Die Reichsbahn und die Juden 1933–1939: Antisemitismus bei der Eisenbahn in der Vorkriegszeit (review)

In a penetrating study of pre–World War II “Jewish Policy” (Judenpolitik) in the German railroads (Reichsbahn), Alfred Gottwaldt exposes a pattern of incremental steps stripping German Jews of both rights and dignity and foreshadowing the cold, bureaucratic treatment of Jews, foreigners, and forced laborers during the war. To shield profits from reparations payments required by the Versailles Treaty, the Reichsbahn functioned until its 1937 reincorporation into the Reich Transportation Ministry as an “independent economic enterprise” that “manages and administers the existing railroads as property of the Reich” (p. 24). Its executives, including Julius Dörpmüller, who ran the agency as General Director (1926–1937) and Transportation Minister (1937–1945), harbored a nationalist-driven resentment of this humiliation under the hated treaty. Like other nationalist conservatives, they desired an end to Weimar party conflict, but viewed the Nazis with skepticism. Nor could the Reichsbahn be considered a “Nazi” organization: only 200 of the 15,000 employees of the Berlin Railroad Directorate (1.3%) had joined the Party by 1933 (p. 154); Dörpmüller got his party card only in 1940.

An authoritarian militarized culture derived from traditional links to national security concerns rendered the Reichsbahn leadership, however, vulnerable to “coordination” (Gleichschaltung). Despite the presence of Social Democrats among the blue-collar workers, executives and white-collar staff adapted quickly to the Nazi regime. Concerned with career advancement, many executives joined the NSDAP in 1933; many more, fundamentally opposed to the Weimar Republic, welcomed Hitler’s call for “national renewal.” Dorpmüller placed himself entirely at the disposal of Hitler, who, despite pressure from other Nazi leaders, retained Dorpmüller and other “racially qualified” executives; the Führer thereby reinforced the loyalty and engagement of Reichsbahn leaders, but at the same time encouraged competition for resources via the overt favoritism he demonstrated toward the highway construction program.

Railroad executives did not merely acquiesce to Nazi guidance, but sometimes took the initiative, particularly in Judenpolitik. Management applied the April 7, 1933 Civil Service Law by excluding Jews (with a few exceptions); by November 27, twenty-one senior executives had been placed on “indefinite leave” (p. 125). Gottwaldt estimates that between 2,000 and 2,500 Jewish workers also lost their jobs. In May, the Reichsbahn terminated contracts with nearly 1,000 Jewish physicians who had treated railroad employees and their dependants. Other steps included the ban on advertisements in railroad stations for Jewish-owned businesses. In spring 1933, management instructed procurement officials to discourage Jewish-owned businesses from seeking contracts. Although not technically state employees until 1937, Reichsbahn managers rarely deviated from official Nazi policy, injecting antisemitic mores into the private lives of railroad men. In 1935, employees were admonished not to patronize Jewish businesses on the grounds of defending the “racial community” (Volksgemeinschaft) (p. 188). In summer 1937 the Ministry of Transportation banned marriages between employees and “non-Aryans”—including existing marriages. Emil Brett, who worked at the Lehrter Bahnhof in Berlin and had received the Olympic Memorial Medal, was sacked after refusing to divorce his Jewish wife (p. 225). Although such pettiness pales in comparison to physical violence and mass murder, each official act was “significant as an integral part of a relentless, increasingly harsh process of exclusion” (p. 232). Gottwaldt argues that Reichsbahn Jewish policy forged in agency culture a “clearly discernable mental distance” between “German” and “Jew” during the prewar years (pp. 59, 61).

Not surprisingly, the Reichsbahn was deeply involved in the emigration of Jews: every other train leaving Germany after 1933 carried at least one émigré. Reichsbahn management also arranged Sonderzüge (special trains) to transport Jews towards Palestine and Kindertransporte to France and Great Britain. Transporting émigrés and their property was not in itself antisemitic, but, given state-sponsored emigration at the expense of the traveler, the Reichsbahn’s activity could not be described as friendly. Railroad men assisted border police and customs...