Family History    Wines

Photography       Books


Amazon Bestsellers

TheRagens
Site Contents

Home Page

Book Resources

Family History

Newsletters

Reunions

Wildlife Photos

Wine Tastings
 - Bottled Poetry

Other Pages
 

About Us

Contact Us

Privacy Policy

Registration

Site Map
 


Affiliate Sites

Deal of the Day

Powell's Books

Altrec.com - Outdoor Gear

Additional Affiliate Programs

My Century And My Many Lives, by Frank Munk
Memoirs, 1993
Postscript, 1994

Frank Munk, my grandfather, wrote this autobiography to record his memories from 1901 onwards. This history and its postscript are available on our family website in his memory as they tell a complete story of the 20th century. These memoirs may be referenced as long as proper attribution is made; our family retains ownership and copyright. We have one request: if you reference this material in any way, please send us email at feedback@theragens.com and a copy of the paper, if possible, as we would like to know when this material is of interest and we are curious as to how it is being used. We'd like to hear from you.
© Copyright 1993, 1994, The Munk/Ragen Families

MORE LIVES THAN TWO
CHAPTER 8

I have clearly lived two different lives, one in Europe, the other in America. But, in addition, I have also lived two lives in my native Czechoslovakia: one was academic and the other practical.

I started out as an economist and most of my theoretical work and writings were in the field of economics. Later on I gradually shifted to international politics, while my special interest remained the interface between the two.

I have also fluctuated between different sub-areas of the two main fields. Early in the 1920's I got interested in what was then called scientific management of work, also known as taylorism. It later acquired a bad reputation as a mostly cold-blooded exploitation of labor, but originally it was part and parcel of a trend towards what later was known as capitalism with a human face. The chief exponent of this special effort in our country was Docent Václav Verunác [the title of docent was more or less equivalent to that of associate professor in this country]. I soon became a permanent feature of the sessions he used to hold in his office. Verunác was consultant to many corporations, including the shoe factories of Tomás Bata, later known as the world shoe king. He successfully experimented with such innovations as workers' profit participation and many practices now attributed to the Japanese.

I next turned to the then practically virgin field of economic planning. There was no such thing in practice and very little in theory, not even in the Soviet Union, which adopted economic plans and planning only about 1929. I published my first book, which dealt among other things with economic planning, in 1928. The name of the book was "Nové Hospodárstvi" [New Economics] and it was published by the government publishing company ORBIS. I was then regarded as a promising young economist and began writing numerous articles for a number of magazines.

It was as a result of these activities that my former professor Josef Macek recommended me for the award of a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in the United States, where I spent two years between 1931 and 1933.

While in America, I was particularly interested in new forms of retailing, especially chain stores and chains of department stores. Another field which attracted me was advertising and the whole area of propaganda and public relations. During my year at Columbia University I spent a good part of my time downtown, talking to store executives and advertising agencies. My interest in economic and business planning led me to forecasting. I visited for instance one of the first institutions pioneering in that field, the Babson Economic Institute.

After returning home, I started an advertising organization, somewhat like the Advertising Federation of America, under the name of Reklub, the Czech term for advertising being reklama. I became its first president.

While at Harvard, I started writing my doctoral dissertation which I finished after my return to Prague and published as a book under the title of "Distribution and Distribution Costs." I received my doctorate in 1936.

After that I devoted most of my attention increasingly to problems of macro-economics and what you might call macro-politics, no doubt influenced by the darkening clouds of another world war. It was also connected with my becoming an economic advisor and head of the economic committee of one of the major political parties.

All of the above activities would have barely provided a source of income. As a matter of fact, I had from the outset pursued a double career, one theoretical, the other in the real world. From 1922 till my departure for America in 1931 I was with the Prague International Fair. I started as a part-time helper in the News department. My first assignment was to draw a chart of the fluctuations of the Czech of the Czech currency, the crown, in terms of the Swiss franc. I rose rapidly in the ranks and soon became the permanent Director of International Relations. The Fair was a public corporation sponsored by the City of Prague and supported financially and in every other way by the Czechoslovak government. Exports were the life blood of the Czech economy and the Fair played a very important role in their success.

My duties were manifold: I had to prepare all the printed propaganda, make speeches abroad, deal with foreign exhibitors and visitors, represent the institution through public relations, act occasionally as an interpreter, negotiate with foreign governments -- the agenda was practically unlimited. I was recently reminded of one of my regular duties, when I was present at a dinner for about 270 guests at my granddaughter's wedding. I organized any number of banquets, mainly for foreign visitors, including many government delegations, having to take care of everything, including speakers, seating arrangements, menus and everything else. Much of it required a good deal of diplomacy. The Fair, which originally used offices next to the City Hall in a Renaissance 16th century building, was seen daily by thousands of tourists. Later a large, modern Fair Palace was built. I organized a permanent exhibition of Czech products, started the first fair of radio when it was in its infancy and all kinds of export programs. It was a very satisfactory kind of work.

I did not go back to the Fair after our return from the United States. Instead I became Manager of the local representation of Adrema, a leading German manufacturer of addressing machines. In fact they were much more than what the name indicates: they were precursors of present-day computer data bases since they could naturally be used for other purposes, such as inventory control, payrolls or anything of that kind. The only difference from data bases was that they were mechanical-electrical whereas computers are electronic. One of my tasks was to help businesses in devising their organizational use. I had also to travel a good deal. Adrema was part of the largest Czech firm in the whole field of business machines. It was owned by Richard Gibian, who became my friend. He was an unusual man, a very able businessman, an excellent musician, and a very cultured individual.

He tried to keep me when I got an offer I thought I could not refuse. In 1937, I was approached by the owners of an expanding chain of department stores, somewhat in the vein of present-day Walmart or K-Mart. The name of the stores was TETA ["Aunt"] in Czechoslovakia, TATA ["Dad"] in Yugoslavia, and SORA ["Sister"] in Romania. It was a very profitable venture and I was offered one of the highest salaries in the field. I was hired with the understanding that I would become General Manager of the combined companies as soon as the man who was presently in the top job would retire, which was expected soon. I was the heir apparent. He died just as I was leaving. I left of course in a hurry when I learned about my impending arrest after the German invasion in 1939. The reason I was eager to try my hand was of course my old interest in these new forms of retailing, as I describe it elsewhere. I was given a "golden handshake" when I left, but it did me no good since I could not take any money with me. One day I was well off, the next day I was penniless. Incidentally, TETA had political problems which limited its growth. As a result of pressure by the party of small business, strict laws limited the opening of new stores and much of my time was spent in political negotiations.

Thus ended my excursion into the realm of business and naturally I suddenly was also cut off from my more academic interests in that part of the world. In fact, I had to start all over again. It was to be a hard time for both Nadia and myself. However my sudden departure from Prague was really a godsend because I would surely not have survived the six years of Nazi occupation or the ensuing more than 40 years of the Communist regime.

 

 

Click here for the next chapter

Return to the Munk Biography Page

Return to the Ragen's Family History Page



 

TheRagens Home Page   Family History   Recommended Book Lists   Wine Tastings and Recommendations   Wildlife Photos   Feedback and
Site Registration

 

Search:
Keywords:
Amazon Logo
 
Abebooks
Author
Title
red

 

by title by author