German Railways in the East

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Der Alte Fritz
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Re: German Railways in the East

#196

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 03 May 2014, 21:52

Well certainly the November map shows a lot of crossings remaining out of action, especially the main northern route through Millerovo:
Image

If we take the bridge at Dnepropetrovsk as an example this was reconstructed in a little over 2 months and this seems to have been the norm in 1941. We also know from the account of the Rostov bridge given earlier that they surveyed the bridge during the fighting at end of July. So one would have imagined a fully functioning bridge in operation in October whereas what they achieved was a temporary bridge and cableway and none of the other bridges working.

Pottgeisser as quoted before states:
The preparations for the operation in the summer of 1942 have been taken after gaining experience in the advance independent of Ostbau 1942. Even with this advance was expected again effective evacuation and destruction measures of the opponent. For the restoration and commissioning of the routes railway pioneers, railroad construction battalions and forces of the Organization Todt and Reich Transport Ministry have been provided building materials for bridge and track materials were brought in near the front depots (Grebenka and Znamenka). The track materials had been developed in Germany and France 211
Overall, the commissioning of approx. 5000 km railway lines provided, including 2 000 for the Field Railway Commands (FEDko) and 3 000 km of the eastern branch of the Reich Ministry of Transport (Osteis). Until 15 5 five field railway machines departments and two field railway workshops departments were established and brought the existing Field Railway Commands (FEDko) on full staff strength. The Reichsbahn had mustered staff for another Higher Railway Direction (HBD Rostov). Overall, the German Reichsbahn had in April. 1942 around 50,000 men ready delivered, before the start of the offensive on a larger scale lines of the South region were handed over by the Field Railway Commands (FEDko) to the Higher Railway Direction Ost in Kharkov. From 15.7. to 29.10.1942, the High Command of the Wehrmacht and the High Command of the Army had moved into their quarters prepared for Kalinowka (Werewolf) and Vinnitsa. A total of 3717 trains were run for the deployment in southern Russia from April till September 213
So the preparations were there in the form of depots of materials and men but the reconstruction proceeded slowly as Pottgeisser continues:
The few tracks were largely emptied and thoroughly destroyed, all Railway bridges over the Donets among others Belaya Kalitwa 214 Kamenskaja and Woroshilowgrad the Tschir bridge at Parsehin and the Don bridge eastwards of Tschir had been blown up. The route Taganrog-Rostov was so badly damaged that its recovery practically amounted to a new construction 215 When, after the offensive began in the rear area extremely difficult operating and supply conditions occurred, so in Dnepropetrovsk was created a General of Transportation South Russia (Bevollmächtigte General des Transportwesen Südrußland) in September 1942 215.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#197

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 04 May 2014, 09:29

Pottgeisser as a railwayman tends to be positive but from this I would conclude that things were still not running well and the railways were failing to keep up with the expansion of traffic which resulted in new HDV and the Gen des Transport extra layers on control being added.

Added to this the initial restoration by the 2 Eisenbahnpioniere Regiments again only produced a minimal train service which the Army took for supplies together with the GTR as by end of July there was already a supply crisis after an advance of 300km. So materials for major bridge construction could not get through.

If we consider that the Otto Programme used 600,000 tonnes of steel to upgrade 7 railway lines for 300km in 1940, that is 85,000 tonnes for one railway line a similar distance from the start point of the offensive to the Don or 190 trains. It was not impossible to move this kind of quantity but with the military so short of basic supplies such as petrol (the Causcaus force sat for weeks without petrol) it may have made the difference.


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Re: German Railways in the East

#198

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 05 May 2014, 10:12

The response to this argument, of course is that the Feldeisenbahn network was being built in the Steppe around Stalingrad and this would have taken a significant number of trains to haul the equipment up there on the even more constrained Rostov-Lichaja-Stalingrad line which carried no more than 12 trains a day. If this was accomplished why wwould there be a shortage of bridge building materials?

