Few projects like Rosler’s emerge in places where the conditions aren’t right for them. Rosler took advantage of the fact that the region had a centuries-old tradition of small-scale artisans who made and sharpened knives. He reorganized the knife makers’ work, streamlined it, and then marketed it effectively. Today we would say he was good at marketing. But his success was not due solely to marketing and business acumen.
Knife-making is not as simple as it might seem to laypeople at first glance. Experience is gained through long practice and passed down from generation to generation. And that is exactly how it was in Mikulášovice and the surrounding area until World War II.
Nazism, the occupation of the Sudetenland, the extermination of the Jews, the war, liberation, and the forced expulsion of the Germans took a heavy toll. However, after the war, the local knife-making factories were not left with only old machines and blueprints. Some experts who had not collaborated with the Nazis continued their work, and the expulsion decree did not apply to them. Thanks in part to this, the local cutlery-making tradition was not interrupted.
When the state consolidated all cutlery production into a single enterprise, which it named Mikulášovický kovoprůmysl in 1956—Mikov for short—once again, nothing was built from scratch. It was merely a new name for the old tradition of a place known as the “Czech Solingen.”
All of these are good reasons why we feature the year 1794 in our logo. We’re proud of it, but at the same time, we know full well that it’s a commitment for us.