Most people know the famous Czech Skoda brand as a benchmark for quality passenger cars. In particular, the enterprise that produced those same passenger cars was for many years considered the best in quality in the entire space of the so-called "socialist camp".
However, not everyone knows that there were times for Czech manufacturers when they had to retrain as manufacturers of military equipment. Surprisingly, in the history of this Czech plant there is a page when the Skoda LT vz35 light tanks rolled off the assembly line. This kind of products began to go into mass production in the mid-30s of the last century. Until the end of the 30s, about 3 hundred tanks, which were designed by another enterprise, rolled off the conveyors of the plant in the Czech Republic. The LT vz35 was designed by ČKD (Czech Republic). The only thing on these tanks that was from the project to the implementation of the "Shkoda" was a 35-millimeter cannon. By a bitter irony of fate, these Czech light tanks were destined to join the ranks of the Wehrmacht Panzer Division. However, in the long term, this use did not materialize. After the failure that befell the Nazi troops near Moscow, they no longer resorted to using the LT vz35.
If today many people have heard such Czech models as Skoda Fabia, Octavia and a number of other "civilian" cars, then in the thirties of the 20th century the specialists of the Skoda plant worked on the creation of military tractors and gas-fired trucks. In addition, off-road vehicles for the German army were created at an enterprise in the Czech Republic. Such production went on for almost 10 years, but after the allied aviation undertook a massive bombardment of the production facilities of the enterprise, the production of equipment for the German army for objective reasons had to be stopped. Most of the factory halls lay in ruins. However, this did not prevent Czech industry from reviving after the end of World War II. In a short time, including not without support from the USSR, automobile production was revived in Czechoslovakia. Soviet financial injections, one might say, went unnoticed by the Czechs themselves. However, it was these injections that became the most significant in the revival of the car industry, which was later destined to become the flagship of Eastern Europe in terms of car production on a large scale. Therefore, we can say with some share of pride that Czech production owes much to the funds of Soviet taxpayers.
