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Telegrafia
was founded on October 18th, 1919. 60% of the shares were
state owned; the other 40% remained in the company. The first
factory was situated in Roztoky,
near Prague. The increasing demand for equipment for the postal
services and private customers, lead to the management decision
to take over a number of small suppliers. Further growth in the
field of telecommunication, resulting in an increasing amount of
export to other European countries, forced the company to look
at other locations in order to expand business. They also had to
look for new homes for the growing amount of workers. In 1922
they found a new location: the unfinished Zeisl shoe factory in
the city of Pardubice, ca. 130 km
east of Prague. This factory was adapted and finished between 1922
and 1923. 323 Workers found a job there. The parent company near Prague
employed 488 persons in the same period. In spite of the
increasing growth in the telephone market, the company decided
to focus on the production of radios as well. In 1923 the first
models were introduced under the brand name "Radiola". |
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Company logo |
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The economic crisis in the thirties slowed down the company's
output and development for some years; after that Telegrafia
flourished. Every year a number of new models were introduced.
During the Second World War, Telegrafia was forced to work for
the Germans. In doing so,
the company came in touch with new technologies, like
light metal chassis and radar cathode ray tubes for the Luftwaffe.
On December 31, 1945, after the communist takeover, Telegrafia was brought under public ownership, and was
transformed, together with companies like Philips,
Siemens, Lorenz and Telefunken, into the new state-owned company Tesla. |
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