German Railways in the East

Discussions on the economic history of the nations taking part in WW2, from the recovery after the depression until the economy at war.
Post Reply
GregSingh
Member
Posts: 3877
Joined: 21 Jun 2012, 02:11
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: German Railways in the East

#316

Post by GregSingh » 02 Jan 2015, 05:46

I found towing capacity table for recetly discussed BR.01 locomotive for passenger express trains (D-Züge, SF-Züge and DmW-Züge - Durchgangszüge, Schnellzüge für Fronturlauber and Schnellzüge mit Wehrmachtsteil).

It deteriorates quickly with increasing speed and raising terrain slope...
BR.01 towing capacity.jpg
BR.01 towing capacity
BR.01 towing capacity.jpg (65.81 KiB) Viewed 874 times

User avatar
Der Alte Fritz
Member
Posts: 2171
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 22:43
Location: Kent United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: German Railways in the East

#317

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 02 Jan 2015, 12:33

GregSingh wrote: I found this in Mierzejewski:
“In December 1942 the divisions of the GVD Osten generated a total of 4.09 million train-kilometers; 53.6 percent consisted of Wehrmacht traffic. In the same month, a total of 1,690 cars were placed, an indication of the low level of economic activity in the area and the predominance of through traffic. On 1 January 1943, a regular work day, ninety-seven trains entered the GVD Osten and seventy-three left. Traffic remained at this level into the early summer."

Alfred C Mierzejewski (http://www.worldcat.org/wcidentities/lccn-n88074071)

That table from Pottgeisser - does it have data averaged over a period of several month, a whole 1942 year perhaps? That might be a reason why your calculations seem too high. While Gedob stayed the same in 1942, GVD Osten expanded.
Pottgeisser table is the position ("Stand vom") on 1st January 1943 so just for one day. Not a good basis for extrapolation but all we have at present.

Mierzejewski presents a number of problems, his figures are from primary source data held at BAMA and he lists Pottgeisser, Kriendler and Scharf in his bibliography. However his figures do not match those from other sources. Probably it depends on different definitions. For instance he claims 6,000 km of track in 1942. But the Eisenbahnpioniere General Otto Willi reports that they converted 16,000 km of track by Oct 1941 http://www.bundesarchiv.de/oeffentlichk ... -4.html.de

So here are the relevant pages from Mierzejewski and then a table showing his various figures arranged by date and then some intial comparison figures from other sources:
The Most Valuable Asset of the Reich p135.jpg
The Most Valuable Asset of the Reich p134.jpg
references.jpg
Compare.jpg


User avatar
Der Alte Fritz
Member
Posts: 2171
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 22:43
Location: Kent United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: German Railways in the East

#318

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 02 Jan 2015, 14:06

So engine numbers compare well when you look at the 'operational' ones for RVD only but as you can see Pottgeisser has a great number of engines in the East (inc the FEDko ones) and does not show the inoperative ones so the total would be higher. 4671 + say 20% in repair = 5,600 engines at a guess.

Personnel numbers are so different I have no idea. But Pottgeissers numbers are in line with the information that we have from Teske for the numbers of soldiers, grau Eisnebahner and blau Eisenbahner and Russians employed by HG MItte. We discussed this on page 9. Probably his figure relates to a single category say DRB RVD personnel only, ignoring the military element of the grau Eisenbahner? Hard to say.

Number of train km, he could be right but the month later Pottgeisser figures extrapolated would seem to indicate over double the traffic. He says 53% Wehrmahct which seems too high for me and Teske would indicate nearer 20%. But Teske may not have counted the civilian traffic from the Reichskommisariats in his totals and they were the main economic traffic ie close to the Polish border.
But lets test his own figures against one another:

4.09 million train km in Dec 1942 = 136,000 train km per day @ 300 km per train = 450 trains of which 210 are civilian and 240 are military (53%).
If we use the annual civilian freight haul for 1943 to assign the freight in/out/interior as a proportion this works out as 15/30/55 % of traffic.

This would give us for civilian traffic:
GVD Osten in - 31 trains
GVD Osten out - 62 trains
GVD Osten interior - 115 trains
total - 210

The daily GVD Osten crossings for January are : 97 in and 73 out of which we assume 53% are military or possibly
Civilian trains in - 45
Civilian trains out - 34

Finally number of car placings 1,690 a day where as Pottgeisser states 8,762 wagons loaded a day. 1690 car placings assuming they are all wagons and at 18 tonnes a wagon = 30,000 tonnes a day. Total civilian economic traffic for 1943 15.1 million tonnes or 45,000 tonnes a day. For 1942 it is 11 million or 32,000 a day. These look about the right order of magnitude but only cover civilian traffic.

