa town model was imported to this territory, Baťa – in cooperation with local actors – is again implementing a top-down strategy of place-making. The existing built up structure along with its existing spatial and social relations is being torn down while a new superimposed structure is taking over the place. History repeats itself. Calcutta Riverside, the new gated community to be, is again a strange element in its environment, although not so strange in the contemporary context of Kolkata’s outskirts.28 The situation will trigger new conflicts and spatial negotiations, especially for the existing community. In addition to multi-floor housing, luxurious leisure activities, and high-rise hotels, the developer also plans to offer new employment opportunities in the IT sector, a retail mall, and a hospital. And on the other side of the gated community’s walls, there will be even more new employment opportunities – those in the informal economy, service industries, and supporting occupations, which form about 50 percent of its economy and without which the new township cannot exist. And again – not so surprisingly – the Batanagar neighborhood is reacting and adapting to the new situation extremely rapidly. Shortly after construction works began within the township, the neighborhood’s small private developers responded with similar projects. In an area of at most four-story houses, there are new structures being built that considerably exceed the typical height of the existing urban landscape. It is clear that the new development inside the township is again serving as a catalyst for urban and economic development, and for the overall modernization of the entire region. On the other hand, the changes are certain to deepen the differences between the local social classes, and to divide users of the space from those who will use both sides of the wall – people serving the new rich community but living outside; it is these people who will be the only ones to interact, the new rich community never having a reason to enter the neighborhood and the neighborhood community not having permission to enter the gated space. The space in Batanagar was never evenly accessible with respect to socioeconomic class; however, disparities in spatial and social justice will now increase. The Batanagar case raises the question of the extent to which the strong footprint of one global player challenges the space, and how the space itself responds. The physical model of the factory town may be disappearing; it is being replaced by new facilities aimed to produce a certain lifestyle, but the spirit of entrepreneurship and the notion of the Baťa brand have survived and are still present there, along 28

According to Wang et al., similar types of new development is occurring on all the outskirts of the Kolkata Metropolitan Area: “Clearly,… [changes] …are linked to the ongoing socioeconomic, regulatory, and political changes in the state that favor large-scale real estate and township projects on the periphery of the core metropolis. These changes are in turn reflected in the way metropolitan growth and expansion is being conceptualized and strategized by the state urban development department in general and the KMDA in particular. Building new townships is therefore conceived as a necessary instrument of planned and balanced urbanization in the metropolitan area.” See Lan Wang et al., “Building for what and whom? New town development as planned suburbanization in China and India.” in Suburbanization in Global Society (Research in Urban Sociology, Volume 10), ed. Mark Clapson and Ray Hutchison (Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2010), 444.

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with a ceaseless motivation to move forward and to take on new challenges, to become an entrepreneur and to establish a business. The tradition of being innovative and inventive is reminiscent of Zlín’s situation today. 4.5. CONCLUSION Using the examples of Volkswagen, Nike, and Baťa, I have tried to present how international companies originating in Germany, the United States, and Czechoslovakia influenced and influence the existence of particular local environments and their populations on a global scale. The historical comparison with contemporary brands and their strategies of place-making differ, however. The Volkswagen case of the company town of Wolfsburg represents on one hand the old space made for production, with the factory plant and the housing for workers, and on the other hand a new leisure town focused on creating a great experience for visitors who thus become potential customers. The space designed and built for consumption exists immediately adjacent to the original one built for production, with both representing a projection of the state of society at a particular time into the space. In the case of Nike, another globally active enterprise, it is extremely difficult to trace the actual offshore production chain and the places associated with it, but we can very clearly observe the production of space aimed at our consumerist society: space for an experience and identity-making in a society of customers. This place-making follows the rules of the global culture of consumption. Nike strives to communicate an identical brand identity worldwide by using various branding strategies within its local markets.29 These diverse identities are created through events and their consumption in urban space, which therefore functions as a marketing instrument. Even in this case – though by other means – the town and its environment have become a consumable product – a Niketown. In the Bata(nagar) case, the production of space is still connected to the actual production of goods (shoes). The whole system has changed from a centralized one with one headquarters and several production sites to a system with a decentralized distribution of knowledge, a globalized economy, and a spatially unjust division of labor. However, the mechanisms of creating space can still be seen as productiondriven – the production of shoes outside the new development project and the production of a lifestyle within it. The original company town is being replaced by a new gated community township, both produced by Baťa. The town itself has become a new consumable product. In addition to the Baťa global corporation, there are local actors and institutions, particularly the metropolitan government, local developers, and a rising middle class, who are actively involved in the production of this place and its identity. The place designed and built for production will be substituted by one built for consumption, which again represents and projects the state of society at a particular time into a particular space. 29

Friedrich von Borries, Who’s Afraid of Niketown?: Nike-urbanism, Branding and the City of Tomorrow (Rotterdam: Episode Publishers, 2004), 19.

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The role of architecture and urban planning as powerful tools used by multinational companies to create and govern places and communities still remains to be critically examined. Further research will be necessary in order to broaden our understanding of these processes. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to a number of people for assistance in carrying out this research: academics, librarians, archivists, and mainly the Bauhaus Kolleg XII. The text is based on my findings at the Zlín facility of the Moravian Provincial Archives in Brno, on a research trip to India, and especially on research, results, discussions, and conversations with my colleagues at the Bauhaus Kolleg XII. Participants of the Bauhaus Kolleg XII (2010–2011): Liu Chang (China), Raquel Silveira Chaves (Brazil), Maria del Pilar Barbosa Guerrero (Colombia), Rubén del Rio (Chile), Shubha Deshmukh (India), Stéphanie Fortunato (Belgium), Nadezda Frolova (Russia), Shaida Ghomashchi (Iran), May Jalal Al-Saffar (Bahrain), Patchara Kanmuang (Thailand), Mohd Muhiuddin Khan (India), Toni Liang FU (China), Michaela M MacLeod (Canada), Nishuben Mayurbhai Pandya (India), Radha Muralidhara (India), Joanne Pouzenc (France), Sarah Philine Schneider (Germany), Alexandra Shcherbina (Russia), Juliana Barreto Silva (Brazil), Susana Soares Saraiva (Portugal), Patricia Supelano (Columbia). Furthermore, I would like to express special thanks to Regina Bittner, head of the Bauhaus Kolleg, and to our advisors, Wilfried Hackenbroich and Stefan Rettich.

