“Back at the factory it was often my duty to find out why the turbine wasn't working as it should. Often it would vibrate, and as I would try to investigate, those two State Security officers would come, asking me why the turbine kept doing this, stating that they were investigating it as an act of sabotage. Then they asked me about my opinion about the whole matter. That was quite uncomfortable I would tell you. I didn't mind explaining, but I felt that in case I wouldn't be able find the cause and they would lock up someone else, people would say that I didn't know what to do, so I would just put the blame on a constructor who would pay for all of this, so that was something I was really afraid of.”
“The local Party boss told me: 'Let's be frank here, comrade Půlpitel, you have been doing a shitty job indeed!' I was quite upset by that. I said: 'Well I had just completed my studies.' And he said: 'That's not my point. There's no involvement with the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement (ROH), no political work on your side.' That was the welcome I got, I was quite surprised by that, and I still remember it, of course, but in the end, they gave me a go. But they made me promise that I would work with the youth, which I did anyway.”
“That was the only air raid I lived through, fortunately. I was just a little boy, so as the bombs started to fall, my mother had thowrn a blanket over me, to protect me from all the fragments and gunfire for sure... But later I was just mad at her, as at such a moment, I couldn't even see the planes, as I was under this blanket, and it would become a popular family story.”
„They were single engine planes, Il-2s most probably, those feared machines, ground attack planes, they went right over us and fired their guns and threw bombs, but just those small ones, fortunately. Maybe those pilots thought there were soldiers gathered around those trenches, or something like that, so they would drop something on this area near the place we were located, they would drop something on Mariánská and they would also manage to hit the main office. And the last plane, it would burn down the Staré Blansko Brickyards, as they had a lot of paint in store.”
Luděk Půlpitel was born on 3 October 1937 in Pardubice to Blažena and Vojtěch Půlpitel. With his sister, Blažena, who was three years his senior, he grew up in the area of former Mariánská huť in Dolní Klepačov near Blansko. He met German soldiers during the war and witnessed air raids on Blansko. During the last days of the war, he was hiding with several other families in a shelter in the basement of one of the ČKD Blansko Manufacturing Plant’s buildings. In 1952, he started to study at a Secondary School of Engineering in Brno, then he was working at ČKD Blansko for a while. After doing his compulsory military service, he studied at Brno University of Technology, graduating in 1963. Then he joined ČKD’s design department and had been working there since his retirement. In 1964, he married Jana Šebestová. They have two children, daughter Radka (1965), and son Zdeněk (1970). Thrice he had been asked to join the Communist party while living during the totalitarian state. At work, while facing turbine malfunction issues, he met State Security agents who were investigating a possible sabotage. There is a Security Services Archive file no. 23816 Blansko listing him as a confidant with code name ‘Vojta’. He learned about this file only after 1990. The file had been destroyed, but after his request, he passed the political screening in 2000. He was accused of being politically idle by the committee to decide whether he would be allowed to defend his dissertation. He welcomed the 1989 revolution with relief and took part both in protests in Prague and the general strike in Blansko. He participated in all kinds of sports since his youth, was a basketball player, skier and a glider pilot. He gave several lectures at the Chateau Blansko Museum and also created several physics courses for children during the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2021, he was living in Blansko.
Visiting Prague with his classmates in 1951, Luděk Půlpitel is the second from the left in the third row, Ludvík Daněk is the first from the left in the second row
Visiting Prague with his classmates in 1951, Luděk Půlpitel is the second from the left in the third row, Ludvík Daněk is the first from the left in the second row
