Deutsche Reichsbahn
former national railway company (1920-1945) of the Weimar Republic
The Deutsche Reichsbahn (German pronunciation: [ˈdɔʏtʃə ˈʁaɪçsˌbaːn]), also known as the German National Railway, the German State Railway, German Reich Railway, and the German Imperial Railway, was the German national railway system created after the end of World War I from the regional railways of the individual states of the German Empire. The Deutsche Reichsbahn has been described as "the largest enterprise in the capitalist world in the years between 1920 and 1932"; however its importance "arises primarily from the fact that the Reichsbahn was at the center of events in a period of great turmoil in German history".
Overview
The company was founded on 1 April 1920 as the Deutsche Reichseisenbahnen ("German Imperial Railways") when the Weimar Republic, which still used the nation-state term of the previous monarchy, Deutsches Reich (German Reich, hence the usage of the Reich in the name of the railway; the monarchical term was Deutsches Kaiserreich), took national control of the German railways, which had previously been run by the German states (Länderbahnen). In 1924 it was reorganised under the aegis of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft ("German Imperial Railway Company", DRG), a nominally private railway company, which was 100% owned by the German state. In 1937 the railway was reorganised again as a state authority and given the name Deutsche Reichsbahn ("German Imperial Railway", DRB). After the Anschluss in 1938 the DR also took over the Bundesbahn Österreich ("Federal Railway of Austria", BBÖ).
The East and West German states were founded in 1949. East Germany took over the control of the DR on its territory and continued to use the traditional name Deutsche Reichsbahn, while the railway in West Germany became the Deutsche Bundesbahn ("German Federal Railway", DB). The Austrian Österreichische Bundesbahnen ("Austrian Federal Railways", ÖBB) was founded in 1945, and was given its present name in 1947.
In January 1994, following German reunification, the East German Deutsche Reichsbahn merged with the West German Deutsche Bundesbahn to form Germany's new national carrier, Deutsche Bahn AG ("German Rail", DBAG), technically no longer a government agency but still a 100% state-owned joint stock company.
“Deutsche Reichsbahn” enters the record as former national railway company (1920-1945) of the Weimar Republic. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Deutsche, Reichsbahn and former can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Deutsche Reichsbahn” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Deutsche, Reichsbahn and former provides the most credible route into that argument.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q698082. VIAF identifies the subject as 151546545. The Library of Congress control number is no93010686. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1920, 1932, 1924 and 1937.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Deutsche Reichsbahn” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.