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5. Modernity on “Brabant’s Heath”: Building Batadorp in the Netherlands

LIST OF AUTHORS Theresa Adamski, Technische Universität Graz, Austria Markéta Březovská, Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic Zachary Doleshal, Sam Houston State University, United States of America Antonie Doležalová, University of Economics, Prague & Centre for Central European Studies, Prague, Czech Republic Tobias Ehrenbold, Universität Luzern, Switzerland Martin Jemelka, VŠB – Technical University of Ostrava, Czech Republic Eric J. Jenkins, The Catholic University of America, United States of America Alena Kubová, École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Lyon, France Oľga Kvasnicová, District Archive in Nitra, Topoľčany Branch, Slovakia Božena Malovcová, District Archive in Levoča, Poprad Branch, Slovakia Martin Marek, Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic Elisabeth van Meer, College of Charleston, United States of America Michal Novotný, National Technical Museum, Prague, Czech Republic Vít Strobach, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic Ondřej Ševeček, Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic Deborah Woodman, Algoma University, Canada Kimberly Elman Zarecor, Iowa State University, United States of America

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Bibliography

List of Archives and Archival Fonds

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LIST OF ARCHIVES AND ARCHIVAL FONDS Czech Republic Archiv architektury a stavitelství Národního technického muzea / Archive of Architecture and Civil Engineering, National Technical Museum (AA NTM) Archiv bezpečnostních složek / Security Services Archive (ABS) Moravský zemský archiv v Brně, Státní okresní archiv ve Zlíně / Moravian Provincial Archives in Brno, State District Archives in Zlín (ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín) Baťa, a. s., Zlín (Baťa) Národní archiv / National Archives (NA) Světová výstava: New York (SV-NY) Státní oblastní archiv v Praze / State Regional Archives in Prague Oberlandrát v Kolíně

Kingdom of the Netherlands Archief Internationaal Institituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis / Archive of the International Institute of Social History (IISG)

Republic of Poland Archiwum Państwowe w Opolu / State Archives in Opole (APO) Zespół Rejencja Opolska (RO) Zespoł 391 Spółka Akcyjna „Otmęt“ w Krapkowicach [1945]1946–1999

Republic of Slovakia Registratúrne stredisko a archív Chemosvitu, a. s. Svit / Registry Centre and Archive of Chemosvit, a. s. Svit (RSACH) Štátny archív v Levoči, pobočka Poprad / State Archives in Levoča, Poprad branch (SAL-PP) Okresný úrad v Poprade / District Office in Poprad (OUP) Štátny archív v Nitre, pobočka Topoľčany / State Archives in Nitra, Topoľčany branch (SAN-PT) Obvodný notársky úrad Bošany / Circuit Notary Office in Bošany (ONUB) Obvodný notársky úrad Šimonovany / Circuit Notary Office in Šimonovany (ONUS) Okresný úrad v Topoľčanoch / District Office in Topoľčany (OUT)

United States of America Bata Archive, Belcamp Land Records of Harford County, Maryland

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List of Archives and Archival Fonds

Federal Republic of Germany Das Bundesarchiv / The Federal Archives (BAR)

Swiss Confederation Bata-Archive Möhlin Schweizerisches Bundesarchiv / Swiss Federal Archives (SBA) B.S.F.-Stiftung, St. Moritz (Bündner-Schuh-Fonds)

List of Illustrations

295

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS III.1. Ottmuth (Otmęt): A German Outpost of Batism? (Martin Jemelka) 1.1. Store selling the factory weekly Baťa-Bericht, 1932. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 1.2. The main street of the factory grounds during the afternoon break, Ottmuth, Germany, 1932. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 1.3. View of the factory grounds in Ottmuth. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 1.4. Factory residential district in Ottmuth, Germany. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 1.5. View of a factory colony of residential buildings, Ottmuth, Germany. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín]

III.2. Putting Möhlin on the Map: The Swiss Baťa Town as an Integral Part of the Company’s National Image (Tobias Ehrenbold) 2.1. Möhlin village center at the beginning of the 20th century. [Bata-Archive Möhlin] 2.2. Aerial view of the Baťa colony in Möhlin, 1935. [Bata-Archive Möhlin] 2.3. Aerial view of the Baťa colony in Möhlin, 1937. [Bata-Archive Möhlin] 2.4. Bata-Schuh AG Chairman Georg Wettstein during his address on May 1, 1935, in Möhlin. [Bata-Archive Möhlin] 2.5. Baťa poster from 1936, Studio Selecta, Zurich. [Bata-Archive Möhlin] 2.6. Recreation room in the Baťa colony in Möhlin, ca. 1940. [Bata-Archive Möhlin] 2.7. Park in the Baťa colony with the “Landi pergola,” ca. 1940. [Bata-Archive Möhlin]

III.3. Baťa in Ponitrie: On the development of the Slovak company towns of Veľké Bošany and Baťovany (today Partizánske) (Oľga Kvasnicová) 3.1. Old Tannery in Bošany. [Municipal Office Archives in Bošany] 3.2. White Colony. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 3.3. Red Colony. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 3.4. First buildings in Šimonovany – Baťovany. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 3.5. Town built on a greenfield site. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín]

III.4. The Establishment and Development of the Baťa Factory in Svit (1934–1945) (Božena Malovcová) 4.1. The Experiment Station. Smoke rises from the chimney of the first power plant. [Municipal Office Archives in Svit] 4.2. Red Colony (also known as Garden Colony). [Municipal Office Archives in Svit] 4.3. Red Colony (also known as Garden Colony). [Municipal Office Archives in Svit] 4.4. View of Svit today. [By Milan Legutky]

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III.5. Modernity on “Brabant’s Heath”: Building Batadorp in the Netherlands, 1933–1959 (Elisabeth van Meer) 5.1. Construction of a factory building, Batadorp, Best. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 5.2. Aerial photograph of the company town of Batadorp in Best, 1933. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 5.3. Factory residential district, Batadorp, Best. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 5.4. Family houses in the factory district, Batadorp, Best. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 5.5. Factory buildings, Batadorp, Best. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín]