Military loads tend to be lighter (most are leave trains which were 600 tonnes of train and net weight of 200 tonnes of people) So Pottgeissers figure might relate to civilian and military loadings combined. That would give us 7000 military loadings and 1700 civilian loadings. Or 20% civilian. Given the split of 53% traffic for the military for the train km, that would indicate that the military traffic was shorter journeys

20% loadings = 47% traffic
80% loadings = 53% traffic
this would seem to indicate that military trains were running short distances, maybe 75 km a day rather than the 300km a day of the long distance economic traffic.

This is of course a big dose of speculation but does square the circle between the various accounts.

User avatar
Der Alte Fritz
Member
Posts: 2171
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 22:43
Location: Kent United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: German Railways in the East

#319

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 02 Jan 2015, 14:37

I am in the process of reading an interesting book about the German railway in WW II. The book is entitled:

THE MOST VALUABLE ASSET OF THE REICH by Alfred C. Mierzejewski published by the University of North Carolina Press in 2000:ISBN 0-8078-2574-3

It is in two volumes but the one of interest is Vol 2 since that covers the period of 1933-1945 or the Nazi era. Vol 1 covers the period 1920-1932.

I have not finished the volume but I have come across many interesting facts that I though members might find of interest.

Here are some:

1. The DRB was initially not included in the planning aspects of campaigns in Poland and France but were included in Russia and on.

2. To position the men and equipment for Operation Barbarossa in June 1941 nearly 33,000 trains were required.
Of this number 11,784 trains were used to move the combat formations into position. The rest were used for movement forward of supplies and support personnel. An Infantry Division required 70 trains and a Panzer or Motorized Division required from 90 to 100 trains. The movement was done in phases:
• Phase 1 was from 25 February to March 14 1941. Twelve trains were run daily. Thirteen divisions left the area and eight came in. Also 890 supply trains, 200 trains for the Luftwaffe, 60 trains for Pioniere Bataillons and 25 trains for line of supply troops which meant that during this phase about 2500 trains operated. This works out to an average of nearly 139 trains per day.
• Phase 2 began 20 March 1941 with combat troop movement accounting for around 18 to 24 trains per day. All vacation traffic in the region was halted entirely on 10 April 1941.
• Phase 3 began moving on 8 April and ending on 20 May 1941. In this phase 1400 troop trains carrying 17 Divisions were sent east.
• Phase 4 Part 1 began on 25 May 1941 with high-intensity schedule was in effect. Nine Divisions plus support troops moved in this phase.
• Phase 4 Part 2 began on 3 June and ending on 23 June 1941. Twelve Panzer and twelve Mortorized Division came forward in this period. Also on 21 June another 24 divisions were transported eastward to backup the assault units.
During the entire period the average number of trains daily was close to 2500.

The daily target of supply trains for AGC was 24 trains but this was not achieved until 18 July 1941. Much of this was accomplished by using captured Soviet equipment which meant that the supplies had to be transferred from the German cars to Russian cars because the the rail gauge differences.

By early September 1941 trains began to arrive in Germany with booty. During the first two weeks of September, AGS sent 601 rail cars with 7950 tons of freight, including soy beans, gasoline, pigs and paraffin west to Germany.

By 1 November 1941 the Germans were operating 6871 kilometers of track in Soviet terriority. Over half of this was the broad-gauge [Soviet standard]. A program was begun to revise this broad-gauge to the standard-gauge and by the end of December 1941, 15,000 kilometers had been converted.

With the expansion of German territory the quantities of locomotives and rail cars increased substantially.

Here are the figures:
Steam Locomotives acquired/total:
1939=660/25889
1940=982/28586
1941=1391/30011
1942=2127/32243
1943=4533/36329
1944=3063/37810

Freight cars acquired/total:
1939=13087/660546
1940=24544/779641
1941=42924/824185
1942=43032/885906
1943=51969/973045
1944=34725/987864

Passenger cars acquired/total:
1939=544/68462
1940=713/70443
1941=104/70257
1942=124/72448
1943=327/71018
1944=256/70400

Personnel in total:
1939=958000
1940=1145600
1941=1253100
1942=1386000
1943=1529000
1944=1581000

Length of lines in kilometers:
1939=72656
1940=75553
1941=78257
1942=78730
1943=78879
1944=75763

Pasengers carried in billions:
1939=2.212
1940=2.253
1941=2.655
1942=3.094
1943=3.539
1944=3.706

Also in the east the impact of partisan activity was noted as follows:
In 1943 5000 locomotives and 19000 fright cars were damaged by partisans.
On the night of 19-20 January 1944 the partisans cut the rail lines in 10500 places alsmost completely stopping the rail service for a day.

