The railway in the Third Reich era was called the DRG but the vehicles were lettered DR, the same lettering exactly as carried in the Communist East German era.
My father visited Germany in 1938, and his photos (not of trains) show the eagle with spread wings above the Swastika. Photos of new locomotives built 1938-45 generally show this style as well.
I think the Mitropa (dining and sleeping) cars always had eagles with wings folded downward.
The 1928 Rheingold cars of course predate Hitler, but the streamlined “Schurtzenwagen” cars from Liliput do date from the 1933-45 period as do the Lima “Henschel Wegmann Zug” and all streamlined steam locomotives and the E18 and E19 electric locomotives.
I hope this helps, but if you could quote some car types (and maybe manufacturer’s serial numbers) we could help further.
All of the passenger cars from Adolf Hitler’s private train, of course date from his period in power, and are now made by Liliput, although one car is available as used by Adenauer post WWII.
DRG makes sense to be reich because they were the up until 1945. My info. , and this is where it gets confusing, says DR was after 1945, but does this make sense with reichs… (spelling) still in the wording?
I do not have any eagles holding swasticas, that would be too easy to identify.
What I have is, Liliput #382702 or 382703 (not streamlined) Mitropa speisewagen/diner either era II or three. It is difficult to tell from pictures as they both have the same eagle with a round symbol beneath it, but it does not look like a swastica. Ive searched and can not seem to find what is under the eagle.
Liliput (do not know the number) streamlined DSG diner era II DR/DRG Schurtzenwagen with same eagle as the mitropa above.
Do you have the original boxes? Does it say on the box which epoch the model represents?. The Germans God bless them have divided up the various historical era’s into epochs for ID purposes, this information is usually included in the catalogue if not marked on the box.
Thanks for the info. guys. I do not have the boxes because I got them off of eBay maybe 6 or so years ago. I do have the eras/epochs thanks to Reynaulds website. they are in the above thread. I know they are epochs II and III.
After sleeping on it, I guess let me stet my question another way.
If the reich period was DRG, “R” standing for reich…(spelling), until 1945, then why is not the “R” dropped in DR after the war as well as DDR after 1949. I think they would gladly get rid of it.
Is my German incorrect, does not the “R” stand for the third reich?
Barring the swastika and the eagle grasping the swastika, the emblems seem to be none reich.
I think it would help if we could identify what is under the eagle on my cars. Is it a wreath? On reynaulds website, look up Liliput 382702, that is the car that has the eagle on all of my cars.
If I get this right, I feel like publishing the info.
DDR = Deutsches Demokratisches Republik (German Democratic Republic), better known as East Germany.
DR = Deutsches Reichsbahn (German State Railways)
After the war, the DDR continued to refer to their railways as DR; West Germany (Deutsches Bundesrepublik = German Federal Republic) referred to their railways as DB (Deutsches Bundesbahn = German Federal Railways).
The difference probably reflects the relative degree of denazification: in the West, the entire German state was disassembled, publicly held up by the Allied for much-deserved examination and discussion, and buried; some of its less compromised members were allowed to resume their work. In the East, the most noxious survivors of the regime were allowed to put their talents to work for the government the Soviet Army established after the war, and essentially re-established the state as a Communist puppet. Because the Soviets wanted a functioning German government with a functioning army, they kept real denazification to a minimum, leaving a lot of stuff unchanged - the first verse of the German national anthem was banned in the West, but every East German knew it and sang it.
The word “Reich” as implied by an earlier post, just means “state”.
The government with Hitler as Chancellor was called the “Third Reich” simply because it was the third elected government regime following the Abdication of the Kaiser in 1918. The word “Reich” had no Nazi connotations on its own.
The “G” in DRG was dropped because the Communist government didn’t want the word “Gesellschaft” meaning company or corporation in the title. The “G” never appeared on the locomotives, and in East Germany the loco cabside lettering didn’t change after 1945.
The Mitropa badge was an eagle with its wings bent down to form the letter “M”. Some badges I’ve seen show the eagle grasping a spoked wheel. The wheel has four spokes, and it occured to me that this could have been changed from a swastika in a circle. It may have predated the 1933 election, however.