III.6. “A Bit of Europe in Maryland”: The Baťa Colony in Belcamp (Eric J. Jenkins) 6.1. Headline from an article on the Bata Company town; Belcamp, Maryland under construction. [The Baltimore Sun (newspaper), 7 July 1939] 6.2. Aerial photograph of Belcamp, Maryland [Postcard, Bata Shoe Company, circa 1953)] 6.3. 1939 construction site plan (buildings highlighted by author) [Bata Archive, Belcamp, Maryland] 6.4. Factory main entrance [By Eric J. Jenkins, 1994] 6.5. Community building [By Eric J. Jenkins, 1994] 6.6. Duplex houses [By Eric J. Jenkins, 1994]

III.8. Jaroslav Fragner and the Unrealized Project of an Industrial Town in Kolín-Zálabí (Michal Novotný) 8.1. The Protectorate and Kolín in the 1940s. [By Michal Novotný] 8.2. First design of the Kolín-Zálabí industrial town, Jaroslav Fragner, June 1941. [AA NTM] 8.3. Sketch of the ground plan of Kolín, Jaroslav Fragner, January 1942. [AA NTM] 8.4. Design of the Kolín-Zálabí industrial town, Jaroslav Fragner, ca. August 1942. [AA NTM]

IV.1. Baťa’s Zlín – Space for the Individual Collective? (Theresa Adamski) 1.1. Development of Zlín until 1947 (grey areas after 1947). [By Theresa Adamski] 1.2. Building 21 today. [By Theresa Adamski] 1.3. Children on the streets of the Letná quarter during the Baťa era. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 1.4. Seamstresses at the assembly line in the Baťa factory, 1927. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 1.5. Workers’ housing in Zlín (older type of workers’ row houses dating from 1918). [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 1.6. Variation of the floor plan with staircase in the center, 1928. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 1.7. Zálešná quarter, 1927. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 1.8. Parade of the students from the Baťa School of Work, 1935. [Der Pionier 32, 1; ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 1.9. “Baťa housing quarter at 4:30 p.m.” [Sdělení; ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 1.10. Increasing visibility and saving space. [By Theresa Adamski] 1.11. Movement and densification. [By Theresa Adamski] 1.12. Planting bushes and hedges. [By Theresa Adamski]

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1.13. The organization of space during the Baťa era and today. [By Theresa Adamski] 1.14. Semi-public space in the Zálešná quarter. [By Theresa Adamski] 1.15. Assembly line in the Baťa shoe factory from 1927 to 1945. [ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 1.16. Location of the assembly lines in the shoe factory. [Průmyslové město, 260; ČR-MZA – Brno, SOkA Zlín] 1.17. Assembly line, pattern in Gahura’s plan from 1927, actual pattern. [By Theresa Adamski] 1.18. Schema of the “Zlín pattern.” [By Theresa Adamski]

IV.4. The Role of Brands in the Production of Space: The Urban Footprints of Baťa, Nike, and Volkswagen (Markéta Březovská) 4.1. Volkswagen Autostadt in Wolfsburg, Germany, by Henn Architekten. [On “http://vespig.wordpress.com” accessed on June 16, 2011. © NewsinPhoto, 2010–2012. http://newsinphoto.ru/ wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Autostadt-01.jpg] 4.2. NBA player Kevin Durant opens a Nike basketball court in Istanbul, Turkey. [Published on “Kevin Durant’s Blog,” accessed on June 16, 2011. © 2010 The Official Home of Kevin Durant. http://kevindurant35.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/DSC01660.jpg ] 4.3. Lipika Das, age 18, working for Deva Footwear and earning ca. 100 Rupees (~ EUR 1.50 in 2011) per day. [By Markéta Březovská] 4.4. Nangichalkchandul, a private factory belonging to Aditya Santra, age 42. [By Markéta Březovská] 4.5. Tapasi Das, age 23, with her grandmother, son, and husband in their family workshop, Laxmi Enterprise. [By Patchara Kanmuang] 4.6. Nangichalkchandul, a private factory belonging to Aditya Santra. [By Markéta Březovská] 4.7. Finished shoes go back to the Baťa factory to receive the official stamp. [By Markéta Březovská] 4.8. Aerial photograph by developer “A Bata – Hiland Venture.” [On http://www.calcuttariverside. com, accessed on June 27, 2011. © 2009 Calcutta Riverside. http://www.calcuttariverside.com/ project-status.html]

298

List of Illustrations

5. Modernity on “Brabant’s Heath”: Building Batadorp in the Netherlands

299

ABBREVIATIONS BAPS, Blok architektonických pokrokových spolků (The Coalition of Progressive Architectural Associations) BB, Baťa-Bericht: Zeitschrift im Dienste der Mitarbeiter deutschen Schuh A.G. Bata, Ottmuth (Baťa-Report: A periodical serving the workers of the Bata German Shoe Joint-Stock Company, Ottmuth) DAF, Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labour Front) DSAGB, Deutsche Schuh-Aktiengesellschaft Bata (Bata German Shoe Joint-Stock Company) CIAM, Congrès international d’architecture moderne (International Congresses of Modern Architecture) ČVV, Československý výbor výstavní (Czechoslovak Exhibition Committee) FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation KdF, Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) NYWF, New York World’s Fair 1939-40 PAS, Pokroková architektonická skupina (Progressive Architectural Group, also known as Pracovní architektonická skupina, Architectural Working Group) PLZ, Złoty polski (Polish złoty) RM, Reichsmark SZO, Śłąskie Zakłady Obuwia (Silesian Shoe Works) VKR, Výstavní kulturní rada (Exhibition’s Cultural Council) ZDA, Závody 29. augusta (August 29th Works)

300

Elisabeth van Meer

5. Modernity on “Brabant’s Heath”: Building Batadorp in the Netherlands

301

EDITORS’ NOTE The name of the Baťa concern and its individual parts, as well as the names of members of the Baťa family, are uniformly written in the text using the Czech diacritic. Only in cases where this originally Czech name in the form without the diacritic (Bata) is part of the name of one of the concern’s companies abroad, or part of the bibliographical entry of a publication in a different language, is this other written form without the diacritic preserved. The attached bibliography includes all the literature cited in the footnotes with the exception of newspaper and magazine articles. The sources of the pictorial documentation which accompanies the book’s text are provided in the list of illustrations. The indexes of names and places contain the names and places which appear in the text of the book, including the footnotes. The indexes do not encompass the preface. The index of places does not contain the places of publication of books, the names of states or countries, political districts, judicial circuits, or the names of places appearing in the text as parts of the official names of institutions, offices, etc.

