Hugo Vavrečka

* recorded in the personal card:

• born on February 22, 1880 in Silesian Ostrava
• education – Secondary Grammar School in Moravská Ostrava, Technical University in Brno
• foreign language skills ​​– German, English, Italian, Polish, Serbian
• hired by the company on 7. 6. 1932 as a director
• residence – Pod Rozhlednou 2097, K Pasekám

Electrical engineer - teacher - journalist for the field of national economy - war reporter - writer - sailor - diplomat - director of Bata mill - collector of historical ceramics. A talented man of wide abilities. In 1907, he left his career as a pedagogue at the Brno Institute of Technology and moved to Lidové noviny (newspaper), with the book: Lélíček in the service of Sherlock Holmes (1908) he won appreciative readers. In 1906, as a technical advisor, he met Tomas Bata and their lifelong friendship began. During Masaryk's republic, Vavrečka worked as an important diplomat at the embassies in Budapest and Vienna, he often gave Bata advice and helped him navigate international affairs. Then he left the diplomatic service and preferred to work with Tomas Bata directly in his Zlín company. From July 1932, together with Jan A. Bata and Dominik Čipera, he belonged to the three-member management of the Bata concern. Vavrečka had a key position in Bata corporate diplomacy and was the architect of its foreign expansion. In September 1938, President Beneš called him to the government as a minister, but after Munich this mission ended. After the war, Vavrečka was fired from the company and convicted after the February coup of 1948. He found refuge in Prague in the family of his daughter, married to the Havels; died in Brno on August 9, 1952.

Tomáš Baťa through the eyes of Hugo Vavrečka: Once I somehow got the train connection wrong and had to walk from Otrokovice to Zlín in terrible weather. He greeted me cheerfully: "What is not in the head must be in the feet." He often said: "Only the smart man asks questions, the stupid one instructs." When I was appointed ambassador to Austria in 1926, he often travelled to Vienna to see me. Perhaps all the serious decisions were consulted with me, at least by phone. He liked to talk on the phone very much, especially in the morning around seven o'clock. He consulted usually long and carefully. 

Hugo Vavrečka, 1935 (SOkA Zlin, o. č. 4171, p. č. 1)