It is my understanding that the display of the swastika is prohibited in Germany today and that therefore models of trains from the nazi period cannot display that symbol. As a result, the circle with two crossed diameters is used instead of a circle with the swastika.
<>It is correct that the swastika is not allowed to be displayed in Germany today. There are several ways to cover it up - with the eagle, a circle, and with aircraft, a diamond on the vertical stabilizer.
<>OTOH, “Reich” means "empire. The “Erster Reich” was the Heiligen Roemishen Reich, the Holy Roman Empire. The Zwiter Reich was the German empire formed by Bismark in 1871. The Dritte Reich was Germany under the Nazis.
I question the translation of “Reich” as “empire”.
The pre WWII contemporary magazines always used the translation “German State Railways” for “Deutche Reichsbahn”, and the word “Imperial” (possessive of empire) in the previous Prussian railways was “Kaiserlich”, and of course, the last emperor Wilhelm II, was called “Kaiser”.
The “Reich” in Reichsbahn dated from 1920 (or so) and had no relationship to the “Third Reich” under Adolf Hitler, although the title was never changed under Hitler.
I can’t believe that the clearly narrow minded socialists running the DDR would have kept the name “empire” or “Imperial” in their state railway title.
While I am more happy to accept the above definition of the three “Reichs”, what was the title given to the pre-Hitler Weimar Republic? Was it the end of the second or the beginning of the third?
The “Mitropa” eagle appears to have preceded the 1933 Hitler regime, and prototype photos show this on sleeping and dining cars back to 1920 and it may have been used even earlier. It always had the circular device below the eagle, which I assume was representative of a wheel.
A swastika may have been used on the circle during the Nazi era, but I can’t tell from the photos I have.
Post war, the West German DSG cars kept the Mitropa eagle and circle, so I doubt that it was associated with Hitler for this to have happened. The East German operation, still called Mitropa, kept the badge with circle, but removed the eagle’s head, making it just the letter “M”. Clearly they were concerned that the eagle itself was a symbol not to be continued.
But this is clearly not just a case of covering a swastika on models of Hitler era models. The circle was there both before and after the Nazi period.
I, personally, would reverse the order to “‘empire’ or ‘realm’.” Also pointed out later are other translations, but not to “kingdon” or “monarchy.” “Kaiser” derives, like “Czar” from “Caesar” which was used along with “Imperior” (sp) from which we get “emperor.”
It’s true that the Weimar Republic didn’t get rid of the term “Reich” in many of its forms. But it was a “republic” and not a “Reich.”
Only a few perpetrators actually were held responsible. A lot of scum got a free pass for their truly henious crimes for cold war expediency because it was determined that we needed the Germans on our side in the cold war. There was far less nazification then was claimed and very little or no examination. A lot of them ended up here. That’s why since the end of the cold war there’s been a steady stream of former nazi criminals being ‘discovered’ here and deported.
Take a look at the film ‘Judgement at Nuremburg’ for a good dramatization of this.
I have a set of the 1940 era DRG cars (from Liliput, made in China) in olive green.
These have the silver spread wing eagle but only a blank silver circle replacing the swastika.
They are the only appropriate cars for my red streamlined 05 4-6-4.
A little note: The use of the swastika in Germany is today very stricitly limited by law! And so its forbidden to offer models with the swastika. Models of this era will be offered only w/o it!
Its because the swastica was THE symbol of the Nationalsozialism in Germany.
If someone in Germany would import modeldecals or models with the sawastika, its against law and forbidden. BTW: If someone have Pics of this time with the insignias of the blck-with-red flag, swastika or so, this is not a problem
At the other side: Until the WWII most of the RR equipment of the DRG was NOT signed with the eagleherald, the most was simple lettered “DRG”. And after September 1939 other things were more important for the DRG.
The official herals of the DRG was the old pre 1933 round one with an eagle with nothing in his feets.
It looks that only publicityimportant fast passenger locomotives like 05, 06, the steammotor type 19, the streamlined types 01.10, 03.10, the dieseltrain types Hamburg, Köln, Leipzig and the fast electrics E18 and E19 were eqipped with the eagle with the swastika, and not before 1938.
As example the topclass train of all trains in Germany at this time: The FFD Rheingold (Rhinegold). This train was NEVER equipped with the swastika-eagle.