So there does not seem to be a clear reason why the Germans failed to repair the railway lines up to the Don (as they had pre-positioned rail building supplies and deployed a significant number of men) repair the bridges over the Don (they had companies and the OT who had completed similar tasks in around 2 months before and we know that OT surveyed the main Rostov bridge at end of July) or build up the railway lines south of Rostov to more than 24 trains a day (again men and materials had been assembled albeit now 300km from where they were needed.)

Perhaps the reason is the same as in 1941 - the German Army and the multitude of other agencies - FEDko, OT, RAD, Eisenbahnpioniere were simply not well organised enough at building HIGH capacity railway lines. We know in 1941 that they built a LOW capacity network at some speed. The situation in Fall Blau was worse because the Soviets had improved their destruction of the track to a high level. The EB were quite capable of restoring single tracks to 12 trains a day and double track to 24 trains a day. But they did not build enough of these in July - September to support two HG. They only got one main line running down to Rostov and the Kharkov - Millerowo route from the north came into operation much later and was too close to the front line.

The area controlled by the RVM and their HBD and their new area at Rostov did a better job (as was seen by the Ostbau 42 programme) at upgrading the track but it was too slow in being deployed in the rear of the Army, HBD Rostov and FEKdo 5 were created on the 10 October 1942.
But even here we can see supply problems as the whole route from Poland down to Rostov has delays and bottlenecks and new control measures being put in place.

I think this argument is borne out by the Soviet experiences of 1941 as they went through a large amount of organisational change and centralisation before coming up with a working method, one which was far more centralised and controlled than the multi-agency approach of the Germans.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#199

