PRL Period (1946–1989)
On January 30, 1945, 220 new employees were registered. The Soviet military authorities oriented the production towards tools for bridges repairing.[10]
In April 1945, the plant's equipment was intended to be transported back to Soviet Union and the site was occupied by Red Army soldiers to that end.[6] A crew mutiny on April 27 and the persistent intervention of Polish authorities led initially to an agreement on May 7, to move only 70 machines, leaving 116 of them in the factory.[10] Eventually, another conciliation with a representative of the USSR Economic Mission in Warsaw, on May 22, reversed the decision, leaving all the factory assets untouched:[10] the train with the first machines on its route to Soviet Union was then diverted back to Bydgoszcz in June 1945.[6] The factory resumed work on June 7, 1945, but some of its departments were closed until October 1945. At the beginning of 1948, the "BZP" already employed 545 people.[10]
The company was nationalized, with the production of train traffic safety devices continued and new manufacturing for the needs of the army started (e.g. fuses for anti-tank and hand grenades.[10] In 1951, the plant was incorporated into the Central Management for Precision Products : with this exclusive move towards military production, the manufacture of railway signaling devices was abandoned and transferred to a site in Żory.[3]
The Six-Year Plan having endorsed the extension of the plant, a site was identified in 1951-1954, in Białe Błota, south of Bydgoszcz, where was built a secondary factory.[4] In this Bydgoska Fabryka Wyrobów Precyzyjnych, special orders for the army were carried out.[10]
With a more relaxed international situation in 1954, military orders were scant: the plant adapted its production with civilian items, delivering, among others, electrical explosion-proof devices for mining and chemical industries, or capacitors and sound signal tools for the automotive industry.
On April 16, 1958, both producing sites (Bydgoscz and Białe Błota) were merged into Bydgoskie Zakłady Elektromechaniczne Belma'.[6]
In 1959, a cultural and educational center for the benefit of BELMA employees was opened at 50 Grunwaldzka street[3] (today the edifice houses the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Tax Office in Bydgoszcz) and a vocational school started operating on the plant site. Similarly, in the 1960s-1970s, holiday and recreation centers for BELMA were built in several locations:[3]
Workforce grew: 1,500 people in the 1960s and 2,000 in the 1970s. Civilian equipment was exported non only to socialist countries,[11] but also to India and Spain.[12]
In 1974, the company merged with Pomorski Zakłady Aparatury Elektrycznej'-"Apator", based in Toruń, the ensemble being managed by the Union of Electrical Machines and Apparatus-"Ema" .[13]
In 1981, the alliance split up, with on one side "Apator" and on the other side the new firm named Bydgoskie Zakłady Elektro-Mechaniczne-"Ema-Belma" .[4]
- Przyjezierze;
- Romanowo, near a lake;
- Kadzionka (a fishing center);
- Miłków, in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship (two holiday houses).