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Index of Names

303

INDEX OF NAMES Adamec, Hynek 250, 252, 256 Adamski, Theresa 11, 221, 281, 296, 297 Alberti, Leon Battista 261 Alexander II 90 Anderson, Cynthia 196, 289 Anson, Frank 196 Arblaster, Paul 166, 283 Aristotle 100 Aster, Karel 79 Astra, Karel 68, 73 Bagchi, Sreeparna 268, 269, 283 Bally, Iwan 132, 145 Barnes, T. J. 144, 194, 283 Baroš, Jan 270, 283 Basran, G. 194, 283 Baťa, Jan Antonín 20, 28, 35, 40, 41, 45, 55, 61–63, 65, 68, 72, 73, 78–80, 104, 106, 108–110, 112, 115, 149, 151–153, 157, 158, 161, 179, 180, 183, 187, 188, 203, 221, 223, 234, 250, 270, 283 Baťa, Jindřich 149 Baťa, Sonja 12, 139 Baťa, Tomáš 17, 20, 28, 33, 37–39, 42, 55–57, 59, 62, 63, 66, 68, 73, 77, 84, 85, 87, 89–91, 99, 100, 115, 129–133, 136, 147–149, 190, 191, 221, 223, 224, 226, 228, 236–238, 244, 247, 248, 250, 251, 268, 270, 283, 285 Baťa, Tomáš Jan (Baťa, Thomas Jr.) 77, 112, 132, 138, 139, 187, 188, 190, 191, 195, 199, 250, 283 Baťa, Vojtěch 152 Baťová, Anna 89 Baťová, Marie 20, 285 Bauman, Zygmunt 28 Bazel, K. P. C. de 171 Bedus, L. 154, 286 Ben-Arie, Katriel 71, 283 Beneš, Edvard 56, 62, 71, 76, 80, 250, 259 Benš, Adolf 254 Beran, Rudolf 71 Bergier, Jean-François 130, 283 Berkers, Wim. 169, 176, 177, 283 Bikker, Leendert 170, 173, 174, 283 Bittner, Regina 263, 279 Böger, Astrid 63, 283

Bollacher 209 Bollman, Ray D. 194, 195 Bone, Robert 194, 283 Boness, Georg 110, 115 Born, Martin 141, 283 Borries, Friedrich von 266, 278 Bošáni 147, 150 Bouda, Cyril 73 Bourdieu, Pierre 189, 283 Bowles, Ray 194, 283 Bráf, Albín 83, 91–93, 97, 98, 283, 286 Brandes, Stuart D. 29, 283 Březovská, Markéta 11, 263, 281, 297 Brown, Julie K. 63 Brož, Ivan 65, 80, 283 Brun, Donald 139 Budischowsky, Karel 147 Burstyn-Tauber, Camilla 17, 283 Camus, Raymond 253 Castells, Manuel 263, 284 Čech, Svatopluk 39, 89 Cehák, Karel 207 Cekota, Antonín (Anthony) 66, 221, 236 Čelůstka, J. 205 Černovský, Josef 67, 68, 72, 73 Černý, František M. 69 Černý Jan 88 Certeau, Michel de 268, 284 Červenka, Vladimír 208, 254, 255, 256, 284 Chamberlain, Neville 71 Chandler, Alfred D. 15, 33, 36, 284 Chen, Xiangming 291 Chleborád, František Ladislav 83, 91, 93, 284 Choay, Françoise 259, 284 Chwast, Seymour 67, 284 Čipera, Dominik 31, 62, 72–74, 113, 115, 116, 158, 203, 284 Clapson, Mark 277, 291 Clemenson, H. 194, 284 Coenen, Jean 167–169, 173, 175–177, 284 Cohen, Barbara 67, 284

304

Index of Names

Cohen, Jean-Louis 21, 284 Coletta, Cristina Della 63, 284 Crampton, Richard. J. 85, 284 Crawford, Margaret 26, 284 Cull, Nicholas J. 63, 284 Cura, P. 113, 123, 124 Dada, Michal 151 Daladier, Edouard 71 Darley, Gillian 21, 284 De, J. K. 269 Dejung, Christof 142 Deleuze, Gilles 268, 284 Derrida, Jacques 268, 284 Devinat, Paul 17, 284 Diepen, A. F. 176 Doleshal, Zachary 11, 61, 281 Doležalová, Antonie 11, 83, 88, 91, 92, 95, 98, 99, 281, 284, 285 Drofa, Miroslav 250, 252, 291 Dubreuil, Hyacinthe 17, 285 Duffhauss, Jozef 176 Dufková, Matylda 249, 252, 287 Dumont, Marie-Jeanne 253, 285 Durant, Kevin 266, 297 Duranti, Marco 63, 64, 76, 77, 285 Dvončová, Mária 22, 286 Dvořáková, Eva 18, 285 Eckoldt, Herbert Eugen 202, 203, 205–210, 212, 213, 216 Edison, Thomas A. 55 Ehrenbold, Tobias 11, 23, 129, 281, 285 Engliš, Karel 92, 98, 147, 285 Erdély, Eugen 132, 136, 138, 285 Fabián, Miloš 55 Fábry, Pavol 158 Fackenberg, František 151 Feierabend, Ladislav Karel 67, 70 Fischer, J. 149 Foitzik 109 Ford, Henry 15, 16 Forster, Robert 68 Foucault, Michel 52, 268, 284, 285 Fragner, Benjamin 204, 285 Fragner, Jaroslav 201, 202, 204, 207–212, 214, 215, 217, 285, 289, 296 Frampton, Kenneth 21 Frank 209 Fromonot, Francoise 253, 285 Fuchs, Bohuslav 208

