German State Railroad (1920–1945)

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German Reichsbahn

logo
legal form 1920–1924: part of the Reichsverwaltung ( RVM ),
1924–1937: operating company,
1937–1945: part of the Reichsverwaltung (RVM) and special assets
founding 1920
Seat Berlin
Branch Transport / logistics

The Deutsche Reichsbahn , DR for short , was the state-owned German railway company from the time of the Weimar Republic to the immediate post-war period .

The part of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, which was in the Soviet occupation zone after 1945 , continued to be operated on behalf of the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) and in 1949 became the state railway of the German Democratic Republic . The designation " Deutsche Reichsbahn " was retained there, while the other part of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, which was in the three other occupation zones, was incorporated into the Deutsche Bundesbahn with the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany in September 1949 .

history

Deutsche Reichseisenbahnen and Deutsche Reichsbahn (1920 to 1924)

The first railways owned by the German Empire , which was founded in 1871, were the " Reichseisenbahnen in Alsace-Lorraine ", whose Imperial General Management of the Railways in Alsace-Lorraine was based in Strasbourg . They came after France in 1871 the territory of Alsace-Lorraine was ceded to the German Empire and just Constituent French Third Republic , the local network formally by the French Eastern Railway Company ( Compagnie des chemins de fer de l'Est ) bought and German Reich had captured this as spoils of war . After the end of the First World War , this imperial railway fell to France.

In the other German states, however, the respective state railways were still subject to state sovereignty after Otto von Bismarck had tried in vain to acquire the main railroad lines for the Reich. This initially failed due to the contradiction of the medium-sized states, as did the draft of a Reich Railway Act presented to the Federal Council by Albert von Maybach in 1875 . It was only through the long-term efforts of the Prussian Minister Paul von Breitenbach and the huge investment needs of the state railways, which were run down after the First World War , that the Reich took over the state railways.

In compliance with the provisions of the Weimar Constitution of August 11, 1919, the State Treaty was concluded between the countries concerned on April 1, 1920, which founded the Deutsche Reichseisenbahnen (RGBl. 1920 I, p. 773). At the time of the takeover, eight countries owned state railways:

The official founding date of the Deutsche Reichseisenbahnen was April 1, 1920, but the move was not actually implemented until May 5, 1920, after the Reich Minister of Transport had put a “Provisional Administrative Order” into force on the same day. The process of "making the Länderbahn accessible" dragged on over a considerable period of time. The process was not yet completed well into 1921. Since a considerable part of the employees were civil servants of the federal states, they now had to be sworn in as Reich civil servants . The routes in the Saar area of the former "Railway Directorate Saarbrücken 1", which was renamed in August 1920 as the Directorate of the Saar Railways and in 1921 as the Railway Directorate of the Saar Area , were not included.

Initially referred to as the Reichseisenbahnen , Reich Transport Minister Wilhelm Groener formally established the name Deutsche Reichsbahn with a decree of June 27, 1921 . In 1922, the previous railway directorate was renamed Reichsbahndirektion .

German State Railroad Company (1924 to 1937)

Announcement about the transfer of the right to operate the Reichseisenbahn to the "Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft" (October 14, 1924)
Certificate for 10 preference shares of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft, issued on April 1, 1928 by the Reichsbank management.

The Dawes Plan developed in 1924 envisaged, among other things, pledging the entire Reichseisenbahnen to the reparation creditors. Therefore, on February 12, 1924, the Reich government issued the ordinance on the creation of a state-owned company "Deutsche Reichsbahn", which operated and administered the railways owned by the German Reich. The German Reich remained the owner of the Reichseisenbahnen. The new legal status came into force on February 15, 1924. Reich Minister of Transport Rudolf Oeser signed the announcement to the employees of the railway with "The head of the company 'Deutsche Reichsbahn' - Oeser - Reich Minister of Transport".

