Rolling Bearings

The first rolling bearings were produced in the country in the Fichtl and Sachs plants at Perštejn nad Ohří. The Perštejn factory was originally built as a weaving mill. It was bought in1911 by Dr Emil Sachs from Schveinfurt and he had the buildings rebuilt to an engineering production facility. The first products were free wheels for bicycles. Due to growing production in the parent plant in Schveinfurt friction-balls manufacturing was moved to Pernštejn in 1921 and two years later, the product range was extended by rolling bearings. This production was taken over by SKF in 1930 and it remained part of its assets until 1948when the factory in Perštejn nad Ohří was acquired by government. The plant in Klášterec nad Ohří was built during the World War II, in 1943 by German company SUMAG to serve the production of military material for aviation industry. In 1945 – 1949 the company got under the national administration and its production programme varied significantly. In 1949 it became part of the TOS Holoubkov national entreprise as a branch plant focused on lathe and circular frame-saw production. Since January 1, 1952 it was associated to ZPS Brno – Líšeň. That year the machine tool production programme was terminated and due to the significant growth of bearings demand and lack of space in the Pernštejn plant, the bearings production was moved to Klášterec na Ohří. Since 1953 only bearings have been produced here and the company to which the Perštejn nad Ohří plant was associated to was named ZKL, n. p. Klášterec nad Ohří.