Gadient, Andrea R. 129, 140, 285 Gahura, František Lydie 20, 42, 43, 67, 185, 186, 208, 246, 247, 251, 252, 270, 285, 286, 291, 297 Galčanová, Lucie 22, 221, 233, 285 Ganguly, Shantanu 271 Ganlanský, Marcel 157, 285 Garner, John S. 26, 285 Gatti, Alain 23, 285 Gerbec, L. 149 Giedion, Sigfried 228, 229, 231, 285 Glogar, A. 51 Goder-Hermann, Elsa 229, 230 Gottwald, Klement 251 Grác, Štefan 158 Gugel, E. 170 Gull, Thomas 142, 284 Gupta, Bikram 271 Gust, Kerstin 20, 64, 134 Haan, Hugo von 17 Hachtmann, Rüdiger 27, 289 Hackelsberger, Christoph 233, 285 Hackenbroich, Wilfried 263, 279 Hájek, Jan 86, 87, 287 Hajný, Pavel 20, 285 Harvey, David 273, 285 Hassel 205 Havránek, Václav 255, 286 Hay, D. 194, 283 Hayter, R. 194, 283 Heerding, A. 171, 286 Heller, Steven 67, 75, 284, 286 Henderson, Alfred 179, 181, 286 Hershey, Milton 91 Heydrich, Reinhard 203 Hindus, Maurice 155 Hitler, Adolf 61, 71, 106, 138 Hobza, Ladislav 97, 286 Holubec, Stanislav 51, 59, 64, 66, 286 Hořejš, Miloš 205, 286 Horňáková, Ladislava 20, 21, 134, 286, 288, 290 Hoza, John 183, 187 Hrelja, Kemal 19, 286 Huber, Heinrich 17, 286 Hudecová, Anna 22, 286 Hugger, Paul 130, 286 Hurban, Vladimír 75, 76, 80 Hutchison, Ray 277, 291 Ironside, R. Geoff Ivanov, Miroslav

195, 289 20, 286

Index of Names Janáček, George J. 76 Janáček, Pavel 75 Janáková, Iva 75, 286 Jandík, Stanislav 17, 286 Jaun, Rudolf 132, 286 Javorský, Ondrej 158 Jech, František 254, 286 Jemelka, Martin 11, 12, 31, 103, 281, 286 Jenkins, Eric J. 11, 179, 281, 296 Johannes 124 Johnson, Paul 90, 286 Jongh, Gerrit Jan de 171 Jünger, Friedrich Georg 40, 286 Kalb, Don 167, 171–174, 286 Kallay, Jozef 158 Kaminski, Martin 19, 286 Kapusta, Pavol 154 Karfík, Vladimír 20, 130, 182, 185, 209, 238, 251, 252, 254, 286, 290, 291 Kárník, Zdeněk 99, 286 Kašpárková, S. 51 Kerkhoff, F. M. L. 170 Kirsch, Jan-Holger 27, 289 Klátil, J. 149 Klátil, Leopold 205 Klingan, Katrin 20, 64, 134, 286 Klingmann, Anna 265, 287 Kohn, Erich 255, 287 Kohn, Robert D. 67, 287 Komenský, Jan Amos (Comenius) 76, 77 Kooi, Vanda van der 175 Kotěra, Jan 39, 231, 251 Kouba, Karel 51 Kouřilová, Marie 79 Kowalczykow 118, 125 Koželuha, Jaroslav 249, 252, 287 Kracauer, Siegfried 237, 238, 287 Kraus, František (Franz) 106, 115 Křeček, Vojtěch 38 Kreis, Georg 133 Kreymeier, Helmut 115, 124 Kristl, Bohuslav 150 Kubečka, Vladimír 204, 208, 210 Kubová, Alena 11, 259–262, 281, 287 Kubů, Eduard 17, 114, 287 Kučera, Bohumil 18, 287 Kuhnert, Josef 109 Kuklík, Jan 71 Kula, Bohumír 250, 252, 256 Kún 150 Kundu, Ratoola 291 Kvasnicová, Oľga 11, 147, 281

305

Laarhoven, Wim van 175, 177, 291 Lacina, Vlastislav 86, 87, 287 La Guardia, Fiorello Henry 75, 76 Lasserre, André 143, 287 Leach, Belinda 194, 291 Le Bot, Florent 23, 287 Le Corbusier 69, 180, 235, 259, 261, 262, 287, 290 Lefebvre, Henri 263, 287 Lehár, Bohumil 18, 19, 34, 35, 147, 203, 214, 287 Leidenfrost, Julius 147 Lešingrová, R. 51 Leupin, Herbert 139 Linczényi, Ľudovít 162, 287 Linsmayer, Charles 143, 287 Lizon, Peter 257, 287 Lucas, Rex 194, 288 Ludwig, Fritz 113, 115 Luhmann, Niklas 139, 288 Lupták, Ján 149 Lurçat, André 262 Máče, Josef 96, 288 Macek, Josef 83, 91, 93, 94, 95, 288 Mahnkopf, Heinz 106, 108–111, 113, 115, 124 Maier, Karel 258, 288 Malota, František 20, 112, 113, 289 Malovcová, Božena 11, 157, 164, 281, 288 Mandemakers, C. A. 166, 288 Marchal, Guy P. 136, 144, 288 Marek, Martin 11, 16, 25, 34, 51, 64, 79, 281, 288 Mareš, Petr 51, 288 Marken, Agneta Matthes van 170 Marken, Jacob Cornelis van 169, 170 Martin, Bradley 187 Masaryk, Tomáš G. 56, 69, 289 Materna, Daniela 236, 237, 288 Mattioli, Aram 133, 136, 144 Meer, E. von 177 Meer, Elisabeth van 11, 165, 181 Meer, F. von 177 Meisler, Arnošt 79 Meller, Helen 21, 288 Metzger, Franz 144 Michálek, Slavomír 64, 288 Miesbach, Albrecht 18, 203, 206, 209, 288 Mikulíček, Vítězslav 59 Miljutin, Nikolaj Alexandrovič 261 Modráček, František 93–95