Since these measures did not go far enough for the reparation creditors, the “Law on the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (Reichsbahngesetz)” (RGBl. II p. 272) was passed on August 30, 1924. Through this law, the German Reich founded a company called the "Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft" to operate the Reichsbahn. As a result, the state company "Deutsche Reichsbahn" was dissolved again. Although the share capital consisted of ordinary and preference shares, the former were owned by the empire. However, it was not a conventional joint-stock company , but "an economic structure of its own" that did not correspond to any of the corporate forms named in the Commercial Code and was not entered in the commercial register. The new legal situation came into force on October 11, 1924. Simultaneously with the Reichsbahngesetz, the company was burdened with a bond in favor of the winner in the amount of eleven billion gold marks , while the capital stock amounted to fifteen billion gold marks. From 1926 the calendar year became the business year of the DR and replaced the designations “budget year”, “accounting year” and “business year”.

The world economic crisis and the constant outflow of money through reparations (around 660 million Reichsmarks annually) put a considerable strain on the Reichsbahn. It was not until 1932 that the Reichsbahn was released from its financial obligations at the Lausanne Conference .

During this time, the Deutsche Reichsbahn was expanded by the following events:

The beginning of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft was marked by the development of a vehicle type program in order to harmonize the very heterogeneous vehicle fleet of the state railways with the standardized steam locomotives . In fact, for financial reasons and due to delays in upgrading the routes to higher axle loads, the vehicle could not initially be procured in the desired quantities. Until the end of the 1930s, the series of regional railways that were taken over dominated, especially the Prussian series. In the first years of the Reichsbahn era, some regional railroad locomotives were built, such as the Prussian P 8 (class 38.10-40), the Prussian P 10 (BR 39), the Prussian G 12 (BR 58.10) and the Prussian T 20 (class 95) . The Bavarian S 3/6 (18.5 series) was built until 1930.

With the seizure of power and the expansive rule of the National Socialists , the potential for conflict with the neighboring railways also increased. As early as 1934, the difficulties caused by goods wagons returning abroad that had been defaced with political propaganda increased to such an extent that this was reflected in official communications.

The route network comprised 1,935 total 68,728 km, of which 30,330 km main , 27,209 kilometers minor and 10,496 kilometers Kleinbahnen .

In long-distance traffic in the late 1930s, the development of speed with express railcars such as the “Flying Hamburger” was promoted. Previously, for this purpose streamlines - steam locomotives built, however, lagged economically behind the fast railcars. The Borsig streamline steam locomotive 05 002 also broke the 200 km / h mark on a demonstration run in 1936, but the Reichsbahn gave preference to the multiple units on its express network. The rail zeppelin had already demonstrated the potential of the express railcars with its record run on June 21, 1931 at the speed of 230.2 km / h.

Only after a first transport crisis in the winter of 1938/39 was the Reichsbahn able to secure a larger steel contingent as part of the four-year plan . With this, new freight locomotives of the series 41 and 50 , but also express locomotives of the series 01.10 and 03.10 were procured in larger numbers. With the procurement program for war locomotives that began in 1942, only freight locomotives were built in large numbers - but now because of a different objective.

Before the Second World War, the transport network was mainly organized in an east-west direction. The “race tracks” of their time were the Prussian East Railway , which ran through the Polish corridor ( slower there due to the poor condition of the tracks ), the lines from Berlin to Hamburg , via Hanover to the Ruhr area , via Frankfurt am Main to southwest Germany, on the the diesel express railcars operated, and the Silesian Railway from Berlin to Breslau .

Group administration Bavaria

As an intermediate instance with certain competencies and thus de facto almost independent in many areas, the Bavarian group administration with its own central office (Central Machine and Construction Office) was in accordance with Section III 14 of the rules of procedure of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft . It was created on February 11, 1924 from the Munich branch of the Reich Ministry of Transport . The Bavarian Reichsbahndirectors were not directly subordinate to the main administration of the Reichsbahn, but to the group administration, which functioned formally as part of the main administration. Its head was a member of the Reichsbahn executive board. The group administration did not receive full financial autonomy, as Bavaria repeatedly called for until the mid-1920s, but it did receive its own budget within the Reichsbahn. She was responsible for the electrification of many routes after the start of traction power generation in the Walchensee power plant and for the independent testing and procurement of locomotives and passenger coaches. The group administration provided u. a. Locomotives of the series E 32 and railcar class ET 85 into service. With the class 98.10 , the group administration had a local railway locomotive developed in 1929 according to the traditional principles of the Bavarian State Railways.

