The Most Valuable Asset of the Reich: A History of the German National Railway, vol. 2, 1933-1945 (review)
This intertwined and confusing organizational structure for the autobahn project was the product of clashes within the new government. Whether the autobahnen made sense or not was a hotly contested question within the cabinet. Reich Railroad General Director Dorpmüller joined the ministries of finance and transportation in opposing the building of the superhighways. Like the Reich Transportation Ministry, he recommended that the existing network of roads be expanded, instead.
Hitler, however, forced the Reich Railroad to finance the autobahnen with the vague promise that it would have a monopoly over freight transport on land, a long-held wish of the railroad management. Contrary to the popular perception today, the military dimension of the autobahnen was not the primary motivation behind their construction. It is now generally accepted in the scholarly literature that this view is one of the myths surrounding the roadways. The armed forces did not accord the autobahnen any strategic value for their own war planning and preferred the expansion of existing roads. They rejected autobahnen close to the borders so as not to provide invasion routes for potential enemies and create bombing targets in an air war. Military leaders saw little reason to radically alter their logistics, which centered on railroads. From a purely military standpoint, Germany, with its extensive railway network, was the European country with the least need for an expensive road network. Yet Hitler ignored also the Reichswehr’s opposition.
Logistically, the Second World War was primarily a railroad war for the German Wehrmacht, along both the eastern and the western fronts, even if the military benefited from the new regime’s motorization program by having the option of requisitioning trucks in case of war.25+++(5)+++
Incidentally, the Wehrmacht employed more and more horses instead of trucks and cars as the Second World War wore on, leading one historian to conclude that, by the end of the war, even the most modern elements of the German armed forces ran on oats as much as on gasoline.26+++(5)+++
As far as the motivation behind the autobahn project is concerned, it seems appropriate to regard Hitler’s personal predilection for the automobile as a vehicle that embodied a promise of modernity, and the propaganda potential of the project, as the primary driving force.+++(5)+++ As Ian Kershaw put it, “Hitler’s propaganda instinct, not his economic know-how, led him towards an initiative that both assisted the recovery of the economy (which was beginning to take place anyway) and caught the public imagination.“27
With Dorpmüller, whom one historian calls a pragmatist obedient to authority, in charge of overseeing the construction project in his capacity as chairman of the executive and administrative boards of the Association Reichsautobahn, the Reich Railroad had attained at least formal control over its rival’s transportation routes. Moreover, the law of June 1933 did not exclude the possibility that the operator of the roads could levy tolls, but this option was ruled out for good in 1936.28
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The operating problems that afflicted the Reichsbahn beginning in 1937 can be attributed to the way that it fit into the overall structure of the Nazi economy. The Reichsbahn was not privy to the government’s rearmament and strategic plans. Instead, it was forced to react to traffic demands as they arose.+++(5)+++ In government councils, the Reichsbahn was either ignored or assigned low priority when plans were formulated. Consequently, when the Reichsbahn asked for additional resources to meet increased demand, it was denied access to them. Placing the DRB at a further disadvantage was Dorpmüller’s inability to compete effectively with young energetic, ambitious, ideologically committed men such as Todt, or Paul Pleiger of the Four Year Plan Office. Nor could he follow the intrigues of Göring, Hitler, and Hess. The net result was that the Reichsbahn did not anticipate a war until sometime in early 1939. It continued to follow normal acquisition policies until late 1938, when it realized that the expansion of economic activity would continue. When war broke out in September 1939, the Reichsbahn was unprepared for the global conflict that ensued. It could have handled local wars of short duration if it had been integrated into the strategic planning apparatus and if it had abandoned peacetime operating procedures. However, it remained an outsider forced to react to developments well into the war.
The Reichsbahn’s relationship with the military stretched back to the days when it was created in 1920. In August 1919 General Hans von Seeckt proposed that the new Reich Transportation Ministry include a section that would be responsible for military affairs. It would be manned by former military officers who would become civilian officials. In addition, officials in each operating division would be named who would establish contact with regional military au…