Special train to Moscow

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Adenauer's saloon car, formerly on a special train, now in the House of History in Bonn
Return of the delegation from Moscow on September 14, 1955 at Cologne / Bonn Airport.

The special train to Moscow ( " train M ") was approved by the federal government used in 1955 to the negotiations in the Soviet Union to the return of the last German prisoners of war a tap-proof consulting opportunity in Moscow to have on site.

Starting position

The fate of prisoners of war was one of the pressing problems in Germany in the post-war years . In 1955, just under 10,000 were former German Wehrmacht - soldiers and former members of the Waffen-SS as well as some 20,000 politically imprisoned civilians in Soviet captivity.

Diplomatic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany and the USSR did not (yet) exist and there were no embassies of the other state in Bonn or Moscow. That is why the Soviet embassy in Paris contacted the German embassy there in June 1955 to send an invitation to Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to Moscow. This invitation was a sensation at the time. Adenauer saw the chance to make a difference with regard to the prisoners of war and accepted the invitation. On September 8, 1955, he and his delegation flew on a Lufthansa plane for the state visit to Moscow.

Since the Federal Republic of Germany did not have an embassy in Moscow, a mobile, temporary solution was agreed for the negotiations: a special train that was supposed to ensure tap-proof advice for the German delegation and was equipped with its own radio telex for direct contact with Germany. Legally, extraterritoriality was agreed for the train - analogous to an embassy building .

preparation

Main move

The delegation stayed in a hotel in Moscow. For the formation of the train , therefore, it was only necessary that sufficient conference and recreation rooms were available in Moscow. From July 29, 1955, the German Federal Railroad prepared the train . Numerous conversions and renovations had to be carried out on the planned wagons . On August 22 and 23, 1955, meetings took place in the Soviet embassy in East Berlin , in which numerous technical points regarding the train were agreed: timetables , details of the gauge change in Brest, test drive after the gauge change, compatibility of the braking systems, couplings and Heating, water supply, external cleaning and storage in Moscow. A weight of 700 tons, 52 axles and 85 km / h were agreed for the main train.

All were for that use cars of the train specially equipped: The windows of the cars were as screens especially heavy curtains. Chassis in Russian gauge, which were manufactured by Westwaggon , were also procured . It was not until August 22, 1955 that the Foreign Office asked for a soundproof cabin to be installed in the train. Within a few days, Siemens added a corresponding cabin to the 105685 rail mail car, an older type of car.

The train was put together in the repair shop in Frankfurt am Main . The test drive took place on August 27, 1955 from there to Elm and back, at 120 km / h. Improvements were made under great time pressure. Then the train went to Bonn on September 3, 1955 .

Preference

In addition, a priority , a workshop train , was required to bring the bogies in Russian broad gauge to the Brest Umspurbahnhof. For this preference, a weight of around 400 tons , 30 axles and a speed of 75 km / h were agreed. The privilege consisted of passenger cars for accompanying staff and freight cars , mainly 13 flat cars for transporting the bogies in Russian gauge.

journey

Preference

The preference was put together as follows:

number description designation Company number
01 Company car of the DR 080 1 442
02 1st / 2nd class car AB4ü 11 493 Hmb
03 Saloon car Salon 4ü 10 202
04 Refrigerated car no.42 (for employees' groceries in preference) Trhs 305 867
05-17 Flat wagons , each loaded with two broad gauge bogies Rm
18th Luggage trolley as a companion trolley Pwg 795 041

The priority left the main freight station in Frankfurt (Main) on September 2, 1955, reached the inner-German border station in Helmstedt at noon and switched to the network of the Deutsche Reichsbahn . Via Magdeburg it went on to Frankfurt (Oder) , where the train was taken over by the Polish State Railways (PKP), which transported it to Brest, where it arrived on the morning of September 4th. The employees of the Soviet State Railroad (SZD) now had the opportunity to practice re-gauging on the 10202 saloon car on the vehicle type that was foreign to them.

Main move

On September 4, 1955 at 23:00 drove the main route, drawn by two steam locomotives of class 01 , from Bonn towards Brest in the following composition from:

number description designation Company number
01 Salon automobile coach SdrPw4ü 10 293 ff
02 Salon car of the Federal Chancellor Salon 4ü 10 205 Cologne
03 Saloon car Salon 4ü 10 390
04 Baggage cart Pw4ü-37 105 685
05 Rail mail car with bug-proof cabin Post4ü -b1 / 21 4796
06 Sleeping car WLAB4üe-37 DSG 20 990
07 Dining car WR4üe-39 DSG 1157
08 Sleeping car WLAB4üe-37 DSG 20 992
09 Sleeping car WLAB4üe-37 DSG 20 991
10 Generator car 8904
11 Generator car 8903
12 Baggage cart 1393
13a 2nd class passenger car for local escorts B4i-30 25 046
13b SZD car for local escorts 1241

The train was almost exclusively made up of technical staff: 6 employees from DB, 16 from DSG and 9 from Post .

