CKD
of Czechoslovakia
ČKD (abbreviated from Českomoravská-Kolben-Daněk) was one of the major Czechoslovak engineering companies. Today, several smaller companies operate in the Czech Republic with the ČKD name.
1854 Čeněk Daněk founded the company Daněk AS (AS = a spol). In 1872, it merged with Breitfeld and Evans to form Strojírny, formerly Breitfeld, Daněk i spol.
1871 The company První Českomoravská továrna na stroje was established in Prague and built its plant in Libeň u Prahy. Major projects included the Petřín Lookout Tower and the Industrial Palace at the Prague Exhibition Centre. At the turn of the century, it started the production of rail vehicles, and in 1907, together with Ringhoffer, it established the car manufacturer Praga.
1896 Emil Kolben founded the company Kolben AS. Two years later, the compny merged with Pražská as to create Elektrotechnická AS. From 1901 it produced complete equipment for hydroelectric power plants .
1921 Tthe First Czech-Moravian Machine Factory in Prague merged with Elektrotechnická to create the Českomoravská - Kolben.
1927 Merged with Strojírny, formerly Breitfeld, Daněk AS and Českomoravská – Kolben – Daněk (ČKD), the largest engineering plant in the then Czechoslovakia. The company was headed by Emil Kolben. In 1943 he was arrested by the Nazis.
During WW2 the company was renamed Böhmisch-Mährische Maschinenfabrik AG and mainly produced weapons for the Wehrmacht, such as the PzKpfw 38 (t) tank or the Hetzer tank destroyer. The factory was badly damaged in the US air raid on March 25, 1945.
After the war, the company was nationalized.
1963 Tatra Smíchov (until 1945 Ringhoffer-Tatra) became a part of the company as the ČKD Tatra plant.
Production included electrical machines, rectifiers, large industrial compressors , cranes , crane trucks and other hoists and many other engineering products. The most important and best-known operations of the ČKD Group included the production of steam and later diesel locomotives in Libeň and the production of trams in the ČKD Tatra plant in Smíchov , mainly for the CMEA members. The company became the world's largest tram manufacturer and employed up to 50,000 people.
With the economic collapse of the CMEA countries, ČKD Praha lost its largest market. Part privatisation followed.
The above information has been condensed from Google's English translation of the Wikipedia entry, accessed on 8 July 2109. Czech version here.