Controlled staff transfers in Bata Group in 1938-1941

Abstract

Controlled dispatch of selected staff to factories abroad in the years 1938--1941 played an important role in the history of Bata Shoe Company. Due to that fact the company man-aged to preserve civilian character of the production despite the on-going Second World War. The organizing of the whole process was not a simple task, it was necessary to harmonize actions of several organizational units. The selection of certain employees eligible for the transfers to foreign countries was conducted by sophisticated methodology, but still some of the top manager's decisions were quite controversial. First of all it involved the transfers of Jewish employees, because Chairman of the Board Jan Antonin Bata considered himself to be the rescuer of the Jews. Nevertheless top managers of the group were strictly pragmatic even in this matter and it is difficult to deduce that one of the objectives of the controlled staff transfers was the protection of this national minority. We can see the same rational approach to employees of the German origin. One of the unexplained questions is the Jan Antonin Bata's unclear relationship with Nazi leaders. I tried to deal with all of these questions in this thesis and I tried to contribute to the current debate about the Bata Group's activities during the Second World War.