306

Index of Names

Moravčíková, Henrieta 22, 23, 288 Mussolini, Benito 59, 65 Myška, Milan 19, 288 Naef, Hans Hugo Hannibal 143, 144, 290 Napoleon Bonaparte 59 Nerdinger, Winfried 21, 288 Nonn, H. 115 Novák, Pavel 20, 21, 185, 221, 288 Novotný, Michal 11, 201, 204, 281, 289, 296 Nye, David 63, 289 Olexová, Anna Olexová, Gizela Orzoff, Andrea

158 158 69, 289

Pálka, Ján 158 Panofsky, Erwin 139, 289 Paška, Laco 154, 289 Pelzbauer, Vilém 207, 208 Philips, Anton 166, 168, 171 Philips, Frits 168 Piechota, Władysław 19, 104–106, 108, 111, 112, 118, 120, 122, 124–127, 289 Pilka, H. 115 Podzemný, Richard 205 Pokluda, Zdeněk 38, 190 Polasek, Joseph 138 Polívka, Josef 68 Porter, Russell B. 76 Pospíšil, Jaroslav 20, 289 Pospíšil, Vilém 97 Povetz, Ján 158 Preiss, Jaroslav 69 Räber, Pius 130, 289 Randall, James, E. 195, 289 Rau, B. Ramachandra 269, 289 Reed, Christopher Robert 63, 289 Reichsfeld 59 Rettich, Stefan 263, 279 Řezník, Alexander 148 Ribbentrop, Joachim von 74 Ríša, Viliam 161, 289 Rohe, Mies van der 262 Roosevelt, Franklin D. 76, 79 Rose, Billy 62 Roškot, Kamil 69, 284 Rothuizen, Jan 170 Rott, V. J. 70 Ruffieux, Roland 133, 289 Ryšavý, Karol 162

Saint-Pierre, Raphaëlle 253, 289 Saldern, Adelheid von 27, 289 Salzberger, Eugen 150–152 Salzberger, Jan 150 Salzberger, Josef 151 Saupe 213 Schib, Karl 130, 289 Schmitt, Adolf 147, 148 Schweizer, Johannes 143 Scott, James C. 67, 289 Sebestyén, Gyula 255, 256, 289 Sedláková, Radomíra 21, 288 Sehnal, Arnošt 205 Ševeček, Ludvík 20, 290 Ševeček, Ondřej 10, 12, 15, 17, 24, 31, 39, 43, 44, 54, 246, 281, 286, 290 Shulman, Michael 196, 290 Silbermann, Heinz 18, 289 Šimoniová, Lujza 152 Šimsa, Josef 136, 139 Sinclair, Sonja 138, 187, 250, 283 Šisler, Stanislav 202, 290 Skoutajan, Hanns F. 78, 289 Šlapeta, Vladimír 20, 69, 284, 290 Smith, Adam 97 Smith, Joanna 22, 289 Sponeck, Maria Sylvia von (née von Teichman und Logischen) 104, 105 Špot, Antonín 152 Stalin, Joseph 59 Stano, Július 158 Steen, Martijn van der 170, 171, 289 Steinführer, Anett 22, 58, 289 Steinmann, Martin 259, 290 Storch, Karel 254, 255, 257, 290 Storrer, Bradley 180, 290 Strik, Peter J. C. 175, 176 Strobach, Vít 11, 25, 51, 64, 281, 288 Suchard, Jan 69, 72, 73 Sudrow, Anne 17, 23, 32, 103–105, 114, 115, 117, 269, 290 Sutnar, Ladislav 75, 286 Sůva, Stanislav 254–256, 284 Švácha, Rostislav 20, 257, 290 Svoboda, Jiří 204, 205, 215, 216, 290 Swift, Anthony 63, 290 Syrový, Jan 71 Sýkora, Artuš 210 Szczepanik, Petr 24, 25, 51, 290 Taylor, W. Frederick 66, 90, 223, 229, 247 Teichova, Alice 250, 290 Teige, Karel 251, 260, 290

Index of Names Teťuľa, Ján 157, 158, 161, 290 Tille, Jan 207, 210 Tolstoy, Lev Nikolayevich 39, 89, 90 Tolt, Ladislav 150 Tomaštík, Marek 17, 29, 205, 286, 290 Topolčanská, Mária 23 Trojan, Jozef 155 Trompler 157 Tropeano, Ruggero 143, 290 Turček, Teodor 151 Turek, Svatopluk 18, 290, 291 Turnovský, Ladislav 69 Turzunov, Georgi 255, 291 Tusar, Vlastimil 88 Twist, Mark van der 170, 171, 289 Tydings, Millard 62, 79, 183 Urban, Otto

86, 291

Vacková, Barbora 22, 221, 233, 285 Valenta, Edvard 61, 62, 80, 81, 291 Vasulka, Petr 250, 291 Vavrečka, Hugo 16, 45, 68–75, 78, 158, 203, 205, 206, 207, 209, 211, 216 Verkuylen, C. A. 167, 291 Verster, Jan B. L. 166, 291 Verunáč, Václav 96, 291 Vítek, Antonín 172, 185 Voděnka, Otakar 149 Vogels, Jan 175, 177, 291 Vos, Gerard 175, 176 Vostrosablin, M. 254, 291

307

Voženílek, Jiří 11, 152, 204, 205, 207–211, 215, 216, 249, 250–253, 259–262, 290, 291 Všetička, Oldřich 74, 75 Wagner, Adolf 93 Wang, Lan 277, 291 Weinstein 59 Wessels, A. 203 Wettstein, Georg 113, 115, 126, 134, 137, 138, 139, 295 Whalen, Grover 75 Wiborg, L. Th. 109, 115 Widmer, Markus 130, 132, 136, 143, 144, 291 Wiehle, Louis 180, 290 Wilhelmi, Dirk Frans 170, 171 Winson, Tony 194, 291 Wirz, Tanja 142, 284 Witt, Oscar 115 Wolf, Eric 192, 291 Woodman, Deborah 11, 189, 281 Wright, Frank Lloyd 180, 290 Zahavi, Gerald 29, 291 Zarecor, Kimberly Elman 11, 249, 253, 281, 291 Zelený, Milan 51 Zelinka, Josef 203, 206, 207 Zocher, Louis Paul 170 Zubíková, Klára 202, 291 Zvala 151