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 05 May 2014, 10:17

From Glantz "Colossus Reborn"
Two weeks later, on 1 August, the GKO created the position of chief of the Red Army Rear (Services), appointed Lieutenant General of the Quar-termaster Services A. V. Khrulev as chief of rear Services, and formed the Main Directorate of Rear Services (GUTA KA) as Khrulev's principal work-ing organ. At the same time, the GKO reorganized the General Staff s Ts UVS into the new Directorate for Military Communications (UPVOSO), appointed Mihtary Engineer Ist Rank I. V. Kovalev as its chief in place of Ermolin, and subordinated UPVOSO and its former Communications directorates, such as GADU, to Khrulev. By virtue of this reorganization, UPVOSO became NKO's principal agent for coordinating military transport Communications.
In addition to transferring GADU from the General Staff to UPVOSO, the GKO established subordinate automobile transport and road Services departments within/ronfa and armies. Kondrat'ev remained GADU's chief with Brigade Commander A. A. Slavin, the former chief of the General Staff's Auto-Road Department, as bis deputy.^"! During the remainder of 1941, GADU supervised the wholesale mobiHzation of military and civihan vehicles, formed numerous motor transport brigades, regiments, battalions, and com-panies, and began the construction of a network of military automotive roads (VADs) (see Chapter 9).«'2
However, these attempts to solve the Red Army's transport problems by centralizing command and control failed, largely because the responsibility for transporting military troops and material was still scattered among a wide variety of supply Services and directorates, and the Red Army's branches and the NKO's directorates still planned all auto-transport work separately.^"^ In addition to wasting time and resources, their work was largely ineffective. As a result, the NKO began restructuring UPVOSO to better satisfy wartime requirements.
At the same time, the GKO attempted to improve railroad transport and Communications. For example, on 16 September it ordered the NKPS to reorganize the Reconstruction Department in its Military Mobilization Di­rectorate into a füll directorate and create 19 military reconstruction Services with their own mobile reconstruction formations in the fronts and the fronts' rear zones.^"'^ However, when the Red Army went over to the offense during the Winter of 1941-42, railroad troops were too weak and unskilled to meet reconstruction requirements and UPVOSO's rail transport structure proved equally inadequate.^"^
The GKO sought to solve this problem on 3 January 1942 by assigning the NKPS responsibility for reconstructing and Clearing damaged and de-stroyed rail lines and transferring all of the NKO railroad troops to NKPS control."'" The GKO decree also established the Main Directorate for Mili­tary Reconstruction Work {Glavnoe upravlenie voenno-vosstanovitel'nt/kh rahot, or GUWR) within the NKPS and a Directorate for Railroad Troops (Upravlenie zheleznodorozhnykh voisk) within the GUWR. Major General (Lieutenant General in February 1944) N. A. Prosvirov served as chief of the NKPS's railroad troops from February 1942 until war's end.i"**
In addition to its Directorate for Railroad Troops, the GUWR also in-cluded subdirectorates for military reconstruction and obstacle work known as UWRs, which were supervised by NKPS representatives and were respon-sible for performing all railroad reconstruction and obstruction work in op-erating/ronte, and forward bases, which maintained and secured necessary supplies.i"^ While the chiefs of the UWRs were normally subordinate to the fronts, in the case of special Operations, they were subordinate to the chief of the GUWR. In turn, forward reconstruction departments subordinate to the fronts' UWRs supervised reconstruction work and troops at army level.
The GKO acted to clarify command and control over railroad reconstruc­tion work in February 1942 by abohshing the NKPS's representatives in the fronts. Thereafter, even though the chiefs of the fronts' UWRs were offi-cially subordinate to the chief of the NKPS's GUWR, they were actually subordinate to the fronts. However, the NKPS still determined the resources required by the fronts, estabhshed quotas for the UWRs' reconstruction work, and adjusted the assignment of NKPS resources according to the front Com­manders' plans. This measure improved command and control and the tech-nical quality of railroad reconstruction work and led to a gradual increase in the rate and quahty of railroad reconstruction.
To further improve the Organization and coordination of transport in the wake of the winter campaign of 1941-42, on 14 February the Politbüro established a special Transport Committee within the GKO made up of key government and military figures involved in transport Communications.
The GKO also rationalized its road transport System during early 1942 by ending the dual responsibility of the NKO and NKVD for road security and repair. It did so on 8 May by reorganizing UPVOSO's Auto-Road Director­ate (GADU) into the Main Directorate of Auto-Transport and Road Services of the Red Army {Glavnoe upravlenie avtotransportnoi i dorozhnoi sluzhby Krasnoi Armii, or GUADSKA), assigning the new main directorate complete responsibility for supervising all road transport and road Services, evacuation, and technical support in operating fronts and armies, and subordinating all of the NKVD's road security forces to it.i"
The GKO and Stavka continued rationalizing Red Army transport Com­munications during 1943. The most important step in this process occurred on 31 January, when the Stavka reorganized the UPVOSO into the Central Directorate for Mihtary Communications {Tsentral'noe upravlenie voennykh

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Re: German Railways in the East

#200

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 05 May 2014, 10:23

Soviet railway reconstruction efforts in 1941, were pretty slow at around 7km a day and it was only after a year of war and the bulk of the organisational changes above, that things improved in time for the Stalingrad campaign. But this started to pay dividends from then on as advancing Soviet armies could count on rapid 12-25km a day railway reconstruction in their rear, often matching the speed of their Combined Arms Armies.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#201

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 09 May 2014, 15:00

I have been reading "White Eagle Red Star" by Norman Davies about the Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1920.

The point of interest is his description about the eastern provinces of Poland, an area which he calls the Borderlands.

Map of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Polis ... h_1635.svg

This area was ruled over for many centuries by a joint kingdom of Poland and Lithuania until the end of the C18th and from then on by the Russian Empire. The result was that the population was made up of White Russian or Ukrainian peasants, ruled over by a Polish or Lithuanian aristocracy, with a Jewish (this encompassing the Pale of Settlement) or Polish urban population. In the south the Austro-Hungarian province of Galacia had a decided German character in the towns but a similar make up in the country. There was little national identity but a strong religious one which was predominately Roman Catholic.