This book also covers the movement of prisoners from the east to Germany and the transport of the jews to the camps.

Logistics is the key to winning strategically and so little can be found regarding logistics within the Wenrmacht. This book presents some of the logistical information but it would be great to see more.

I recommend this book for those interested in logistics.

The Deutsche Reichsbahn was a very valuable assest to the German war effort and Nazi racial policies.

best regards,

Ron Klages

User avatar
Der Alte Fritz
Member
Posts: 2171
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 22:43
Location: Kent United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: German Railways in the East

#320

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 02 Jan 2015, 14:57

It occured to me that we can test Pottgeissers daily train km figure by looking at the Reich figures

Daily train km Reich 3,003,806 km on 1st Jan 1943

Annual train km Reich
freight 1942 = 489,000,000 and 1943 = 520,400,000
passenger 1942 = 486,000 and 1943 = 513,700,000

1942 total train km = 975,000,000
1943 total train km = 1,034,100,000

1942 average daily train km total 2,670,000
1943 average daily train km total 2,832,000

this all seems to be broadly correct especially if you use a 6 days working week of 315 days rather than 365 days a year.
So Pottgeissers figure would seem to be Military and Civilian both Passenger and Freight traffic combined and Mierzejewski is just Civilian freight.

Taking this as a working hypothesis, the 398,408 daily train km for GVD Osten would come out as 125 million train km a year (using 315 working days) or 10.7 million train km per month (27 working days)

User avatar
Der Alte Fritz
Member
Posts: 2171
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 22:43
Location: Kent United Kingdom
Contact:

German Military Manuals relating to Railways

#321

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 02 Jan 2015, 18:03

H.Dv. 66/3 Die Bahnhofskommandantur
(Der Hafenoffizier)  


H.Dv. 67
M.Dv.Nr. 287
L.Dv. 67 Wehrmacht-Eisenbahn-Ordnung (WEO)
mit den militärischen und den eisenbahntechnischen Ausführungsbestimmungen 1932


H.Dv. 68/5
M.Dv.Nr. 68/5
L.Dv. 68/5 Truppentransportvorschrift
Heft 5
Grundsätze für die Fahrzeugverladung auf offenen Eisenbahnwagen und für die Errechnung des Wagenbedarfs
(Fahrzeug-Verladungs-Grundsätze - F.V.Gr.) 1932 1938 1943


H.Dv. 68/5a
M.Dv.Nr. 68/5a
L.Dv. 68/5a Truppentransportvorschrift
Heft 5a
Ausrüstung der Eisenbahnwagen für Wehrmachtstransporte
(Wg.-Ausr.) 1941


H.Dv. 68/5b
M.Dv.Nr. 68/5b
L.Dv. 68/5b Truppentransportvorschrift
Heft 5b
Anleitung zum Ein- und Ausladen mit fahrbaren Eisenbahnladerampen
(FLR.) 1935 1941


H.Dv. 68/6
M.Dv.Nr. 68/6
L.Dv. 68/6 Truppentransportvorschrift
Heft 6
Militärverkehr von und nach Ostpreußen 1937


H.Dv. 68/8
M.Dv.Nr. 68/8
L.Dv. 68/8 Truppentransportvorschrift
Heft 8
Truppentransport auf Kraftwagen 1939


H.Dv. 68/9a
M.Dv.Nr. 68/9a
L.Dv. 68/9a Truppentransportvorschrift
Heft 9a
Der Wehrmachturlauberverkehr zu den Festzeiten 1938


H.Dv. 69
M.Dv.Nr. 69
L.Dv. 69 Militärtarif für Eisenbahnen 1939

GregSingh
Member
Posts: 3877
Joined: 21 Jun 2012, 02:11
Location: Melbourne, Australia

Re: German Railways in the East

#322

Post by GregSingh » 03 Jan 2015, 04:13

So Pottgeissers figure would seem to be Military and Civilian both Passenger and Freight traffic combined and Mierzejewski is just Civilian freight.
Excellent!
That makes perfect sense.

Does Pottgeisser provide only that one table from 1st of Jan 1943?
Scharf has similar one from 31st of May 1944. Ukraine is gone by then...

