Reich Ministry of Transport
The Reich Ministry of Transport was established in 1919. It was located in Berlin-Mitte (W 8) at Vossstrasse 35. These buildings were used by the Reichsbahn and Reich Ministry of Transport together with the adjoining buildings of the Ministry of Commerce on Wilhelmstrasse 79-80 from 1919 onwards. Due to the increasing bombing of the Reich capital by Allied bomber fleets, there was an alternative point (code name: Fischerhütte) from mid-1944 until the end of the war near Groß Köris .
The Reich Ministry of Transport was responsible, among other things, for the transport of European Jews to the extermination camps . The responsible department 21 “Mass Transportation” in the operations and construction department cooperated closely with the Reich Security Main Office .
Department heads
Surname | Taking office | Term expires | Political party | cabinet |
---|---|---|---|---|
Johannes Bell | February 13, 1919 | May 1, 1920 | center | Scheidemann , Bauer , Müller I. |
Gustav Bauer | May 2, 1920 | June 21, 1920 | SPD | Müller I |
Wilhelm Groener | June 25, 1920 | August 12, 1923 | Non-party | Fehrenbach , Wirth I & II , Cuno |
Rudolf Oeser | August 13, 1923 | October 11, 1924 | DDP | Stresemann I & II , Marx I & II |
Rudolf Krohne | October 12, 1924 | December 17, 1926 | DVP |
Marx II , Brüning I & II , Luther I & II , Marx III |
Wilhelm Koch | January 28, 1927 | June 12, 1928 | DNVP | Marx IV |
Theodor of Guérard (1) | June 27, 1928 | February 6, 1929 | center | Müller II |
Georg Schätzel | February 7, 1929 | April 12, 1929 | BVP | Müller II |
Adam Stegerwald | April 13, 1929 | March 27, 1930 | center | Müller II |
Theodor von Guérard (2) | March 30, 1930 | October 7, 1931 | center | Brüning I |
Gottfried Treviranus | October 9, 1931 | May 30, 1932 | CIP | Brüning II |
Paul Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach | June 1, 1932 | February 2, 1937 | Non-party | Papen , Schleicher , Hitler |
Julius Dorpmüller | February 2, 1937 | May 23, 1945 | NSDAP, (independent until January 1941) |
Hitler , Goebbels , Schwerin von Krosigk |
State Secretaries
- Max Peters (1919–1920), head of the waterways department
- Karl von Stieler (1919–1923)
- Paul Kirschstein (1920–1924), head of the waterways department
- Georg Bodenstein (1920–1924), head of the Prussia-Hesse branch
- Max Kumbier (1921–1924), head of the railway engineering department
- Johannes Vogt (1923–1924)
- Rudolf Krohne (1923–1924)
- Friedrich Wilhelm Gutbrod (1926–1932)
- Gustav Koenigs (1932–1940)
- Wilhelm Kleinmann (1937–1942)
- Albert Ganzenmüller (1942–1945)
structure
Up until the Dawes Plan , the Reich Ministry of Transport included, in addition to the departments for motor traffic and shipping, the supervision of the state railways of the states that had passed into the possession of the Reich on April 1, 1920 as the Deutsche Reichseisenbahnen , as well as those of the affiliated Reichseisenbahnamt (REA) Management of the railway itself. As a result of the Dawes Plan, the railways of the Reich were combined in the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (DRG), founded in 1924, to form a single state-owned private enterprise that took over most of the rail traffic in Germany. After that, only the supervision under railway law remained in the RVM.
At the beginning of 1932 the RVM was divided into a total of five departments, each headed by ministerial directors:
- Aviation (L, Head of Ernst Brandenburg )
- Motor transport and shipping (K, Head Ulrich Stapenhorst )
- Hydraulic engineering (W, head of Johannes Gährs )
- Railway Administration Department (EI, Head Eduard Vogel )
- Railway Technical Department (E II, Head Karl Knaut )
With the establishment of the Reich Aviation Ministry on May 5, 1933, the Reich Ministry of Transport lost its jurisdiction and with it the Aviation Department. The department for motor traffic and shipping, which was vacated by Stapenhorst's change as district president of Hanover , was divided into two separate departments, the former head of the department for aviation Ernst Brandenburg took over. Erich Klausener became the head of the shipping department . After Klausener's murder during the so-called Röhm Putsch on June 30, 1934, the department did not receive a new department head until early 1935, Max Waldeck . In the same year, the two railway departments were merged after the head of the administrative department had retired. From March 20, 1935, the Reich Minister of Transport traded as “The Reich and Prussian Minister of Transport” after the relevant tasks had been taken over from the Prussian Ministry of Transport. In addition, there were other transport tasks from the Ministry of Economics and Agriculture.
