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.