Hohenthurm railway accident
In the railway accident at Hohenthurm on February 29, 1984, the express train D 354 collided on the journey from Berlin to Saarbrücken with the passenger train P 7523 from Bitterfeld to Halle (Saale) . 11 people died in the passenger train and at least 46 were injured. The train driver of the transit train was subsequently sentenced to 5 years in prison.
Starting position
The D 354 was a transit train from Berlin-Friedrichstrasse to Saarbrücken , which crossed the GDR area between Berlin (West) and the inner-German border without stopping. Controls by the GDR authorities were therefore limited to checking the identity documents. In order to avoid jumping up while driving, the train had to maintain a minimum speed on GDR territory and was not allowed to make any unscheduled stops. Since the maximum travel times could hardly be adhered to due to the poor condition of the track, it was nicknamed "fear" among GDR railway workers. The train was pulled by the 250 207-8 locomotive. He left Berlin as planned with 108 people on board. Under pressure to adhere to the maximum travel time of four hours to the inner-German border and not to stop unscheduled, the train driver had passed a total of three stop signals between Berlin and Hohenthurm.
The P 7523 was a local train from Bitterfeld to Halle (Saale) , which was used by many workers after work and was therefore known as the "shift train". He was pushed by the closing locomotive 250 017-1 .
At the time of the accident there was thick fog with visibility of less than five meters. The train traffic in the Halle area had almost come to a standstill.
the accident
The P 7523 stopped at around 3:00 p.m. in Hohenthurm and was just starting again when the D 354 hit the locomotive head-on at 40 km / h. This pushed itself under the last wagon, the rear part of which was completely destroyed. The driver of the local train and 10 passengers were killed, at least 30 others were injured. The train driver of the transit train was seriously injured; 16 passengers suffered minor injuries and were able to continue their journey after outpatient treatment.
Salvage
The Hohenthurm volunteer fire department was there first; A little later, the professional fire brigade, criminal police and ambulance with an ambulance arrived. These were only allowed to supply passengers on the local train. Due to the risk of fire, the helpers could not use cutting torches to free the trapped injured people from the train, but had to work with hand saws, which dragged out the rescue until the early hours of the morning. The last dead person was recovered at 4:30 a.m.
The transit train was overseen by a disaster management team headed by the Ministry of State Security . At around 7:00 p.m. the train was able to continue its journey with a replacement locomotive.
consequences
The MfS departments for counter-espionage and traffic security initially assumed an attack or sabotage and started investigations. Helpers were forbidden to talk about details of the accident. The question of guilt was never clarified: the train driver of the transit train was instructed to stop only at the stations specified in the timetable. Perhaps he had assumed, as is usual for transit trains, to have free travel everywhere. However, he was sentenced to five years in prison five months later.
Web links
Death ride in the fog - The railway accident of 1984 in Hohenthurm (report on YouTube)
Individual evidence
- ^ Martin Weltner: Railway disasters. Serious train accidents and their causes. Munich 2008. ISBN 978-3-7654-7096-7 , p. 16.
- ↑ a b c d e f g Train accident in Hohenthurm near Halle. (No longer available online.) In: mdr.de. Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk , February 18, 2014, archived from the original on February 23, 2015 ; accessed on February 23, 2015 .
- ↑ a b c Railway accidents of the DR and DB from 1945. Retrieved on December 1, 2019 .
- ↑ Norman Meissner: The Eisenach railway disaster of June 23, 1976: two contemporary witnesses report. In: Thüringische Landeszeitung . June 28, 2014, accessed September 9, 2015 .
- ^ Stasi files on the train accident in the Hohenthurm station near Halle on February 29, 1984. In: mdr.de. Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk , accessed on December 3, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c Antonie Städter: Train accident in 1984 near Halle: Nebelfahrt in die Katastrophe. In: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung . March 1, 2019, accessed December 3, 2019 .