On December 31, 1933, the group administration was dissolved. Since then, the Bavarian Reichsbahndirectors, like all other directorates, have been directly subordinate to the main administration of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in Berlin.

Management of the Reichsbahn

From 1920 to 1924 the Reichsbahn was run directly in the Reich Ministry of Transport , so that management was ultimately the responsibility of the respective Reich Minister of Transport. With the transfer of the Reichsbahn into an independent company as a result of the Dawes Agreement, the office of General Director was created in 1924:

From 1925, the General Director was assisted by a Permanent Deputy General Director:

Through the Reichsbahngesetz of July 11, 1939, the Reichsverkehr Minister was ex officio General Director of the Reichsbahn. Dorpmüller, who had also held the office of Reich Minister of Transport since 1937, remained in the office of General Director after 1939 on a changed legal basis.

In addition to the general director and his deputy, the board of directors of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft, introduced in 1924, comprised other directors, the number of whom changed over the years and each had a main department in the Reichsbahn head office. Until 1933, the head of the Bavarian group administration was also a member of the board, but after its dissolution a Bavarian representative remained on the board until 1937. In 1927 the board of directors included the following positions in addition to the general director:

General Director Dorpmüller reacted to the " seizure of power " by Hitler and the National Socialists by replacing his deputy Wilhelm Weirauch with Wilhelm Kleinmann , who had been a member of the NSDAP since 1931. The other board members were in May 1934:

With the law regulating the relations between the Reichsbank and the Deutsche Reichsbahn , the existence of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft was ended and the Reichsbahn was transferred to direct state administration. However, the previous board members retained their functions and were taken over as ministerial directors in the Reich Ministry of Transport.

From 1924 the work of the Reichsbahn executive board was controlled by the administrative board of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft . The duties of the board of directors included a. the appointment of the general manager, the approval of the balance sheet and profit and loss account as well as the salary and wage regulations. The board of directors consisted of 18 people. Until 1930 its members were appointed half by the Reich government and half by the trustee of the creditors of the reparation bonds. The trustee appointed one British, one French, one Italian and one Belgian member to the Board of Directors as well as five Germans. From 1930 the foreign members of the administrative council ceased to exist and all members were appointed by the Reich government. From its foundation in 1924 until the end of 1934, the Chairman of the Board of Directors was Carl Friedrich von Siemens ; his successor until the Board of Directors was dissolved at the end of 1937 was Gustav Koenigs .

Deutsche Reichsbahn (1937 to 1945)

Treasury note
1938 military ticket from Rendsburg to Königsberg
High-speed railcar route network at the end of the 1930s

With the law on the reorganization of relations between the Reichsbank and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of February 10, 1937, the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft was placed under Reich sovereignty and was again given the name "Deutsche Reichsbahn".

The Reichsbahn played an important logistical role in the rapid relocation of Wehrmacht troops , for example:

In all occupied countries, the Reichsbahn added the captured railways (rolling stock and infrastructure) to its system. Towards the end of the war, she successfully managed to move troop units. For example, for the Battle of the Bulge (from December 16, 1944), after planning was completed on December 7, 1944, “tens of thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of tons of material were transported inconspicuously from the collection points to their deployment points close behind the front at night”. The relocation of the 6th Panzer Army from the west to Hungary in February 1945 is one of these logistical achievements.

During the campaigns against Poland , Denmark , France, Yugoslavia , Greece etc., the regular gauge network there could be used (further) without any problems. On the other hand, after the attack on the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the problem arose of switching the broad gauge there to the standard gauge . Contrary to the German plans, the Soviet troops and railroad workers had succeeded in taking a large part of the rolling stock with them on their retreat or in making it unusable. In addition, due to the long distances in particular, it was not possible to carry out the material transport, as initially intended, primarily with road vehicles. Therefore, regular-gauge vehicles now had to be used, which, however, required changing gauges to regular gauge. A great deal of effort was made here, although the predominantly nailed superstructure on wooden sleepers favored the gauging. The members of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and the railroad troops of the Wehrmacht succeeded in converting a total of 16,148 kilometers of the Soviet track system to standard gauge between June 22 and October 8, 1941. Due to the stability of dams, the outer strand was usually relocated on double-track lines. Switches had to be re-measured , starting with the frog with changes in length in the intermediate rail area.