With the law on the reorganization of relations between the Reichsbank and the Deutsche Reichsbahn of January 30, 1937, the Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft was placed under Reich sovereignty and was given the name "Deutsche Reichsbahn". The Reichsbahn board members (while maintaining their functions on the board of the Reichsbahn) were transferred to the ministry as department heads in the rank of ministerial directors, which significantly increased the number of departments:
- Traffic and Tariff Department (EI, Head Paul Treibe )
- Operations and Construction Department (E II, Head of Max Leibbrand )
- Mechanical engineering and purchasing department (E III, head of Werner Bergmann )
- Finance and Legal Department (E IV, Head Alfred Prang )
- Personnel department (EV, head of Hermann Osthoff )
- Motor Transport (K, Head of Ernst Brandenburg)
- Sea and inland shipping (S, management Max Waldeck)
- Hydraulic engineering (W, head of Johannes Gährs)
Departments K, S and W were subordinate to State Secretary Gustav Koenigs. The railway departments EI to EV were subordinate to State Secretary Wilhelm Kleinmann, who was also responsible for two groups that were not assigned to a department:
- Group A, General Group, for personnel issues of senior officials, international affairs, cabinet affairs, propaganda (headed by Theodor Kittel )
- Group L, national defense and military affairs (headed by Friedrich Ebeling )
Up until the end of the Second World War , the structure changed only insignificantly. In 1940, following the resignation of Gustav Koenigs, the department for maritime and inland shipping was split up, the new departments SI (economic management of seafaring) and S II (connection between shipping and navy) were subordinated to Undersecretary Paul Wülfing von Ditten , department B continued to head Max Waldeck. A railway construction department (E VI, management Willy Meilicke ) was newly established as early as 1939 and split off from department E II, and was reinforced by a second construction department E VII from 1940 to 1942.
Unit 21 “Mass Transportation” was located in Operations and Construction Department E II, which from 1940 was responsible for the organization and scheduling of the special trains ordered by the SS to deport Jews from Germany in addition to its previous tasks . The Reich Ministry of Transport was thus responsible for a substantial part of the Holocaust .
building
Until 1945
From 1937 on, Leipziger Strasse 125 was also used by the Reich Ministry of Transport. The house at Vossstraße 33 was the seat of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in the 1930s and was also taken over by the Reich Ministry of Transport in 1940. Both houses survived the Second World War and are now a listed building .
The cellars of the buildings were converted into air raid shelter , and there was a slip through to the underground tunnel on the U2 line. In 1940, a massive air raid shelter was built under one of the courtyards .
Use after 1945
Until 1990 the main administration for railways as part of the transport ministry of the GDR used the area. At Leipziger Straße 125 there was a travel agency, a library and medical facilities.
From 1990 to 1996 the West German construction company "Hermann Koehne", which is mainly active in track construction, had its headquarters here.
Terrain today
The buildings had been empty and fell into disrepair since 1996. For a few years, illegal parties were held in Vossstrasse 33. From 2004, the "Kunst- und Kulturhaus Voßstraße eV" used the building as a gallery and event location.
In April 2012, the Berlin investor Harald G. Huth bought the approximately 10,000 m² property of the former Reich Ministry of Transport between Leipziger Strasse, Wilhelmstrasse and Vossstrasse. In September 2012, the demolition of the remaining parts of the building, the cellars on Wilhelmstrasse, the buried remains of the basement on Vossstrasse and the air raid shelter began. The houses at Leipziger Strasse 125 and Vossstrasse 33 as well as the facade of the attached side wing were preserved. By spring 2014, a huge complex of sales areas, offices and apartments had been built.
See also
- Reichseisenbahnamt
- Reichsinstitut Deutsche Seewarte
- Sea service East Prussia
- Sail training ship Admiral von Trotha
- List of commissions, reports and publications on the history of the highest Reich authorities in the Nazi era
literature
- Alfred Gottwaldt , Diana Schulle: “Jews are prohibited from using dining cars”. The anti-Jewish policy of the Reich Ministry of Transport between 1933 and 1945. Research report, prepared on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development. Hentrich & Hentrich, Teetz 2007, ISBN 978-3-938485-64-4 , (series of publications by the Centrum Judaicum 6)
- Alfred Gottwaldt: Dorpmüller's Reichsbahn. The era of the Reich Minister of Transport Julius Dorpmüller 1920–1945 , EK-Verlag, Freiburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-88255-726-8
- Andreas Nachama (Ed.): Wilhelmstrasse 1933–1945 - Rise and Fall of the NS Government Quarter, Topography of Terror Foundation, 2012, ISBN 978-3-941772-10-6 , pp. 67 ff.
Web links
- History of the Reichsbahn and Reichsbahn files in the Federal Archives
- Video of a bunker inspection 2010 on Youtube
- Article in the Berlin Tagesspiegel 2012
- Information about the history, with photos at modernruines.de
- Spherical panoramas at modernruines.de
- large picture documentation (2012), also alternative point at Groß Köris (2015) at arche-foto.com
Remarks
- ↑ Andreas Engwert, Susanne Kill (ed.): Special trains in the death: The deportations with the Deutsche Reichsbahn. Documentation by Deutsche Bahn AG , Böhlau, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-412-20337-5 , p. 50
- ↑ Andreas Nachama (Ed.): Wilhelmstrasse 1933–1945 - Rise and Fall of the Nazi Government Quarter, Topography of Terror Foundation, 2012, ISBN 978-3-941772-10-6 , p. 67.