German Railways in the East

[Dann Falk]

To be clear, I have the five pamphlets I posted above. Picked them up several years ago looking for info on the Deutsche Reichsbahn.

[GregSingh]

Emil Beck - short term Ostbahn president as he appeared on front page of official news bulletin. There are some better quality photos of him at Alamy, but not this particular photo shot.
Also here by the Deblin bridge: viewtopic.php?p=1876160#p1876160 on the left.

Beck - Feb 1940 - Copy.jpg

[Vasilyev]

Bridges over the Vistula

P-048 Appendix 4 Bridges over the Vistula.jpg

"German Through Railway Lines early 1942 before the Oastbau Programmes.

P-048 Appendix 5 Railway situation 1942 hi-contrast.jpg

A couple of things to note about this map.
1) Two of the previously seen trunk lines on the other maps are now missing. I assume that the Purple line XII is still in use but serving East Prussia and so was missed off the edge of the map. The Cerise line IX is missing and I presume no longer regarded as a viable route.
2) The capacity gained in Appendix 3 Otto Programme is not shown in its entirety on this map. The Dark Blue line VI shows an end capacity of 18 not the 24 in the Otto map and the Green line VII shows 30-36 for most of its length rather than the 60 up to Deblin and then 36. Also Line VI now has two other entry points, one from the Green line VII at Brest and another from the Orange line IV at Lemburg (Lvov). This latter line would now be under Roumanian control and although able to be used by the Germans, they had less influence than before. The assumption is that capacity totals 366 trains a day in each direction.

German Through Railway Lines 1944

P-048 Appendix 8 Capacities in 1944 hi-contrast.jpg

Some of these capacities seem too high, for instance around Lemburg I have seen other maps giving figures of around 60 trains a day not the 72 mentioned.

It’s interesting how significant the Bialystok-Brest-Lublin area was for Germany “through lines” which it had upgraded to bridge the infrastructure gap in 1940-42 - only East Prussia compared. Occupying all these lines up to the Vistula during the Lublin-Brest operation gave the Red Army complete control of the main rail artery running straight through Poland to Germany proper.

With the Warsaw Uprising and Second Army getting shoved up near the border with East Prussia, the Red Army actually got to sit on the prime railway real estate while Second Army had to run its supplies over the Narew throughout August. Historically this area had poor rail and road infrastructure even on the East Prussian side of the border, which hadn’t changed much by 1944.

Though Lublin-Brest shoved the Germans close to the borders of East Prussia, its capture of their main rail supply routes put them in a logistically worse position.

About to start going through NARA T312 R1327-29, 2nd Army’s quartermaster materials for July-September 1944. Didn’t find much in Army Group Center’s materials so far.

[mil-archive]

This photo from Lodz, 1939 might be of interest to the thread. Showing Reichsminister Dorpmuller (2nd from Left) Emil Beck, then President of the Ostbahn (centre) with 2 Generalgouvernment/Diplomat officials on right:

Lodz-001.jpg

The above sign says 'Transport _____ Lodz'

close ups :
viewtopic.php?p=2414830#p2414830

[GregSingh]

Google 2011 photo of the place.
Eisenbahndirektion Lodz was established there on 27th of September 1939 with Emil Beck as president.
Reich Minister for Transport Dorpmüller visit was on October 22nd, 1939.
On the October 26th, Eisenbahndirektion Lodz was converted to Generaldirektion der Ostbahn and moved to Krakau/Kraków.

Google 2011.jpg

[mil-archive]

Thanks a lot for the extra information on that.

[Der Alte Fritz]

BUt am I still right that we have failed so far to find the archive containing the materials on Generaldirektion der Ostbahn?