So when the Polish state formed in 1919 and moved into the area and confronted the Soviet Union as it expanded westwards extinguishing various nascent states along the way, it was moving into lands which were a hereditary "Borderlands" (similar to the Welsh Marches to the English or the Croat lands to Austro-Hungarians) - an area where the ruling population was a minority militarized and seen as defenders of the homeland in a wild and unstable border region. At the end of the war this is the land that the Poles gained.

The original border line had been determined on 8th December 1918 by British Civil Servants (with only a hazy knowledge of the area) who determined the border on the basis of ethnicity and then laid down by the Allied Control Commission as the Curzon Line after the then British Foreign Secretary. But the war left the Poles in control 300km to the EAST of this line - still in the Borderlands - but more eastwards that the Allies had determined.

The Curzon Line is important as when Poland was partitioned in 1939 - this is the line that the Soviets took as their land arguing that they were restoring the Soviet Union to the borders that had been determined in 1918. Then again at Yalta and Berlin, Stalin aimed to keep the border at the Curzon Line on the same basis and not the original Polish border of 1920. He saw this as land conquered from the Soviet Union's rightful inheritance from Imperial Russia.

From the railways point of view - the Polish attitude to the region is important and explains the railway development in the area. They did not see this as part of the settled POLISH homeland, more as a militarized buffer region - hence its under development vis a vis the rest of the Polish lands.

It is this area that made up the Polish Gap that the Germans had to build across in order to reach the Soviet railway network. It might be an idea to look at the railways of Poland to see what they were like in 1939.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#202

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 09 May 2014, 15:26

Thank you for everyone for voting me member of the month for the AHF.
I am especially pleased that this railway thread tucked away in the Economy forum should be of such interest to people.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#203

Post by GregSingh » 10 May 2014, 04:24

Congratulations!

"Predominately Roman Catholic" perhaps applied to Poles in urban areas, certainly not to "population made up of White Russian or Ukrainian peasants". Also this did not apply to Jews - not only in urban areas, but quite large population in rural areas of Ukraine, for example, still there in spite of "Imperial Russia" pogroms before 1914.
To my knowledge there was no religious wars in Poland, unlike in Germany and some other parts of Western Europe. I guess Polish aristocracy before 18 century was just happy with securing a workforce, did not care much about its religion or nationality.

Back to railways.

I did not like that "Polish Gap" idea from the start.
In earlier posts we identified bottlenecks on Vistula River from 1939, not on Curzon line, which were mainly to all Vistula bridges and Warsaw area railroads out of action for longer time than anticipated by Germans. (Polish resistance and significant war damage).

Poles run more trains on main lines before 1939, than under German rule in 1939-41. Again this points to war damage rather then other factors.

In 1939 Soviets moved swiftly west towards Curzon Line (and beyond in some places).
They quickly converted railroads to wide-gauge and upgraded it - there was no war damage there at all. Even if that area was "underdeveloped" by Poles from 1918-1939 (there were some earlier posts pointing to some track being removed); Soviets fixed it all up before mid 1941.

So no "Polish Gap" when German-Soviet war started in 1941. Not from Soviet's point of view anyway. :)

We also had some statistical data showing that before 1939 density of railroads in Eastern parts of Poland were quite similar to Central Poland when taking into account Pripjat Marshes and some parts of Lithuania - being part of Poland before 1939 - were totally unsuitable for rail or road transport.

In spite of "They did not see this as part of the settled POLISH homeland" - a controversial statement iMHO - Poles provided quite modern rail services to Vilno and Lvov - those centers with large "Polish urban population".

There is large amount of information available for Polish Railways before 1939.
Where do we start?

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Re: German Railways in the East

#204

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 10 May 2014, 07:19

Hi GregSingh
I think we start in 1919 with
1) the creation of the Polish state and what the network was at that time,
2) consider how it developed between the wars
3) following that we will be able to cover the events of 1939.

With a Polish view of the railway, which of course may be different to that of the Germans, we can assess the likely position facing the Germans and Soviets between 1939 and June 1941 with regard to war damage and traffic.

