"And then in 1987, ten years later, I got a summons again. I thought that they had something against me again, that I wouldn't go anywhere again. But only one, not two, talked to me, and after about an hour it turned out that they wanted me to spy for them abroad. So I still pretended not to understand, and then it was noon, I was hungry, I wanted to have lunch. So I said, 'Look, now I remember the last time I was landing in Frankfurt, there were American fighter jets next to the airport building.' He started beaming. He didn't know, stupid, that they'd been there since 1945. 'What kind of planes are they?' And I was playing a moron and used the terminology of the 1920s and I said, 'They're monoplanes.' And I didn't know any more, and he saw that he wasn't going to get any more out of me, and he said, 'Look, next time you come back, take a good look, we'd be interested in that - and then come and tell us.' So they let me go, and I went and stopped for lunch, and I walked - because I was working in Smíchov - and before I got there I was thinking how to get out of it. I don't want to sign it, but again, if I don't sign it... And when I got there, a moment later the phone rang and a voice said: 'Please don't talk, don't say anything. You were with us about an hour and a half ago - do you know who it is?' So I said, 'I know.' - 'Look, I'm going to ask you - I've forgotten which airport you saw it at. But don't talk, don't talk! I'll name the cities and you say yes or no. Was it Düsseldorf?' And I said, 'No.' - 'Was it Frankfurt?' And I said, 'Yes, Frankfurt!' And he said, 'Don't talk, don't name it!' And I said, 'Frankfurt!' And he hung up and told himself, 'You can't do espionage with a moron like that,' and they let me in peace..."
"The whole event came about because we had to hire about 100 German apprentices to work in the factory. And my father told them not to hang around there, and he built a kind of - today we would say a Tesco building - a wooden hut at the factory, and they were housed there as the Youth Union, that is, the Hitlerjugend, under the leadership of two members of the SS. And when they had exercises around the area, they caught two Russians there who were looking for something to eat or someone to contact. They were caught and beaten to death. The SS men reported it to their military superiors, and because they were formally employed in the factory and took a salary as leaders of the apprentices, they reported it to their boss and my father. Dad said, 'All right, what's the matter?' But he immediately sent reliable people and they found the Russians, and that's how it came about. But it ended up just like that... Of course, they had to buy food illegally. My father's personal driver with father's personal car and the head of the factory canteen, Vačkář, would go around the villages buying food and bringing it to the canteen. But because there were these collaborators and these so-called economic controls roaming all over the countryside, Dad was afraid they might get caught, so he told them that if they were caught, they couldn't say they were doing it for the Russians, they'd hang them all. And they were supposed to say it was just a private deal, an illegal food for our family. And then it happened, they got caught. Anyway, collaborators were so stupid that they didn't realize that the amount would be enough for our family for many years... So they turned them in, and these guys said that they had orders from the boss, and so they did it, but it was none of their business, and so they got away with it. But my dad was on trial. For disrupting the war economy."
Eduard Železný was born on 31 November 1932 in Velešín. His father Antonín Železný was a factory owner and innovator. During the World War II he was involved in the anti-Nazi resistance - for example, he supported escaped Soviet prisoners of war. He was convicted for this - however, because he was indispensable to the Nazis as a factory manager, his sentence was postponed until the end of the war. During the May Uprising, he tried to get a unit of the Vlasov army into Prague. After the end of the war, the whole family moved to České Budějovice, where Eduard Železný graduated from grammar school and co-founded a scout group. After finishing ssecondary school, he applied to the Czech Technical University in Prague - however, as the son of a former factory owner, he had little hope. He therefore took a job in the engeneering Walter plant, from where he then managed to get into the school without having to join the Communist Party. Towards the end of his studies, he got into trouble because of a graduation incident and was to be transferred to the frontier - but in the end he went to work in the Patent Office under Alexej Čepička, a friend of his father. As he often travelled abroad on business, State Security took an interest in him and suspected him of espionage. That‘s why he was not allowed to travel for some time. When he managed to travel again in the 1980s, State Security took an interest in him once again. After the revolution, Eduard Železný used his contacts abroad, mostly in Germany, and started a business. For the rest of his life, he was still inventing. His greatest work is probably the five-stroke engine, which is currently being developed at Jihostroj Velešín. Eduard Železný died on 8 January 2018.
Hrdinové 20. století odcházejí. Nesmíme zapomenout. Dokumentujeme a vyprávíme jejich příběhy. Záleží vám na odkazu minulých generací, na občanských postojích, demokracii a vzdělávání? Pomozte nám!
