Josef Sousedík

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources:  –  ·  ·  · scholar · JSTOR (September 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Josef Sousedík

Josef Sousedík (18 December 1894 – 15 December 1944) was Czech inventor, industrialist and resistance fighter.^[1]

Life[]

Josef Sousedík grew up in a poor family in Vsetín in Czechoslovakia. After finishing elementary school he trained as an electrician. He fought in the Austria-Hungary army during World War I and participated in the Battle of Slovakia in 1918. He opened his own workshop in 1919,^[1] using his patents and inventions. The workshop expanded into a factory employing over 200 people by 1934.^[1] The factory went bankrupt in 1934 during the Great Depression and was bought by Ringhoffer-Tatra, which employed Sousedík as a CEO.

He was twice elected mayor of Vsetín from 1927–1938.^[1]

Sousedík was an anti-Nazi resistance leader during World War II, collaborating with the group and the 1st Czechoslovak Partisan Brigade of Jan Žižka. He was arrested in 1944 and shot dead after a fight during an interrogation.^[1] Sousedík was decorated with the Czechoslovak War Cross (Czech: Válečný kříž) in memoriam by Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš.

The Communist dictatorship suppressed recognition of Sousedík's acts due to his collaboration with Western states and factory ownership.^[1]

Inventions and products[]

Sousedík owned over 50 patents, mostly in the electrical field, such as an electrical rudder. His factory produced electrical parts for the ČSD Class M 290.0 and for the .

References[]