My reading of Norman Davies (who although not Polish, speaks the language and has a Polish wife) is that the Eastern Marches were regarded as part of Poland - Józef Piłsudski, the head of state during the war came from Wilno and engineered its capture at the end of the war from Lithuania by Polish forces (Wilno natives serving in the Polish Army) as a piece of 'theatre' - nationalists mutinying, attacking the city without orders and forming a break away state which then held a plebiscite which voted to join Poland. (So the current events in Crimea are nothing new)
The point being made is that as a border region it had a different character to the main part of Poland which had Poles on the land, in the cities and relatively few 'other peoples' such as Jews. Whereas in the Borders, the situation was analogous to other buffer regions, like say East Prussia, where you have a Polish gentry and urban population ruling over a 'foreign' rural peasantry/country workers whose values, religion and outlook are different.

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Re: German Railways in the East

#205

Post by GregSingh » 12 May 2014, 04:00


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Re: German Railways in the East

#206

Post by GregSingh » 12 May 2014, 04:26

Two interesting maps, one from Polish book, second from already mentioned Winchester's book.
Pity, first map shows only passenger traffic, so some important info is missing, eg. critical Vistula river railway bridge at Deblin.

Both maps show there was no shortage of railway links and border crossings both with Germany and USSR.
Taking out Warsaw area, Deblin and Krakow bridges shuts down the whole East-West communication, unless you run trains from East Prussia. But that does not help, since blowing two more bridges in so called "Corridor" shuts down railroads between East Prussia and the rest of Germany (actually happened in September 1939).

Curious - there were 15-20 railway crossing between Germany and Poland, 10-15 between USSR and Poland.
But only 5-6 on the new German-Soviet border in 1939...
Passenger rail traffic 1938.jpg
Passenger rail traffic 1938
Polish rail network 1936.jpg
Polish rail network 1936

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Re: German Railways in the East

#207

Post by Der Alte Fritz » 12 May 2014, 13:43

The Archiv fur Eisenbahwesen has articles on Poland :
Polish State Railway in 1932-1935 issue 1937 page 783 (actual page 799)
Polish State Railway in 1931 issue 1934 page 913 (actual page 929)

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Re: German Railways in the East

#208

Post by GregSingh » 12 May 2014, 14:18

Winchester's article provides basic information about scale of damage to railroads caused by WWI and Polish-Soviet War 1919-21. It also points out difficult task of combining railroads of parts of three countries - Imperial Germany, Imperial Russia and Austro-Hungarian Empire in what was to become Poland in 1922, when borders were finalized.

Now to some numbers.
In table 1A and 1B we have railroads development right up to WWI. As Poland did not exist then, we have:
Congress Poland - part of Russia before 1914
Galicia - part of Austro-Hungarian Empire before 1914
Prussian Poland - part of Germany before 1914

Table 1A shows length of railways on the left and annual increase on the right side.
Table 1B shows railways density per 1000km2 on the left and per 100000 inhabitants on the right.

Both tables are from part II of 1920/22 Yearbook of Statistics of the Republic of Poland.
1922 statistical data - table 1A.jpg
1922 statistical data - table 1A
1922 statistical data - table 1B.jpg
1922 statistical data - table 1B

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Re: German Railways in the East

#209

Post by GregSingh » 12 May 2014, 14:35

Below are numbers for the first three years of independent Poland from the same source.
We have: length of railroads in use, number of locomotives, passenger and freight cars in use; and on the right amount of rolling stock per 1km of track.
1922 statistical data - table 2.jpg
1922 statistical data - table 2

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Re: German Railways in the East

#210

Post by GregSingh » 12 May 2014, 14:55

And the whole picture from 1939 Yearbook of Statistics.
Table covers: length of tracks, total number of locomotives, passenger and freight cars, mileage for rolling stock and finally passenger and freight numbers.
1939 statistical data - table A.jpg
1939 statistical data - table A

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