With cars of this type of people were in the during the Holocaust extermination camps transported. Memorial in memory of the deportees , Yad Vashem Shoah Memorial , May 2004
Memorial plaque to the deportation transports of Jewish people from Frankfurt between 1941 and 1945

The logistics of the Reichsbahn were important for carrying out the wars of aggression; the preparation for the attack on the Soviet Union is said to have been the largest railway deployment in history. The logistics of the Reichsbahn were also an important component in the extermination of the Jews . The train transports of the Jewish people to the concentration and extermination camps were mostly carried out like other mass passenger transports (especially of soldiers during troop deployment) in covered freight wagons , which was perceived as an additional humiliation. However, in contrast to troop transports, the wagons were occupied with significantly more people. Since 1997 a memorial plaque has been commemorating such transports "like cattle" from the freight yard of the Frankfurt wholesale market hall .

Characteristic of the first six and a half years of this period was the rapid growth of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, which came about almost exclusively through the acquisition of other railways. This affected both parts of foreign state railways (in Austria the entire state railroad ) in the areas annexed to the German Reich, as well as private railways in the heartland and in annexed areas:

State railways taken over by or incorporated into the Deutsche Reichsbahn
Acquisition date Surname Remarks
March 18, 1938 Austrian Federal Railways (BBÖ) The vehicles were officially taken over on January 1, 1939.
October 19, 1938 Parts of the Czechoslovak State Railways (ČSD) only railway lines that were in the areas ceded to the German Reich (" Sudetenland ")
March 23, 1939 Parts of the Lithuanian State Railways Railways in the Memel region
November 1, 1939 Parts of the Polish State Railways ( PKP ) Routes in German areas up to 1918 and in adjacent areas with a German-speaking minority ( Reichsgaue Wartheland and Danzig-West Prussia )
from 1940 Parts of the National Company of the Belgian Railways ( NMBS / SNCB ) Gradual takeover in the territories ceded to Belgium in 1920
1941 Parts of the Yugoslav Railways ( JŽ-JЖ ) Routes within the incorporated areas of " Lower Styria and Upper Carniola "
1941 Parts of the Soviet Railways (SŽD / СЖД) Routes in 1939 to Polish district Białystok were
Private railway companies taken over by or integrated into the Deutsche Reichsbahn

Date of acceptance		 Surname Route
length
January 1, 1938 Lübeck-Büchener Railway (LBE) 160.8 km
January 1, 1938 Braunschweigische Landes-Eisenbahn (BLE) 109.5 km
August 1, 1938 Local Railway Aktien-Gesellschaft München ( LAG ) 187.7 km
January 1, 1939 Lusatian Railway Company 80.9 km
1939 to 1940 in former Austria: Schneebergbahn , Schafbergbahn , Steyrtalbahn , Niederösterreichische Waldviertelbahn , Railway Wien-Aspang , Mühlkreisbahn
1940 nine former Czechoslovak private railways, on which the DR had already taken over management in October 1938
from 1940 Railways in Luxembourg ( Anonymous Luxembourgish Prince Heinrich Railway and Ore Mine Company , Wilhelm Luxembourg Railway Company , Luxembourg narrow-gauge railways )
January 1, 1941 Mecklenburg Friedrich Wilhelm Railway Company 112.6 km
January 1, 1941 Prignitzer Eisenbahn AG 61.5 km
January 1, 1941 Wittenberge-Perleberger Railway 10 km
May 1, 1941 Eutin-Lübeck Railway Company (ELE) 39.3 km
August 1, 1941 District of Oldenburg Railway (KOE) 72.3 km
January 1, 1943 Kleinbahn Toitz-Rustow-Loitz 7 km
July 1, 1943 Schipkau-Finsterwalder Railway Company 33 km

The Reichsbahn did not take over all routes in the areas occupied by the Wehrmacht. Thus the routes of were Polish State Railways (PKP) in the area of after the invasion of Poland set up the Government General from November 1939 under the name Eastern Railway reorganized and by the in Krakow based General of the Eastern Railway managed. This remained a separate fund of the Generalgouvernement financially separate from the Reichsbahn, despite several attempts by the management of the RVM to integrate the Eastern Railway into the Reichsbahn.

