“European Jews could not be destroyed without the participation of the Reichsbahn [German railroads]” asserted political scientist Raul Hilberg. To be sure, the SS, the German Foreign Office, banks, physicians, lawyers, accountants, clergy, generals, diplomats and numerous German industries and other institutions were involved at various periods in the process of destruction, but the German railroads “were indispensable at the core” of the operation.
The Reichsbahn was one of the largest organizations in the Third Reich, Hilberg noted. In 1942, there were approximately 1.4 million German personnel, almost a half a million civil servants and more than 900,000 workers directly or indirectly employed by the railroad. In Nazi occupied Poland and Russia, close to 400,000 “helpers” were employed. The headquarters were located in Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Warsaw, Minsk, and Dnepropetrovsk (Ukraine).
Reichsbahn Eager to Transport Jews For a Price
The Reichsbahn stood ready to ship Jews, or anyone else, for a fee. Jews were “booked as people and shipped as cattle,” Hilberg said. The cost of the transport was charged to the agencies that requested the trains, which were the SS and police. Adolph Eichmann assumed responsibility for reimbursing the expenses in Nazi-occupied Poland on February 20, 1941.
Deportations began right after the German seizure of Poland in 1939. The price of shipping depended on the number of people being transported and their final destination. The basic rate was third class. The German Transport Ministry decided that if at least 400 people were in each transport, they would be charged half the third-class fare. Children under four traveled for free, while those under 10 years old were charged half price. On July 14, 1942, the SS was given a reduced rate for the Jewish Sonderzug (special trains) in transit from Holland and Belgium to Auschwitz.
The “financial experts” responsible for overseeing the costs of the transports, which were deemed “civilian passenger traffic,” did not care whether the “participants” had volunteered to be transported, were imprisoned, mental patients on their way to be murdered or were “privileged ethnic Germans,” leaving for their new residences. The SS tried to ensure that each train would contain 1,000 persons, although 2,000 became the norm. When smaller groups were transported, they were connected to regular trains to a city where a Jewish Sonderzug would take them to the camps. Even if the SS did not have 400 individuals for the train, they still claimed 400 to obtain the special rate. “Exceptional filth” or damage to the trains resulted in a surcharge.
Since the SS did not have adequate funds to cover the costs of the transports, German Jews were initially ordered, whenever feasible, to provide the funds. Once the Finance Ministry found out what the SS had been doing, it terminated the practice, because it violated German law.
As the armed forces expanded the military fronts farther from Germany, there were not enough railroad cars and locomotives to meet their needs, causing lines to be congested. Allied bombing and attacks by partisans further interfered with railroad traffic, leading to shortages. Yet, in spite of these setbacks, Jews continued to be sent to their deaths.
Competing Needs For Space
In view of the needs of the military, which was extremely reliant on the railroad, and Hitler’s determination to murder the Jews, how were the competing requirements reconciled? The SS insisted on sealed trains that had to be organized from accessible rolling stock and forwarded to available tracks. Jews could not be sent on passenger trains. To decrease the number of locomotives and the number of transports, the trains were expanded, and the cars overloaded. Instead of 1,000 passengers per train, they increased the number to 2,000. For shorter distances (in Poland), they boosted the amount to 5,000. It is estimated there were less than two square meters per person.
Normally, a freight train traveled at 40 miles per hour. Jewish trains, with added weight, traveled at 30. To preclude congestion, circuitous routes were devised. Hilberg observed that since Jews were not being sent to camps to work, but to be murdered, there was no rush to get them there. The trip from Bialystok, in northeastern Poland, to Auschwitz took 23 hours, not counting the time for boarding the train. It took three days from Düsseldorf, a city in western Germany, to Riga, the capital of Latvia. A troop train, which had the right of way, could delay the trip even more.
Long journeys in sealed trains with limited or no water involved suffering “in suffocating stench” during the hot summer or the freezing winter. “Nothing is so indelible in the memory of German witnesses,” Hilberg said, “as crying mothers holding up parched children during stops.” A German guard captain complained that his men had to sit in an unheated coach, while offering great praise to the Red Cross women who provided hot beef soup to the police as they “passed through icy Lithuania.”
*Based on an article by Raul Hilberg entitled “German Railroads/Jewish Souls.”
Dr. Alex Grobman is the senior resident scholar at the John C. Danforth Society and a member of the Council of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East. He lives in Jerusalem.
