Central traffic control center
The central traffic control center , abbreviated to ZVL, was a facility created by the Deutsche Reichsbahn on June 16, 1942 to improve the organization of transports during the Second World War . It organized the transport needs of military and civil organizations and, for this purpose, coordinated the use of transport by rail and inland waterways together with regional control centers.
Foundation and tasks
"Establishment of a central traffic control center. In order to ensure the expedient distribution of the transports in the entire Reich territory according to uniform criteria, the Reich Minister of Transport has set up a central traffic control center at the headquarters of the General Operations Management East of the Deutsche Reichsbahn in Berlin. "
The reference is confirmed in the literature:
"To relieve the Reich Ministry of Transport , the Central Traffic Control Center (ZVL) was set up at the General Operations Management East in June 1942."
The General Operations Management East was located in the building of the Reichsbahndirektion Berlin on Schöneberger Ufer on the Landwehr Canal and was headed by Ernst Emerich. Emerich also took over the management of the ZVL.
The main reason given for the centralization is friction among the “regional traffic management” over the allocation of railroad cargo space.
Organizational structure and users
It “should also be avoided that applications for the supply of cargo space were made to the Reich Ministry of Transport (RVM). The central traffic control center (ZVL) coordinated the transport requests registered by the departments with the transport options at regular meetings. Members of the ZVL included the special commissioner for the transport of coal (quarterly plan) and one representative each from the Reich Ministry for Armaments and Ammunition , the Reich Ministry of Economics and the Reich Ministry for Food and Agriculture . The meetings, which were usually chaired by the President of General Operations Management East, were usually attended by representatives of the most important civil and military users, speakers from the Railway and Inland Shipping Department of the RVM and the heads of the Main Carriage Office. "
“Area traffic lines were created for the areas of general operations management [...] 'West' dealt with traffic between Germany and France, Belgium and Holland, 'South' with shipping on the Danube, Neckar, Main and 'East' [the area] east of the Elbe with waterways . [...] The Southeast Freight Control Center in Berlin regulated traffic with the southeast as an independent body. "
background
The establishment of the ZVL created a changed organizational structure, as it dissolved the decentralized structure of transport coordination in the German Reich, which dates back to the prewar period and which expanded to include the railway networks in the occupied territories after the initial successes of the war, and relocated it to a headquarters in Berlin aligned. Such a centralization could only be guaranteed by adequately renewed communication technology.
technology
As early as 1928, the Reichsbahn had had a system for transmitting messages that was independent of the public telephone network - BASA technology - which, however, had considerable weaknesses in view of the extremely high volume of traffic caused by the war, and parallel to the reorganization with a system developed by Siemens & Halske based on new electrical engineering components was supported. New mechanisms in the railway's own telephone traffic made it possible to optimize the control of train sequences, their distribution and the use of locomotives and wagons. Configured as a centralized communication system, rail traffic in the German Reich and in the occupied territories could not only be controlled centrally, but directly without the previously unavoidable delays.
To protect this facility, the BASA bunker was built, which can be seen for the first time as being under construction in an aerial photo from September. The technology came into use from 1944.
The critical military situation from 1942 onwards (including the systematic bombing by the Allied Air Force) meant that the entire railway network was consistently geared towards the transport needs of the Wehrmacht . This was the first purpose of centralization, followed by the needs of the defense industry . In an organization that was geared towards the highest possible efficiency, however, no area of responsibility was neglected.
Deportation traffic
“For the extensive mass deportations (were) neither a separate department nor any noteworthy personnel changes were made. […] Transports of Jews were generally handled as freight trains, but were treated as special passenger trains in the planning. [...] Deportation trains were treated here together with special trains for harvest workers, forced laborers or ethnic German emigrants. "
Similar to the Wehrmacht with the head of the Wehrmacht transport system, the Reich Main Security Office had a "Transport Commissioner in Eichmanns Judenreferat " who reported the need for means of transport for "evacuations" to be carried out to "Dienststelle 211 ( special trains )" of the Reichsbahn.
“Because of the connection with the“ Final Solution ”, the deportations of Jews in the business operations of the Reichsbahn represented an important task in the sense of National Socialism, but were numerically rather insignificant. Ten or twenty deportation trains were a marginal problem in the eyes of the railway bureaucracy, given a total of 20,000 trains per day (1942). "
From June 1942 onwards, “in connection with troop transports, a [...] cessation of deportation traffic was ordered.” Helmut Schwarz documented interventions by the SS - partly by Himmler personally to Albert Ganzenmüller , the deputy general director of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, who readily “requested Trains "procured:" The transport machinery started up again. Sometimes it stalled, but despite fierce retreat fights on all fronts until the abandonment of Auschwitz [...] it never came to a standstill. "
Ganzenmüller's flexible reaction could well be a consequence of the optimized traffic organization.
