Bundesbahn/Reichsbahn

[byron]

I need a little help (some say I need a lot).

My wife and I were discussing German railways and she asked the question why did the DDR keep the name Deutsche Reichsbahn, when you take into consideration all that had happened before 1945. Did no one care?

There must however have been a good reason.

 

Any thoughts please!

 

Mike

[meil]

The Deutsch Reichsbahn was formed from the individual railway companies in 1920 on the formation of the Weimar Republic. It's English translation could be Imperial German Railways.

 

It wasn't associated with the NAZI regime except in so far as it was obviously controlled by them between 1933 to 1945.

 

There was therefore no reason why the DDR would not simply continue with the name.

 

And remember the German Air force is still named the Luftwaffe.

[NGT6 1315]

I understand the reason for the GDR having retained "Deutsche Reichsbahn" as the name for its state railways was mainly a political one. Apparently, Allied post-war regulations specifically stated that railway traffic in Berlin had to be handled by Deutsche Reichsbahn, so in order not to risk losing an important foothold in the divided city over a possible legal technicality, the GDR leadership chose to keep this name for its railways, although it had become both anachronistic and politically misleading, if you want to call it that.

[byron]

I understand the reason for the GDR having retained "Deutsche Reichsbahn" as the name for its state railways was mainly a political one. Apparently, Allied post-war regulations specifically stated that railway traffic in Berlin had to be handled by Deutsche Reichsbahn, so in order not to risk losing an important foothold in the divided city over a possible legal technicality, the GDR leadership chose to keep this name for its railways, although it had become both anachronistic and politically misleading, if you want to call it that.

Thank you very much - your reply makes a lot of sense, and on deeper consideration can only be correct.

 

Mike

[Bernard Lamb]

There was also the point that the leaders of the GDR considered that they were the guardians of the real version of Germany.

Hence the old title for the railway and keeping Berlin as the capital etc etc.

The railway in the west did actually use the title Deutsche Reichsbahn at one time.

For a period after the end of WW11 the rail systems were known as DR(West) and DR(Ost).

The operation of the railway in Berlin after the war is a highly complex subject. Rather too much too go into on here.

Bernard

[Bill Jamieson]

There was a discussion on this subject on a German forum back in 2007:-http://www.schwalbennest.de/simson/hies-deutsche-reichsbahn-so-deutsche-demokratische-republik-81474.html

 

This seems to confirm that the reason given by 1216 025 regarding the right of the DR to operate into West Berlin was crucial but also suggests that the cost involved in changing the name was an additional factor - given that the DDR-DR struggled with underfunding throughout its existence  I find that suggestion entirely credible!

 

Bill

[Andreas68]

The Berlin agreement was the reason.

The word Reich and Reichsbahn exists before the nazis so not a real reason to change it.

They also kept Mitropa name for the buffet cars which could be compared with the Pullmann company.

The DDR was very confusing with take over things from before 1945.

They spoke against anything from nazi times but used the future helmet design for the Wehrmacht, nearly the same collar badges and uniform cut. And kept the same mrching step like the Wehrmacht Stechschritt. So there is nothing to think on it in a logical way. Maybe they kept all it was due to missing capabilities to reorganize everything.

[Horsetan]

.....Maybe they kept all it was due to missing capabilities to reorganize everything.

 

Given what was spent on establishing and running the Stasi, no wonder post-war DR was underfunded.

[Tony Dean]

I was astonished upon my first visit to the DDR to see the railways called DR. I asked this question when I was a guest for two weeks at a Free German Youth Summer Camp near Potsdam in 1973. The FDJ section leader had to ask me to wait while he asked his superiors for an accurate answer to give me. It seems that some consideration was given to changing the name to "Deutsche Volksbahn VEB" or "Volksbahn der DDR" by the Central Committe of the SED (Socilaist Unity Party - a Communist/SPD forced merger party) that effectively ran the DDR. Walter Ulbricht, the then Secretary General of the Party really wanted to get away from the Reichsbahn title. However, it was found that the way that the Soviet Occupation Zone (SBZ) had signed agreements with the Western Powers prior to the foundation of the DDR in 1949 meant that the name had to remain "Deutsche Reichsbahn" for the East Germans to retain control of the Berlin Directorate of the Railway system, including the Berlin S-Bahn network. The DDR's sovereign and commercial rights were officially not recognised by the Western Powers in Greater Berlin ad as a consequence it was officially accepted that the East Germans ran the railways (and everything else commercial and industrial) only as a devolved authority from the Soviet Union. This gradually changed with entente from the early 1970s onwards when the DDR began to gain "provisional" recognition. However, Greater Berlin (including East Berlin, which the DDR claimed was their capital) remained officially under International Law under the sovereign control of the Four Victorious Powers of 1945, nmely the Soviet Union, USA, UK and France who each had Occupation Zones of Berlin. The East German Railways in Berlin, Border Guards in Berlin etc derived their legitimacy as "agents" of the Soviet Occupation Authority.    

[Tony Dean]

It is also worth mentioning something that was explained to me during a “historical presentation” by my Communist hosts back in 1973.

 

Since 1945, the word ‘Reich’ has come to imply an ‘expansive dictatorial militarist German empire’ both in the English speaking world and amongst many Germans educated in the old West Germany. ‘Reich’ became a particular bogey word in English. However, its precise and true meaning is nothing more than the word ‘Realm’, as in ‘The Queen’s Realm’. Deutsches Reich means the ‘Realm of the Germans’, nothing more! So, Deutsche Reichsbahn simply meant “Railway of the Realm”. Reich does not imply any particular form of government. The democratic Weimar Republic was a Deutsches Reich and therefore quite naturally established the Reichsbahn. Modern Germany is not a Reich because the current Federal Republic does not encompass all the territories which were the historic home or ‘Realm of the Germans’. It was largely in West Germany that the word Reich came to imply what the Americans and British had misinterpreted it to mean, largely because of Hitler’s overuse of the word in his speeches and the fact that the Western Powers immediately after the war decided to rewrite and reinterpret German history books for use in German schools and universities. Despite this, in the German language other democratic countries are still referred to as “Reich”, for example Frankreich (France) and Oesterreich (Austria). It is worrying how entrenched misunderstandings caused by misinterpretations and mistranslations of language can affect mutual perceptions between peoples over many generations.