308

Index of Names

309

Index of Localities

INDEX OF LOCALITIES Agnetapark 169, 170 Agra 270 Alphen 166 Amsterdam 168 Auschwitz-Birkenau 111, 112 Baltimore 180, 181 Bangalore 270 Bánovce nad Bebravou 147 Basel 129, 130, 137 Batadorp see Best, Batadorp Bataganj 270 Bataguassu 35 Batanagar 11, 35, 47, 189, 264, 269–273, 276, 277, 283 Batatuba 35 Bataville see Hellocourt, Bataville Batawa 11, 35, 77, 189–192, 195, 197–199 Batayporã 35 Batizovce (today Svit) 11, 18, 35, 124, 127, 152, 157–164, 251, 252, 255, 288, 290, 291, 293, 295 Baťov see Otrokovice, Baťov Baťovany (today Partizánske) 11, 20, 22, 23, 35, 147, 151–156, 234, 259–262, 286–289, 295 Będzin (Bendzin/Bendsburg) 112 Beijing 264 Belcamp 11, 35, 78–80, 179–182, 184–188, 286, 293, 296 Belmont 61 Bendzin/Bendsburg see Będzin Berlin 74, 103, 104, 105, 108, 110, 113, 115, 264 Besoyen 166 Best 11, 35, 113, 165–178, 283–285, 296 – Batadorp 11, 35, 165–167, 169, 171–178, 296 Biały Kamień 126 Bombay 269 Borovina see Třebíč, Borovina Borovo 17, 19, 35, 193, 283, 285, 286 Bošany 19, 147–154, 283, 289, 293, 295 – Veľké Bošany 11, 34, 35, 147, 295 Boxtel 167 Bratislava 154, 252, 254, 255, 258, 291 Breda 166

Brieg/Brzeg 128 Brno 86, 204, 208, 252, 255, 262, 279, 281, 293–297 Brussels 168 Calcutta (today Kolkata) 269, 270, 271, 276, 277, 297 Chełmek 35, 111, 113, 124, 125, 127, 134 Chicago 69, 180, 181 Chynorany 148 Cosel see Kędzierzyn-Koźle Crimmitschau 124 Czeladź 112 Delft 169 Den Bosch see ’s-Hertogenbosch Derry Township 91 Detroit 21 Dongen 166 Dresden 264 East Tilbury 22, 35, 46, 134, 289 Eindhoven 165–168, 175 Emilienhof see Ottmuth (Otmęt), Emilienhof (Emilówka) Emilówka see Ottmuth (Otmęt), Emilienhof (Emilówka) Freiberg

123, 124

Geertruidenberg 166 Geneva 129 Gera 124 Gilze 166 Gogolin (Karłubiec) 104, 105, 112, 125 Gottwaldov see Zlín Gross Strehlik see Strzelce Opolskie Hamburg 74, 75, 124 Hellocourt 23, 35, 111, 113, 124, 285 – Bataville 35 Heveadorp 169, 170, 171, 173, 174, 289 Hoogezand 171 Iroquois Falls 189–191, 196–199 Istanbul 266, 297

310

Index of Localities

Jižní Město see Prague, Jižní Město Kaatsheuvel 166 Kamienna Góra see Landeshut Kandrzin see Kędzierzyn-Koźle Kanpur 269 Karlova Studánka 43, 285 Karłubiec see Gogolin Karviná 257 Katowice 105, 112 Kędzierzyn-Koźle (Kandrzin, Cosel/Kosel) 104, 112 Klodnitz (Kłodnica) 104 Kolín 201–217, 289, 291, 293, 296 – Kolín Štítary 204 – Kolín-Telčice 205 – Zálabí (Kolín II) 11, 201, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 296 Kolkata see Calcutta Konárovice 215 Korfantów 126 Kosel see Kędzierzyn-Koźle Kraków 124 Krapkowice 19, 104, 105, 118, 125, 127, 289, 293 Krems 147 Kroměříž 87 Kutná Hora 210 Lahore 270 Landeshut (Kamienna Góra) 110, 117, 126 Langstraat (Long Street, road connecting Den Bosch and Geertruidenberg) 166, 167, 169 Lanžhot 113, 114, 117 Le Havre 253, 289 Ledeč nad Sázavou 209 Letná see Zlín, Letná Liempde 167 London 21, 61, 71, 124, 147, 266 Long Street see Langstraat Lučivná 157 Lynn 38 Lysá nad Labem 204 Madras 269 Malenovice 257 Malnia 125 Mariapolis 35 Martfű 19, 35, 286 Mato Grosso do Sul 35 Maubeuge 262

Mělník 113 Michle 254 Milan (Milano) 69 Mnichovo Hradiště 114 Möhlin 11, 20, 35, 129–145, 234, 270, 284, 289–291, 294, 295 Most 255, 257 Munich (München) 264 Napajedla 35 Nedanovce 151 New Delhi 270 New York 11, 61–64, 67–69, 71, 73–75, 80, 126, 181, 284, 294, 299 Německý Brod (today Havlíčkův Brod) 201, 203 Nitra 147, 281, 293 Nové Zámky 34, 147, 152 Nymburk 204, 205, 208, 212, 216 Oleśnica 126 Oosterhout 166 Oosterwijk 166 Opole 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 112, 114, 115, 120, 293 Ostrava 12, 86, 252, 255, 257, 281 Otmęt see Ottmuth Otrokovice 34, 35, 185, 252, 255, 270 – Baťov 35 Ottawa 196 Ottmuth (Otmęt) 11, 19, 30, 31, 35, 103–128, 228, 234, 286, 289, 293, 295, 299 – Emilienhof (Emilówka) 104, 111, 121 Partizánske see Baťovany Petržalka 258 Philadelphia 180 Plzeň 72 Poděbrady 210 Poprad 157, 158, 161, 163, 281, 293 Prague (Praha) 17, 39, 65, 68, 70, 71, 74, 75, 80, 93, 203, 204, 207, 216, 251–256, 262, 281, 293 – Jižní Město 257, 258 – Solidarita 254, 288 Prievidza 147 Prudnik 105, 126 Przywory 104 Raciborz 105 Riel 166

