Following
invasion of Poland in September 1939 Nazi Germany disbanded Polish National Railways (
PKP) immediately, and handed over their assets to the Deutsche Reichsbahn in
Silesia,
Greater Poland and in
Pomerania.[4] In November 1939, as soon as the semi-colonial
General Government was set up in occupied central Poland, a separate branch of DRB called Generaldirektion der Ostbahn (Kolej Wschodnia in Polish) was established with headquarters called GEDOB in
Kraków;[4] all of the DRB branches existed outside Germany proper.[5] The Ostbahn was granted 3,818 kilometres (2,372 mi) of railway lines (nearly doubled by 1941) and 505 km of narrow gauge, initially.[6]
In December 1939, on the request of
Hans Frank in Berlin, the Ostbahndirektion was given financial independence after paying back 10 million Reichsmarks to DRB.[7] The removal of all bomb damage was completed in 1940.[8] The Polish management was either executed in mass shooting actions (see: the 1939 Intelligenzaktion and the 1940
German AB-Aktion in Poland) or imprisoned at the
Nazi concentration camps.[6] Managerial jobs were staffed with German officials in a wave of some 8,000 instant promotions.[4] The new Eastern Division of DRB acquired 7,192 kilometres (4,469 mi) of new railway lines and 1,052 km of (mostly industrial) narrow gauge in
the annexed areas.[6]
Notes
^Bochen, Antoni; Wiśniewski, Filip (2018).
"Occupation 1939-1945". Polish Railways. Quixi Media. Archived from
the original on 2020-07-21. Retrieved 2018-04-14.
^Berghahn, Volker R. (1999).
"Germans and Poles 1871–1945". In Bullivant, Keith; Giles, Geoffrey J.; Pape, Walter (eds.). Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences. Rodopi. pp. 32–34.
ISBN9042006889.; and Blanke, Richard (1999).
"When Germans and Poles Lived Together". In Bullivant, Keith; Giles, Geoffrey J.; Pape, Walter (eds.). Germany and Eastern Europe: Cultural Identities and Cultural Differences. Rodopi. pp. 50ff.
ISBN9042006889.
^
abc
Masłowska, Teresa (2 September 2007).
"Wojenne Drogi Polskich Kolejarzy" [On the war paths of Polish railwaymen] (PDF). Kurier PKP. 35. Września: 13. Archived from
the original(PDF) on 24 February 2012. Retrieved 8 February 2014 – via PDF file, direct download (644 KB), archived by Wayback Machine. Magazine Kurier PKP was last published in 2010.