Ing. Jiří Fassman

* 1926

  • "We kind of said that now that it [the political situation] is turning around, we need to have quality people in the party. Then [after the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops] there was a problem, I thought, now I've got in [to the Communist Party], how am I going to get out again? I saw that it had no future, it didn't suit me. Because I commuted to work, I put it partly down to family circumstances and left the party. They looked at me badly for a few days, but nothing happened. We had one advantage in the factory. There was never a surplus of specialists in the factory. So we were... they didn't like to get rid of us. So they left us alone to do whatever we wanted, as long as the products were okay."

  • "We as administrative guys, when we were in the Czech-Moravian [ČKD plant], there was a department for engineers, cooling, transmissions. There were several such departments where there were always about fifteen, twenty technicians, some copyists and others. We also played football with each other. So we would get ready for football, in working form, we would pass the ball. The door opened - because it wasn't long after [Antonin] Kapko was installed as chief engineer. The door opened, he was going around the factory, checking how things were in the factory, familiarizing himself with everything. We didn't even notice him. Let alone say hello to him. So he left normally, but the next day we went to see our boss, who scolded us for being idiots, that we should have at least said hello."

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    Praha , 22.09.2022

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I like a job well done.

Jiří Fassmann in the army, 1952-1954
Jiří Fassmann in the army, 1952-1954
zdroj: archive of a witness

Jiří Fassmann was born on 6 February 1926 in Otvovice. His father and grandfather both worked in a glass factory, and he himself began to apprentice as a fine mechanic in Prague after graduating from the municipal school. After a year he transferred to a secondary industrial school. At the end of the war he was forced to join the Technische Nothilfe and worked on the tunnel excavation near Německý (today Havlíčkův) Brod. After the war he graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at the Czech Technical University and in 1951 he joined ČKD as a technician, where he spent his entire professional life. As a developer and designer, he participated in the development of tractors and engines for locomotives. In 1958, he married his wife Jaromíra, by whose side he spent 65 years, and they moved to Strančice in Central Bohemia. In 1964, he was on a tour of duty in Iraq for several months, where ČKD supplied locomotives. With the coming political liberation in 1967, he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, but left the party after the invasion of the Warsaw Pact troops. Thanks to his expertise, he did not have to worry about his job. He remained active as an engineer into old age.