Railway accident in Hüttengrund
The railway accident in Hüttengrund occurred on the night of 30th and 31st May 1945 in Hüttengrund at 21.25 km between the Marienberg station and the bridge over today's federal highway 171 on the Reitzenhain – Flöha railway line . Due to the excessive speed of a fully loaded military transport train, the turret of one of the loaded tanks in a narrow, curved valley cut was set in motion by centrifugal force and the gun barrel got stuck on a rock face. As a result, this tank wedged itself, the flat car and the four cars that followed it tore off and all of the military equipment on it, including nine more tanks and three other vehicles, was torn down and destroyed. The front train formation with the remaining wagons could only be brought to a stop on the flatter section of the route in front of the Pockau-Lengefeld station. 18 people lost their lives and 29 people were injured.
Accident
After the end of the Second World War , units of the Red Army with their military equipment returned to the Soviet Union from the Soviet-occupied areas . So also on May 30, 1945 from Chomutov in Czechoslovakia on the Chomutov – Reitzenhain railway line , which led over the ridge of the central Ore Mountains to Saxony . The long transport train of a tank unit was equipped with heavy equipment accompanied by several Red Army soldiers. With the help of two Czechoslovak push locomotives , the train set was brought across the Czechoslovakian-German border to the Reitzenhain border station at a height of 776 meters. Here the train was handed over to the Deutsche Reichsbahn . However, only one class 52 steam locomotive was available in Reitzenhain for the onward journey towards Flöha .
In view of the steep gradient of the railway line, the dispatcher Walter Bräuer in Reitzenhain initially refused to give the train driver Karl Baasner a departure order for the heavily loaded train due to the low braking force of only one steam locomotive. The Soviet train escort officer forced Bräuer to allow the train to depart from Reitzenhain at around 10 p.m. under threat of armed violence.
The planned safety stop of the heavy transport train en route in Gelobtland (715 m) was not possible due to the insufficient braking effect of the steam locomotive. In the now following, much steeper section of the route, the speed of the train increased to over 70 kilometers per hour. A loaded tank wedged itself in the Hüttengrund after the tower had rotated due to centrifugal forces and the pipe had grazed the rock face. Five flat cars tore down and the loaded tanks of all subsequent cars were stripped off. The train with the remaining wagons could only be brought to a halt shortly before Pockau.
Victims and rescue operations
18 soldiers and officers of the Red Army lost their lives in this railway accident.
On the night of May 31st, the first rescue measures were initiated, which continued until August 1945, as the destroyed armor and wreckage had become heavily wedged in places and had to be pulled out of the rock cut of the Hüttengrund using recovery technology. As a result, the important railway line over the Erzgebirge ridge could not be used continuously for two months, which had massive effects.
Investigation of the incident
The Soviet occupying forces held the German train staff, the station master and the Reitzenhain dispatcher responsible for the accident. They were arrested on May 31, 1945 and accused of sabotage because they were partly NSDAP members . The train driver Karl Baasner, who was a former member of the NSDAP, is said to have increased the speed of the train to 70 kilometers per hour on constantly changing climbs and descents , which would ultimately have led to the disaster. The train driver and main train companion Emil Schreier, a former NSDAP member, was charged with having done nothing to remedy the deficiencies in the braking system and began the journey on a train with technical defects, with the brakes on the 9th platform car missing .
Walter Bräuer, on the other hand, who has also been a member of the NSDAP since 1942, is said to have accepted the transport and completed the documents required for the continuation of the journey, checked the technical condition of the train , and given clearance to continue the journey despite an obvious defect in the braking system .
Linus Kaden was station master at Reitzenhain train station at the time. He was accused of not having taken any measures to check the technical condition of the train . The train was sent on its way with defects in the braking system, which led to the catastrophe that cost lives.
Baasner, Bräuer, Kaden and Schreier were already sentenced to death by shooting on June 4, 1945 on the basis of Articles 58-14 of the RSFSR Criminal Code . The death sentence was carried out on June 30, 1946. The train heater, who was also imprisoned, escaped the death penalty .
Rehabilitation of the executed
On June 6 and June 13, 2006, Linus Kaden and Walter Bräuer were rehabilitated by the Russian side. On May 19, 2011 Emil Schreier was rehabilitated, only the rehabilitation of the train driver Karl Baasner was rejected on that day.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Stephan Häupel: The railway in the Flöhatal and its regular- gauge branch lines . 1st edition. Bildverlag Böttger, Witzschdorf 2008, ISBN 978-3-937496-08-5 , p. 167 .
- ↑ Pockau municipal administration (ed.): Worth knowing and seeing over 675 years of Pockau . Pockau 2010, p. 242 .
- ↑ a b District Office Middle Erzgebirgskreis (Hrsg.): On the history of the cities and communities in the Middle Erzgebirgskreis . A timetable. Part III, p. 198 .
- ^ Andreas Weigelt: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study , Göttingen, 2015, p. 18.
- ^ Andreas Weigelt: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study , Göttingen, 2015, p. 630.
- ^ Andreas Weigelt: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study , Göttingen, 2015, p. 68.
- ^ Andreas Weigelt: Death sentences of Soviet military tribunals against Germans (1944–1947). A historical-biographical study , Göttingen, 2015, p. 307.