Effect on warfare
References to a more efficient way of organizing rail traffic can be found in the preparation of the Ardennes offensive . Hitler commissioned the Wehrmacht transport chief Rudolf Gercke to bring the majority of the attacking troops, weapons, ammunition, equipment and supplies from the hinterland near the front shortly before the attack (on December 16, 1944):
"At the beginning of October [1944] Gercke had almost completed the construction of the transport system [...] Gercke's most important task [...] was the thorough overhaul of the Deutsche Reichsbahn." After the planning was completed ...
“... tens of thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of tons of material had to be transported inconspicuously from the collection points to their deployment points close behind the front at night. […] On December 7th, at nightfall, the first loading was finished and all transports rolled in the same direction - towards the Ardennes. The next day at three in the morning all trains were unloaded and were on their way back to the Rhine. Before daybreak they were reloaded at the starting point. That went on for three days. "
“On December 11th, the constellation was completed. The Reichsbahn had performed a real miracle and transported the first wave into the attack zone. ”The author was not aware of the background to this“ miracle ”.
The surprising relocation of the 6th Panzer Army and other units to Hungary for the Lake Balaton offensive in February 1945 was favored, if not made possible, by the new control technology.
See also
literature
- ZdVMEv (newspaper of the Association of Central European Railway Administrations), published on behalf of the association by Reichsbahndirektionspräsident a. D. - Dr.-Ing. E. h. Moeller in Berlin, 82nd year, No. 25: Establishment of a central traffic control center ; June 18, 1942.
- Eugen Kreidler: The railways in the Second World War - studies and documents on the history of the Second World War. Ed .: Working group for defense research in Stuttgart, Nikol Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2001.
- Official journal of the Reichsbahndirektion Berlin. (Forerunner: Official Gazette of the (Royal) Railway Directorate Berlin). Steiniger, Berlin. In: No. 70, 1922-1948. Microfiche at the German National Library , Leipzig location.
- Helmut Schwarz: The machinery of death. The Reichsbahn and the final solution to the Jewish question. In: Harm-Hinrich Brandt (Ed.): Train of the time-time of trains. German Railways 1835–1985. Volume 1, Siedler Verlag, Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-88680-146-2 .
Remarks
- ↑ “Within the Reich territory, the Reichsbahn organization [until 1942] differentiated itself into the general operations management West (Essen), South (Munich) and East (Berlin). [...] Each general management was subordinate to a large number of Reichsbahndirectors, to these in turn the local railway stations. ”(Schwarz: Fahrradwerk des Todes. 1985, p. 685)
- ↑ One example was that the head office could open and terminate contacts - the latter was only possible from the called office until then.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Christian Kaiser: ZVL = Zentralverkehrsleitstelle Abbreviations and special units of measurement, website accessed on February 11, 2018.
- ↑ Roland Masslich: ZVL = Central Traffic Control Working Group Remembering Against Forgetting, accessed on February 11, 2018.
- ↑ Thomas Noßke: Events 1942 Transportation. Website of the University of Merseburg , accessed on February 11, 2018.
- ↑ Establishment of a central traffic control center. In: Newspaper of the Association of Central European Railway Administrations. published on behalf of the association by Reichsbahndirektionspräsident a. D. - Dr.-Ing. E. h. Moeller in Berlin, Volume 82, No. 25, June 18, 1942, p. 340.
- ^ Eugen Kreidler: The railways in World War II - studies and documents on the history of World War II. Ed .: Working group for defense research in Stuttgart, Nikol Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2001, p. 234, note 48: “Decree RVM 19 Val 140 v. 2.8.1942 Betr. Establishment of a Zentr.V.Lst, copy in the author's collection of documents. "
- ↑ Christian Bachelier: La SNCF sous l'Occupation allemande 1940–1944 ( Memento of the original from March 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Rapport documentaire, 1996. Chapitre 4: L'année 1942, p. 5 (French)
- ^ E. Kreidler: The railways in World War II. 2001, p. 234, note 49: "Details in the minutes of the 1st (11.6.1942) to 38th (21.6.1944) meeting of the ZVL, document collection of the author."
- ↑ Sommerlatte: Freight control procedure in traffic with the south-eastern states. In: The Reichsbahn. Born in 1942, pp. 63-64.
- ↑ Helmut Schwarz: The machinery of death. The Reichsbahn and the final solution to the Jewish question. In: Train of Time-Time of Trains. German Railways 1835–1985. Volume 1, Siedler, Berlin 1985, p. 685.
- ↑ Helmut Schwarz: The machinery of death. In: Train of Time-Time of Trains. 1985, p. 686.
- ↑ John Toland : Battle of the Bulge. , Gustav Lübbe Verlag, Bergisch Gladbach 1980, p. 28. (Original: The Story of the Bulge , 1959).