In other countries, the Reichsbahn provided staff to monitor and align the respective railway networks in accordance with German interests. The railways in the occupied parts of France and Belgium were monitored by two so-called Wehrmacht traffic directorates (WVD) with German railroad workers in Paris and Brussels . The Paris WVD was further divided into five regional railway operations directorates (EBD). Under this supervision, the state railways SNCF and SNCB / NMBS continued to operate with their staff. In June 1942 responsibility for this area was transferred from the Wehrmacht to the Reich Ministry of Transport and the Reichsbahn; the two WVD changed their names in main traffic departments (HVD). In contrast, in the Netherlands there was only one German railway representative who supervised the Nederlandse Spoorwegen . In the occupied eastern territories, after the invasion in the summer of 1941, so-called Main Railway Directorates (HBD) were founded in Riga, Minsk, Lemberg (later Kiev) and Poltava (later Dnjepropetrovsk). Here, too, the responsibility changed from the head of the Wehrmacht transport system at the end of 1942 to the RVM, which renamed the HBD accordingly to Reichsverkehrsdirektiven (RVD), which were then also responsible for shipping and road traffic. Unlike in the west, German railway workers also took over large parts of the railway operations from the start; the local railroad workers as members of the "Eastern peoples", which the National Socialists regarded as "inferior" in their racial ideology, should not be given any responsible tasks.

Deutsche Reichsbahn (after 1945)

After the end of the Second World War in 1945, those parts of the Deutsche Reichsbahn that lay outside the new German borders established in the Potsdam Agreement became the property and administration of the respective states on whose territory they were now located. In addition, the occupying powers took over the operation of the remaining Deutsche Reichsbahn in the respective occupation zones , so that the organization of the Deutsche Reichsbahn was initially divided into four areas.

In the American zone , the Reichsbahndirectors Augsburg, Frankfurt am Main, Kassel, Munich, Regensburg and Stuttgart (for the railways in Württemberg-Baden ) were subordinated to the United States Zone management in Frankfurt am Main. The Reichsbahn directorates in Essen, Hamburg, Hanover, Cologne, Münster (Westphalia) and Wuppertal were combined in the Reichsbahn general directorate in the British zone under Director General Max Leibbrand in Bielefeld. In accordance with the formation of the bizone , the main railroad administration for the American and British occupation areas was created in 1946 . In 1947 it moved its headquarters to Offenbach am Main and called itself the "Deutsche Reichsbahn im Vereinigte Wirtschaftsgebiet". After the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany , the name was changed to " Deutsche Bundesbahn ".

In the French occupation zone, the railways were grouped together in the operating association of the Southwest German Railways based in Speyer. The company association comprised the railroad divisions Karlsruhe (located in the US zone), Mainz and Saarbrücken. After the Saarland was separated from the French zone and received its own state railway - the Saarland Railways -  the remaining network of the Saarbrücken Railway Directorate was transferred to the new Trier Directorate . After the renaming to Deutsche Bundesbahn, the company association was merged with this.

The state railway in the Soviet occupation zone - from 1949 GDR - kept the designation "Deutsche Reichsbahn" for legal reasons. In the Potsdam Agreement it was determined that the operating rights in Berlin are the sole responsibility of the Deutsche Reichsbahn. Renaming would have led to the loss of the operating rights in West Berlin. The Deutsche Reichsbahn kept the operating rights for rail traffic including the S-Bahn in the western part of Berlin . It comprised the Reichsbahndirectors Berlin, Cottbus, Dresden, Erfurt, Greifswald , Halle, Magdeburg and Schwerin .

Designations and vehicle lettering

After its establishment, the Reichsbahn was initially referred to as the "Reichseisenbahnen". The official name "Deutsche Reichsbahn" was introduced as early as 1921. From 1924 the Reichsbahn operated as the "Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft". This remained the official name until 1937, when it was returned to direct state administration, the name "Deutsche Reichsbahn" was used again. However, as early as the mid-1930s, on the instructions of General Director Dorpmüller, the Reichsbahn omitted the addition "Society" as far as possible, the addition was viewed as an undesirable reminder of the Weimar Republic .