User avatar
Der Alte Fritz
Member
Posts: 2171
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 22:43
Location: Kent United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: German Railways in the East

#323

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 03 Jan 2015, 09:40

Pottgeisser situation for the month of May 1944.
May 1944.jpg
To remind ourselves as to the situation of the Front:
Image

User avatar
Der Alte Fritz
Member
Posts: 2171
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 22:43
Location: Kent United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: German Railways in the East

#324

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 03 Jan 2015, 09:47

So for GVD Osten, the RVD and Fedko in the Ukraine have been snuffed out, while RVD Minsk and Riga are slightly smaller than before but mots of the territory lost was in the region of their FEDko. The enemy are at the gates of Lemburg (Lvov) and Brest but the Germans still retain the crossing points from Poland into GVD Osten territory. This means that the Germans retain their operational freedom on the railways as they now have the higher capacity system of the Ostbahn with all its improvements of the Otto programme back in April 1941. On the downside they have lost a lot of rolling stock in the rapid advance of the Soviets and because Soviet objectives in their advances were based around railways, they deliberately sought to cut off lines and capture trains. But the Germans have destroyed almost everything behind them.

User avatar
Der Alte Fritz
Member
Posts: 2171
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 22:43
Location: Kent United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: German Railways in the East

#325

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 03 Jan 2015, 20:36

Table lists the remaining two RVD plus the remaining FEDko 2 so column 7 is the total for GVD Osten. Column 11 is the total for the Ostbahn. Column 12 is the province of Bialystok which was not part of the Government General but was an rea to the south east of East Prussia and would have been incorporated into it at some point, together with Courland. In the Great War this area had comprised most of the Ober Ost regime.

1) Geographic area
2) Operational lines inc narrow gauge
3) ditto exc narrow gauge
4) Daily Train km
5) ditto inc narrow gauge
6) Locomotive km per day (full gauge) not sure what the nutz means
7) ditto (not sure what the difference is?
8) Wagon km per day
9) Operational locomotives (full gauge)
10) Daily wagon loadings
11) Personnel inc narrow
12) German personnel
13) length of line per 1000 km sq area
14) ditto exc narrow
15) train km per 1 km operational line
16) cannot translate this - Axle strength of trains?
17) locomotive km per operational locomotive - nutz again?
18) ditto
19) Operational locomotives per 100 km of operational track
20) Personnel per 1 km operational track
21) Personnel per train km



User avatar
Der Alte Fritz
Member
Posts: 2171
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 22:43
Location: Kent United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: German Railways in the East

#328

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 05 Jan 2015, 08:59

HG MItte traffic pattern 1943 and 1944 from Pottgeisser
2015-01-03 07.09.26.jpg

User avatar
Der Alte Fritz
Member
Posts: 2171
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 22:43
Location: Kent United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: German Railways in the East

#329

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 05 Jan 2015, 18:27

"On the plan of railway construction on the roads of South-West, West and North-West of the USSR and ensuring its implementation"

Extract from the resolution number No.309-146ss CPSU (b) and SNK
Moscow 14 February 1941

Top Secret

Assuming that the most important task of railway construction in 1941 to increase the capacity of roads in South-West, West and North-West of the USSR Central Committee VKP (b) and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decide:

On the Brest-Litovsk railway
27. Construct a second track Zhabinka-Mikashevichy (and further Kalinkavichy). Bring capacity in 1941 in this area up to 30 pairs of trains and in 1942 to 48 pairs. To allocate for this work in 1941, 47.0 million. Rubles.
28. Make the development of Baranovichi site with the construction of the floor slides, a new Sorting Yard, car repair depot, increased water supply, reconstruction of the depot and power plants, construction of offices and cultural and community buildings. To allocate for this work in 1941, 10.7 million. Rubles.
On the Bialystok railway
29. To begin the construction of a new railway line Oranchitsy-Bialowieza and increase capacity of line Bialowieza Bielsko creating sidings at Cheremkha, Brest. To allocate for this work in 1941, 10 million. Rubles.
30. To begin the construction of the second track Zagat-Molodechno-Bogdanov for 140 km double-track direction Bologoe-Cheremkha. Bring capacity in 1941 in this area up to 36 pairs of trains. To allocate for this work in 1941, 35 million. Rubles.
31. To begin the construction of the second track Olekhnovichy-Molodechno (Minsk-Molodechno direction), for 30km in 1941. Appropriate to this work 5 million. Rubles.