On September 5, 1955, the route led via Cologne and Hanover to the Helmstedt border station. With the Deutsche Reichsbahn, the journey now went via Magdeburg and Köpenick to Frankfurt (Oder), where the train was taken over by the PKP, which transported it via Warsaw to Brest. There he was re-tracked on the morning of September 6th. Another night trip with the SZD went via Minsk . The train reached the platform in the Leningrad Railway Station (Ленинградский вокзал) in Moscow on September 7, 1955 at around 1:30 p.m. , where it stood for the next few days.

Return of the ten thousand

Despite the politically precarious situation, after just a few days, on September 12, an agreement was reached between the two parties: the 10,000 prisoners of war should be released.

In return, the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two states was given, thus giving up the Federal Republic of Germany's claim to sole representation . Adenauer and Nikolai Bulganin personally agreed to release the civil prisoners shortly before the end of the talks .

On October 7, 1955, the first 600 returnees of the “ten thousand” arrived at the inner-German border station in Herleshausen and were forwarded to the Friedland camp . On January 16, 1956, the last prisoners of war returning home from Soviet camps arrived there.

Return trip

The return of the main train took place on the morning of September 16, 1955, and Brest was reached about 24 hours later. The morning passed there with the gauging of the main train. On the morning of September 18, the Federal Republic of Germany and the network of the Deutsche Bundesbahn were reached again in Helmstedt . The train arrived in Bonn in the late afternoon of the same day. The next day it was transferred to Frankfurt (Main) Süd as an empty train .

The original preference was now a follow-up . He left Brest on September 18th and reached Frankfurt am Main on September 20th.

Museum objects

The chancellor's saloon car , part of the special train to Moscow, is today the largest and heaviest exhibit in the House of History in Bonn .

It was "walled up" in the basement of the museum from October 5, 1990, during the construction phase of the house. The Chancellor's Mercedes 300 is also there, on the " platform " in front of the saloon car.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Allegedly only 14 wide-gauge bogies (Weigelt, p. 109) which is probably a printing error with 12 wagons to be re-tracked. Applicable: 24.
  2. ↑ only between Rzepin and Brest
  3. ↑ Haberling, p. 436; on p. 435 he mentions 306 867
  4. ↑ Haberling's loading list, p. 438.
  5. ↑ only to and from Brest
  6. ^ Only between Brest and Moscow
  7. ↑ 2 wagon master and one machine master , locksmith , electrician and supervisor each .
  8. ↑ 7 men in the dining car, 6 sleeper conductors and one locksmith each, an unskilled worker and a supervisor.
  9. ↑ Haberling, p. 435, gives the Belarusian train station (Белорусский вокзал) as the storage location, but on p. 436 also the Leningrad train station .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Haberling, p. 435.
  2. ↑ Weigelt, p. 108.
  3. ↑ Eckardt, p. 381.
  4. ^ Andreas Rödder : Konrad Adenauer in Moscow. Museum magazine online, 2008, accessed on December 27, 2014 .
  5. ↑ Eckardt, p. 387.
  6. ↑ Weigelt, p. 108.
  7. ↑ Haberling, p. 435.
  8. ↑ Haberling, p. 435.
  9. ↑ Haberling, p. 435.
  10. ↑ Haberling, p. 435.
  11. ↑ Haberling, p. 435.
  12. ↑ Haberling, p. 435.
  13. ↑ Haberling, p. 436.
  14. ↑ Haberling, p. 436.
  15. ↑ Haberling, p. 435.
  16. ↑ Weigelt, p. 108.
  17. ↑ Haberling, pp. 435f.
  18. ↑ Eckardt, p. 388.
  19. ^ Siegfried Löffler: Coming home on a sunny autumn Sunday , in: Werratal-Bote. 16. Vol. 48 of December 2, 2005, p. 8f.
  20. ↑ Haberling, p. 436.
  21. ↑ Haberling, p. 437.
  22. ↑ Hans Walter Hütter in: Gottwaldt, p. 4.
  23. ↑ Gottwaldt, pp. 6, 43.
  24. ↑ Topicality displaces Adenauer. Kölnische Rundschau , March 9, 2010, accessed on December 27, 2014 .