From 1924 to 1937, the abbreviation “DRG” was permitted as a common abbreviation in internal correspondence. But it was also used in publications such as the Reichsbahnkalender and in public announcements, sometimes in the spelling "DRG". In addition, the abbreviations "DR" and "DRB" or "DR" and "DRB" were occasionally used. However, abbreviations were frowned upon outside of internal correspondence. The few official areas of application of the abbreviation “DR” included the RIV grid and the license plate number of the Reichsbahn motor vehicles in the 1930s and 1940s. The abbreviation was also used from around 1942 to mark ownership on freight cars and railcars. From 1937 the Reichsbahn, which was again under direct state administration, used the official abbreviation "DRB", the abbreviation "DR" still used on vehicles should stand for "German Reich".

Vehicle identification from 1924

The emblem of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, introduced in 1924, shows the stylized black silhouette of the imperial eagle on a circular yellow background, which is surrounded by a black ring with the ring-shaped yellow lettering “Deutsche Reichsbahn”. This emblem was placed on the side walls of baggage cars , passenger cars and railcars . The locomotives were almost all marked with the one-line text "German Reichsbahn". In October 1922, a round gunmetal shield with an eagle was temporarily introduced for locomotives, but it was dropped for reasons of cost and therefore rarely used. The single-line lettering was sometimes added to the emblem on cars used for high-quality passenger transport .

All freight wagons were marked with the lettering “Deutsche Reichsbahn”, as well as the name of a “class district”, a “wagon number” and a class symbol . Very few freight cars received the black imperial eagle on a white background, this emblem was without lettering. The motor vehicles of the Deutsche Reichsbahn were almost all marked with the words "Deutsche Reichsbahn" and the imperial eagle.

Vehicle identification from 1937

With the change in the legal form of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in 1937, the emblem and parts of the passenger car lettering were also changed. The now introduced emblem showed the imperial eagle with outstretched wings standing on a laurel wreath with a swastika . The emblem was usually made as a hollow cast aluminum, formed in bronze on the Rheingold wagons or made as an inexpensive decal for older wagons. This emblem was used by the Deutsche Reichsbahn on locomotives, railcars and passenger cars, sometimes on motor vehicles and on special freight cars .

On the side walls of motor coaches and passenger cars, the emblem was mostly supplemented by the abbreviation DR , with the D below one wing and the R below the other wing, both at the level of the swastika.

Only the letters DR were added to newly built freight cars .

The motor vehicles of the Deutsche Reichsbahn continued to bear the old lettering, but were now given the new Reichsadler without the letters DR and a new coat of paint in RAL  46 (black-gray, today RAL 7021).

Vehicle identification from 1945

After the end of the Second World War, the emblems were removed from all vehicles of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, but the car designations (class mark, class district, car number) were retained until around 1948. In the Soviet occupation zone, however, the names of the generic districts, the names of which were cities or directorates that lay beyond the Oder-Neisse line, were replaced by harmless city ​​names. The abbreviation DR continued to be used to identify the ownership of motor coaches, passenger cars and freight cars, while the single-line lettering Deutsche Reichsbahn was only retained or newly attached to locomotives . From 1948 the so-called zone number was attached to most vehicles, this was the name of the occupation zones in which the vehicles were located (Brit-US zone, Zone-Fr., USSR zone). From 1949 onwards, the vehicles in the western occupation zones were renamed to the new owner, the Deutsche Bundesbahn. It was not until 1951 that the vehicles of the German Democratic Republic were completely redesignated, with the ownership designation DR being retained.

literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

  • Roland Beier, Hans Sternhart: Deutsche Reichsbahn in Austria 1938–1945 (–1953) . International Archive for Locomotive History, Volume 14. Slezak, Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-85416-186-7 .
  • Wolfgang Diener: Painting and designation of freight cars. The external appearance of German freight cars from 1864 to today. Publishing house Dr. Bernhard Abend, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-926243-11-2 .
  • Alfred Gottwaldt : Railway Workers Against Hitler - Resistance and Persecution on the Reichsbahn 1933–1945 . Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-86539-204-6 .
  • Alfred Gottwaldt: Dorpmüller's Reichsbahn - The era of the Reich Minister of Transport Julius Dorpmüller 1920–1945 . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-88255-726-8 .
  • Alfred Gottwaldt: The Reichsbahn and the Jews 1933–1939 - Anti-Semitism on the railways in the prewar period. Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-86539-254-1 .
  • Raul Hilberg : Special trains to Auschwitz. Dumjahn, Mainz 1981, ISBN 3-921426-18-9 (documents on railway history 18).
  • Klaus Hildebrand : The Reichsbahn in the National Socialist dictatorship 1933–1945 . In: Lothar Gall , Manfred Pohl (Hrsg.): The railway in Germany. From the beginning to the present . CH Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-45817-3 .
  • Eberhard Kolb : The Reichsbahn from the Dawes Plan to the end of the Weimar Republic. In: Lothar Gall, Manfred Pohl (Hrsg.): The railway in Germany. From the beginning to the present. CH Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-45817-3 .
  • Alfred C. Mierzejewski: The most valuable asset of the Reich. A history of the German National Railway.
    • Vol. 1: 1920-1932 . The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill / London 1999.
    • Vol. 2: 1933-1945 . The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill / London 2000.
  • Berndt Rieger: The dispatcher of death. Franz Novak , Eichmann's transport expert . A biography. Books on Demand, 2001, ISBN 3-8311-2541-4 .
  • Peter Arthur Schymanietz: The organization of the German railways 1835-1975 . Eisenbahn-Kurier, Wuppertal 1977, ISBN 3-88255-822-9 .