32. Carry out work on the development of Bialystok site with increased water supply, depot equipment, build a site GRP. To allocate for this work in 1941, 5.0 million. Rubles.
On the Western Railway
33. Build a new railway line direction Lepel-Krulevshchizna stretch of 65 km to create an additional route in the direction of Orsha and Vilna. Appropriation to the construction in 1941 of 20 million. Rubles.
34. Construct a second track at bottlenecks on the direction of Minsk-Olekhnovichy for 48 km, Polotsk-Zagato 44 km and finish the construction of the second track Polotsk-Bigosovo.To allocate for this work in 1941, 23 million. Rubles.
35. Perform reconstruction of 350 km of track on the Moscow-Negoreloye. To allocate for this work in 1941, 52.5 million. Rubles.
36. Carry out work on the development of the Minsk site, track maintenance depot and water supplies. Allocated in 1941 8.1 million. Rubles.
On the Belarusian Railway
37. Build a new railway Timkovichi-line Baranovichi stretch of 70 km, creating a new route in the direction of Mogilev-Ossipovichi-Bialystok. To allocate for this work in 1941, 25 million. Rubles for the opening of the temporary track.
38. Construct second tracks at bottlenecks railway line Mikashevichi- Kalinkavichy (continued construction of Brest-Zhabinka-Mikashevichy). To allocate for this work in 1941, 23 million. Rubles.
63. To instruct the Communist Party Central Committees of the Union Republics, the Regional Committee of People's Commissars of the Union and autonomous republics and regional executive committees allocate for one year 128,000 construction workers to work on the construction of the People's Commissariat of Defense following republics and regions:
Name of the republics and regions
The number of workers allocated to defense construction Including: / to March 15, 1941 / to April 1, 1941
Allocated to Ukrainian SSR 57000 / 28500 / 28500
Including:
Kiev 6000 3000 3000
Kirovograd 6000 3000 3000
Poltava 5000 2500 2500
Vinnytsia 7000 3500 3500
Lviv 5000 2500 2500
Tarnopolskaya 6000 3000 3000
Odessa 5000 2500 2500
Mykolaiv 4000 2000 2000
Chernihiv 4000 2000 2000
Dnipropetrovsk 4000 2000 2000
Sums 5000 2500 2500
Allocated to Byelorussian SSR 13000 6500 6500
Latvian SSR 10000 5000 5000
Lithuanian SSR 10000 5000 5000
Moldavian SSR 6000 3000 3000
Voronezh 6000 3000 3000
Penza 4000 2000 2000
Orel 4000 2000 2000
Smolensk 5000 2500 2500
Bashkir ASSR 7000 3500 3500
Tatar ASSR 6000 3000 3000

Oblige the People's Commissariat of workers selected by national and regional organizations to send to build organized echelons.
Allow NKPS a single lump grant in the amount of 150 rubles each work aimed at building and concluded a contract for one year of work.
66. To instruct the Executive Committee, in whose territory the construction of defense facilities, to provide housing for workers sent to the villages located in the arrangement of buildings.
67. Allow People's Commissars of the Union and autonomous republics and regional executive committees to retain the farmers, aimed to work on railway construction defense, the right to receive a cash payment of products and free of other types of services provided by collective farms.
70. Allow NKPS:
c) produce occupation of land for the construction of defense facilities in coordination with the USSR CPC, CPC BSSR People's Commissars of the Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian, Lithuanian SSR and local executive committees to approval by the CPC of the USSR.
NKPS collective farms reimburse the costs of land acquisition, money.
75. Allow the People's Commissariat of Railways to make transfers within 5% of appropriations for capital construction prescribed by this Decision.
The Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the People's Commissars of the USSR oblige the Communist Party (Bolshevik), Communist Party (Bolsheviks), CP (B) of Moldavia, CP (b) of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and the relevant People's Commissars, regional committees and regional executive committees to provide on-site help stroyorganizatsy NKPS and ensure the implementation of the present resolution on defense railway construction.
The Central Committee of the CPSU (b) and the People's Commissars of the USSR People's Commissariat require proper staffing and building organizations to fulfill the present regulation plan for major defense works on the railway construction.

Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b)
Stalin
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR
Molotov

NARB. F. 4n. Op. 21. D. 2311. L. 38-41. Certified copy.
Notes:
1 The resolution was adopted at a meeting of the Bureau of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of 08.03.1941, protocol number 50, paragraph 8. Extract sent to the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

User avatar
Der Alte Fritz
Member
Posts: 2171
Joined: 13 Dec 2007, 22:43
Location: Kent United Kingdom
Contact:

Re: German Railways in the East

#330

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 06 Jan 2015, 00:05

German Railway Network in Russia - frontiers - lines - small2.jpg

Post Reply

Return to “Economy”