Editorial Invest in Slovakia
With this name, you probably mishear the name and only BAŤA sounds in your ears. Yes, Tomas was definitely someone we remember more. However, his half-brother helped him a lot in the business and after Tomas died, he took over the reins and accomplished a lot more with the company. It's definitely worth reading what you may not have known about Tomas' half-brother.
1.He was the half-brother of Tomas Bata.
2. It was a great surprise that after the death of Tomáš Baťa, it was he who took over the company and not Tomáš's son.
3. He took over the company for 50 million.
4. Started massive construction of brick houses for employees. He brought in world-famous and renowned architects for the task. Zlín was thus given a unique form
5. He founded other schools, a research institute, a house of culture and film studios.
6. He created a specific class of young men, they were the so-called Thomasites. They wore black tails and top hats.
7. His book "Let's Build a State for 40,000,000 People" is certainly worth mentioning. It is an interesting futurological study and a collection of Jan Bata's ideas, proposals and visions for the future of Czechoslovakia.
8. Under his patronage, the tallest building in Czechoslovakia grew in Zlín. The big boss himself had his office there.
9. In 1937, like his brother before him, he set off on a great round-the-world business trip. This man thought in plans and felt visionary. He summarized his ideas from his travels in an essay entitled "Settling."
10. In Brazil, he bought land the size of Moravia .
11. In 1938 he bought the land near the village of Šimonovany and in August the excavation works for the new town - Bat'ovany - started there. Today they are known as Partizánske.
12. Thanks to his vision and management skills, he expanded the Bata organisation to more than six times its original size.
13. Before the war, he was considered one of the richest men in the world.
14. After the war, rumours began to spread that he had collaborated with the Nazis.
15. On the basis of instructions from Czechoslovak generals, he built up industries for the production of tyres, gas masks, acticarbon, synthetic rubber and tannin. During the Czech national campaign to train pilots, the quota for Zlín was 7 pilots. Jan Bata supplied 240 of them.
16. He and his employees donated 30 million crowns to the national defence of Czechoslovakia. This was the first and largest such donation.
17. He persuaded Dominik Čipera, a high-ranking Bata manager, to take the post of Minister of Public Works. He asked him to create an underground route for the resettlement of Czechoslovak military specialists to England. This plan took 3 days to implement.
18. He personally offered financial aid to Edvard Beneš.
19. In November 1938, he was arrested by the Gestapo. He was passing through the town of Marianske Lazne, which was already under German control. He was on his way to Switzerland for business negotiations. The next day, after a sharp intervention by the Czechoslovak government, he was released.
20. For a while he was talked about as a possible candidate for the Czechoslovak presidency. Supposedly, this was the reason why the Nazi leaders wanted to meet him so urgently.
21. He had to sell the plants in Germany during the war and relinquish control of the Zlín plants as well. Before that, however, he exported everything he could. And finally himself. He and his family emigrated to New York.
22. He was blacklisted by the Allies, where he got there after pressure from competitors, but also because of a number of misunderstandings.
23 His plan in Brazil was to clear the jungle, sell the timber, buy cattle, and use the cattle to start making shoes. He began to establish towns and build businesses there. He planned 10, but only managed four: Batatuba, Bataypora, Bataguasú and Mariapolis.
24. He was condemned as a traitor to the nation.
25. He was certainly a gifted manager, but he was not a good diplomat or politician.
26. He was accused of collaboration. He was tried in absentia in a politicized national court.
27. On the eve of the verdict, the Czechoslovak press was already proclaiming that Jan Bata was guilty and that the court had surprisingly acquitted him of all charges of collaboration. In the end, he was sentenced in absentia to 15 years' hard imprisonment and deprived of all his property.
28. The son of Tomáš Baťa the Elder, nicknamed Tomík, together with his mother Maria - Tomáš's widow, began to drag Jan Antonín through the courts.
29. For his efforts, for example, he received a medal from the hands of the Pope.
30. In 1957, the Brazilians nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize. However, out of modesty, he did not accept the nomination. He gave it up in favour of his friend Marshal Mariano Candide Rondon.
31. In 1965, he dies in a Brazilian hospital. Allegedly, shortly before he died, he asked for paper and pen to write: "The truth will come out like oil on water." Not a word about his death appeared in the Czechoslovak press.
32. In 2007, it was cleared on the third attempt. The Court declared him innocent, and wrongfully convicted in a rigged, purposeful trial.
Sources:
https://www.janantoninbata.cz/
https://zlin.rozhlas.cz/pri-otisku-bot-j-a-bati-do-pametni-desky-jsme-zjistili-ze-mel-kazdou-nohu-jinak-8154987?fbclid=IwAR2cc_mKZdBmrPggpf4wVh76d3DA6eZeLzL4EmxFgMIK-AFHV5wHLqYWmZU
https://zlin.estranky.cz/clanky/tomas-bata--jan-antonin-bata/
https://web.archive.org/web/20070504020544/http://www.batahistory.com/
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