Reich Ministry of Transport

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The Reich Ministry of Transport on Wilhelmplatz in Berlin (1937), photo from the Federal Archives

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

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:

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.

Fragments of the historic Vossstrasse facade

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

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

Wiktionary: Reich Ministry of Transport  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Remarks

  1. ↑ 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
  2. ↑ 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.