Web links

Commons : Deutsche Reichsbahn  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Reich Law Gazette 95/1920: State Treaty on Transfer of State Railways for the kingdom. In:  Reichs-Gesetzblatt - Part I , year 1920, pp. 773–804 (online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / dra
  2. ↑ Prussian and Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Prussian and Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz from May 15, 1920, No. 29. Nachrichten, p. 245.
  3. ^ Gustav Bauer (Reich Minister of Transport): To all officials, employees and workers of the Reich Railways [from May 5, 1920]. In: Prussian and Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Prussian and Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz from May 29, 1920, p. 265.
  4. ↑ Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Railway Directorate in Mainz of January 1, 1921, No. 1. Announcement No. 14, p. 5; Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Railway Directorate in Mainz of January 8, 1921, No. 2. Announcement No. 29, p. 14; Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Railway Directorate in Mainz of March 5, 1921, No. 12. Announcement No. 265, p. 146; Decree of the Reich Minister of Transport Wilhelm Groener on the "uniform economic management of the entire Reichseisenbahnen". In: Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Railway Directorate in Mainz of April 16, 1921, No. 20, p. 235.
  5. ↑ Prussian and Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Prussian and Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz of July 24, 1920, No. 44. Announcement No. 708, p. 394f.
  6. ↑ Prussian and Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Prussian and Hessian Railway Directorate in Mainz of October 16, 1920, No. 62. Announcement No. 1003, p. 561.
  7. ^ Alfred C. Mierzejewski: The most valuable asset of the Reich. A history of the German National Railway. tape 1: 1920-1932 . The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill / London 1999, pp. 26 .
  8. ^ Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz of February 23, 1924, No. 8, p. 103.
  9. ↑ Eberhard Kolb: The Reichsbahn from the Dawes Plan to the end of the Weimar Republic. In: Lothar Gall, Manfred Pohl (Hrsg.): The railway in Germany. From the beginning to the present. CH Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-45817-3 , p. 116
  10. ^ Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz of October 18, 1924, No. 43, p. 467.
  11. ^ Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz of January 9, 1926, No. 1. Nachrichten, p. 10.
  12. ^ Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz (ed.): Official Gazette of the Reichsbahndirektion in Mainz of February 13, 1926, No. 8. Announcement No. 118, p. 64.
  13. ↑ Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (Ed.): Official Gazette of the Reichsbahndirektion Mainz of March 10, 1934, No. 12. Announcement No. 145, p. 49: "At the border crossing stations [...] there are increasing numbers of goods wagons returning from Germany (BB Austria or CSD) that have political inscriptions on the car walls, inside the car and on and in the brake houses, e.g. swastikas, 'Austria awake', 'Heil Hitler' etc. This results in inadequacies when the car is returned to the Home railway ".
  14. ↑ Bibliographical Institute (Ed.): Look! - Facts worth knowing from all areas . Leipzig 1938, p. 341 .
  15. ^ Alfred Gottwaldt: Dorpmüller's Reichsbahn - The era of the Reich Minister of Transport Julius Dorpmüller 1920-1945 . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-88255-726-8 , p. 148
  16. ↑ Klaus-Dieter Korhammer, Armin Franzke, Ernst Rudolph: Turntable of the South. Munich railway junction . Ed .: Peter Lisson . Hestra-Verlag, Darmstadt 1991, ISBN 3-7771-0236-9 , p. 158 .
  17. ^ Alfred C. Mierzejewski: The most valuable asset of the Reich. A history of the German National Railway. tape 1: 1920-1932 . The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill / London 1999, pp. 76 .
  18. ↑ Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (Ed.): Official Gazette of the Reichsbahndirektion Mainz of December 30, 1933, No. 61. Announcement No. 717, p. 271.
  19. ^ Alfred Gottwaldt: Dorpmüller's Reichsbahn - The era of the Reich Minister of Transport Julius Dorpmüller 1920-1945 . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2010, p. 42
  20. ^ Alfred Gottwaldt: The Reichsbahn and the Jews 1933–1939 - Anti-Semitism on the railroad in the prewar period. Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011, p. 43
  21. ^ Alfred Gottwaldt: Dorpmüller's Reichsbahn - The era of the Reich Minister of Transport Julius Dorpmüller 1920-1945 . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2010, p. 30
  22. ^ Alfred Gottwaldt: The Reichsbahn and the Jews 1933–1939 - Anti-Semitism on the railroad in the prewar period. Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2011, p. 36 f.
  23. ↑ John Toland: Battle of the Bulge . Gustav Lübbe Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 1980, ISBN 3-404-00707-7 , p. 26 (Original title: The Story of the Bulge . 1959.).
  24. ↑ Public Relations Federal Archives.
  25. ↑ Memorial plaque on the Grossmarkthalle ( memento from September 24, 2015 in the Internet Archive ), documented at the Institute for Urban History, Carmelite Monastery , Frankfurt am Main.
  26. ↑ On the German rail network to Auschwitz: 11,000 children ( Memento from May 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  27. ↑ a b Files of the Federal Archives: Railway administrations in the occupied territories , accessed on April 4, 2018
  28. ↑ Jürgen Zabel (Ed.): Railways in the Frankfurt RheinMain region . Hestra-Verlag, Darmstadt 2002, ISBN 978-3-7771-0304-4 , p. 29 .
  29. ↑ Klaus Hildebrand: The Reichsbahn in the National Socialist dictatorship 1933-1945. In: Lothar Gall, Manfred Pohl (Hrsg.): The railway in Germany. From the beginning to the present. CH Beck, Munich 1999, pp. 165-243, here p. 168
  30. ^ K. Fritsch: Handbook of railway legislation in the German Empire and in Prussia. 3. Edition. Julius Springer, Berlin 1930, p. 146 ( full text in Google book search).
  31. ↑ Rolf-Ulrich Kunze: The Reichsbahnkalender as a source of mentality history, 1927-1943: With the Reichsbahn-Kalender through the year. In :: Symbioses, rituals, routines: technology as part of identity. Technology acceptance from the 1920s to 1960s, Karlsruhe, KIT Scientific Publishing, 2010, ISBN 9791036501326
  32. ^ Alfred Gottwaldt: Dorpmüller's Reichsbahn - The era of the Reich Minister of Transport Julius Dorpmüller 1920-1945 . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-88255-726-8 , p. 141.
  33. ^ Thomas Samek: Locomotive signs . EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2004, ISBN 3-88255-235-2 . Drawing EZA Am 870 on p. 105.
  34. ↑ Wolfgang Diener: Painting and designation of freight cars . Ed .: Abend, B. Dr. Bernhard Abend, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 978-3-926243-11-9 .
  35. ↑ Wolfgang Diener: Painting and designation of freight cars . Ed .: Abend, B. Dr. Bernhard Abend, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 978-3-926243-11-9 .
  36. ^ J. Wahl, A. Luig: Kaelble . Podszun Verlag, 1999, ISBN 978-3-926243-11-9 .