Overview

The largest enterprise in the capitalist world between 1920 and 1945, the Deutsche Reichsbahn (German National Railway) was at the center of events in a period of great turmoil in Germany. In this, the second volume of his comprehensive history of the Reichsbahn, Alfred Mierzejewski offers the first complete account of the national railway under Hitler's regime. Mierzejewski uses sources that include Nazi Party membership records and Reichsbahn internal memoranda to explore the railway's operations, finances, and political and social roles from 1933 to 1945. He examines the Reichsbahn's role in German rearmament, its own lack of preparations for war, and its participation in Germany's military operations. He shows that despite successfully resisting Nazi efforts to politicize its internal functions, the Reichsbahn cooperated with the government's anti-Semitic policies. Indeed, the railway played a crucial role in the Holocaust by supporting the construction and operation of the Nazi death camps and by transporting Jews and other victims to them.

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9781469613963

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Reviews

""Building upon the superbly crafted first volume in this original and important study, Mierzejewski details the essential -- indeed indispensable -- role the Deutsche Reichsbahn assumed in each phase and every aspect of the Hitlerian agenda for economic recovery, national mobilization, aggressive war, and mass extermination. Nazi Germany literally ran on trains, and without the Reichsbahn and the wartime European rail systems harnessed to it, war, conquest, and the Holocaust would not have become what they did. This volume is an essential sourcebook for the specialist, a catalyst for further research by the student, and a fascinating saga for the general reader."" -- Charles W. Sydnor Jr., author of Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945 ""Cogently argued, thoroughly documented, and fluently written, Mierzejewski's book will be the standard work on the German National Railway for years to come."" -- Holocaust and Genocide Studies ""In the confines of this review it is not possible to discuss critically every new argument raised in Mierzejewski's essential work. Researchers cannot ignore the arguments of either volume. For the public the hope for a carefully edited German edition is as important as it is urgent."" -- Historische Zeitschrift ""Mierzejewski has done a wonderful job in explaining the complicated organisation and working of this vital transportation instrument within the Third Reich."" -- Business History ""Mierzejewski shows himself as complete master of the subject. . . . [He] has done his job very well and has provided us with an excellent and much needed thorough history of the German Reichsbahn."" -- Business History ""Mierzejewski's unruffled narrative style serves him (and history) well when it comes to describing the transport mechanism of the Holocaust. . . . Essential reading for all scholars of modern Germanyóand it should be mandatory for those benighted history buffs who continue to doubt that there actually was an organized destruction of European Jews."" -- Central European History ""The development of German railways in the twentieth century has found its true historian . . . . Scholars are bound to marvel at Mierzejewski's facility in tackling one technical problem after another with a keen eye and sure hand . . . . He has produced an account that is elaborate, circumspect, and thoroughly convincing."" -- Central European History

Author Information

Alfred C. Mierzejewski is professor of history at the University of North Texas. His books include The Collapse of the German War Economy, 1944-1945: Allied Air Power and the German National Railway.

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