311

Index of Localities Rijen 166 Rotterdam 168 São Paulo 35 Schijndel 167 Schmögerle (today Smolne) 104 Schönenwerd 132 Sendražovice 215 Sezimovo Ústí 35, 182, 204 Shanghai 55, 264 Shenyang 264 ’s-Hertogenbosch (Den Bosch) 166, 168, 176 Šimonovany (today part of Partizanske) 22, 23, 150–156, 288, 293, 295 Smolne see Schmögerle Solidarita see Prague, Solidarita Sosnowiec (Sosnowitz) 112 Sprang 166 Stein 130, 286 St. Louis 181 St. Moritz 115, 124, 126, 294 St. Oedenrode 167 Strzelce Opolskie (Gross Strehlik) 105, 109, 125 Svit see Batizovce Telčice see Kolín, Kolín-Telčice Thuringia 124 Tilburg 166, 167, 168 Topoľčany 147, 149, 150, 151, 153, 281, 293 Torino see Turin Toušeň 257 Třebíč 34, 35, 97, 147, 286 – Borovina 35 Trenčín 147 Tři Dvory 215 Trieste 260, 287 Trutnov 113 Turin (Torino) 21, 63, 284

Uherské Hradiště 65, 87 Uherský Brod 59 Uhrovec 148 Varnsdorf 113 Veghel 167 Veľká (since 1946 part of the city of Poprad) 157 Veľké Bielice 154 Veľké Bošany see Bošany, Veľké Bošany Velké Osinalice 113 Vienna (Wien) 86 Waalwijk 166, 169 Washington 75, 79, 80 Wien see Vienna Wilhelminadorp 165, 169, 175–177, 283 Wolfsburg 263, 264, 265, 278, 297 Wrocław 105, 112 Zálabí see Kolín, Zálabí (Kolín II) Zálešná see Zlín, Zálešná Zlaté Moravce 147 Zlín (1949–1989 Gottwaldov) 11, 12, 15–22, 24, 25, 27–30, 32, 39, 42–44, 46, 51–54, 56–62, 64–69, 72, 73, 77–79, 84, 85, 87, 90, 104, 106, 108, 109, 110, 112–115, 123, 124, 127, 129, 133, 134, 136, 138, 139, 141–143, 148, 150, 152–154, 157, 158, 163, 175, 185, 186, 189–191, 204, 205, 206, 210, 211, 215, 216, 221–236, 238, 239, 241, 246–256, 261, 268, 270, 271, 278, 279, 283, 285, 286–291, 293, 295, 297 – Letná 225, 231, 233, 241, 246, 296 – Zálešná 233, 235, 241–243, 246–248, 296, 297 Zruč nad Sázavou 35, 182, 184, 201, 202–206, 208, 209, 216 Žilina

257

Zdeněk Jindra

Der Bahnbrecher des Stahlund Eisenbahnzeitalters Die Firma Fried. Krupp/Essen von der Gründung der Gussstahlfabrik bis zur Entwicklung zum „Nationalwerk“ und weltbekannten Kanonenlieferanten (1811 bis Anfang der 90er Jahre des 19. Jahrhunderts) Übersetzt von Silke Klein Beiträge zur Unternehmensgeschichte – Band 31

˚ Jindra Zdenek Der Bahnbrecher des Stahl- und Eisenbahnzeitalters 2013. 643 Seiten mit 8 Abbildungen, 65 Tabellen und 10 Grafiken. Geb. ISBN 978-3-515-09915-8

Diese Unternehmensgeschichte bietet einen Einblick in die Entwicklung der Industrialisierung, des Eisenhütten- und Militärwesens sowie der Innen- und Außenpolitik Deutschlands im 19. Jahrhundert. Am Beispiel der Familie Krupp beleuchtet der Prager Wirtschaftshistoriker Zdeněk Jindra grundsätzliche Fragen zu Ursprung, Typologie und Funktion des Unternehmers bis zur Einführung des Manager-Systems. Er verfolgt den Ausbau der Hütte zum Großunternehmen und Konzern und seine Beziehungen zu Banken, Interessenorganisationen und Kartellen und geht auf die Stellung von Unternehmer und Arbeiter im Produktionsprozeß und in der Gesellschaft ein. Ein Fokus liegt auf den epochalen Umwälzungen in der Stahlerzeugung mit ihren weitreichenden Folgen für den Eisenbahn- und Maschinenbau sowie für die Vervollkommnung der Schußwaffen. Die auswärtigen Handelsbeziehungen insbesondere nach Österreich und in die böhmischen Länder stellen einen weiteren Schwerpunkt dar. Durch seine eigene Forschungsperspektive stellt der Band eine wertvolle Ergänzung zur bisherigen Krupp-Literatur dar. .............................................................................

Der Autor Zdeněk Jindra studierte Geschichte und Archivwesen an der Karls Universität/Prag und war dort bis zu seiner Emeritierung Direktor des Instituts für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte.

Franz Steiner Verlag Birkenwaldstr. 44 · D – 70191 Stuttgart Telefon: 0711 / 2582 – 0 · Fax: 0711 / 2582 – 390 E-Mail: [email protected] Internet: www.steiner-verlag.de

During the interwar years, the footwear industry was confronted with similarly revolutionary changes and processes to those in the automobile industry which tend to be associated with the name of Henry Ford. Their major vehicle became the originally Czechoslovak enterprise of the Bat’a siblings, which, during the first decades of the twentieth century, grew into a gigantic concern with global reach. Seventeen researchers from Europe and North America trace the fascinating story of the Bat’a concern, a substantive chapter of which from the end of the 1920s became the establishment of company towns. From various perspectives, they focus their attention on this unique model of industrial organization which was discussed widely in its time and which in retrospect can be considered one of the true pinnacles of private capitalist urban planning in the first half of the twentieth century.

ISBN 978-3-515-10376-3

www.steiner-verlag.de Franz Steiner Verlag