Roughly twenty-five years ago, around the time of Albert Speer’s death, Trains ran an article (by a German citizen, IIRC) about proposed improvements to the German rail system. These were supposed to be centered in Silesia, which was a focal point of the Nazi quest for Lebensraum.
The reason for this inquiry being that the perennial rumors about a trainload of stolen loot (gold or works of art, take your pick) hidden somewhere in a tunnel in that region, have again surfaced on a general history forum at city-data.com. I would like to add a link to any Internet-accessible research, if possible. Thanks in advance for any help.
During the Nazi era and before, most of Silesia (Schlesien - Ger.; Śląsk - Pol*.*) was and had been Prussian territory since 1742, Germany after 1870, so although it would not have been an object of Lebensraum, it was the site of many underground factories and storage facilities. It has been part of Poland since 1945. The supposed tunnel is therefore in Poland.
There was also an article about super trains that were about 4 times bigger and wider. A follow up MR article had some models a guy made that ran on the two outside rails of double track lines.
Those were planed, but never built. Just proved impractical once the war started.
Even the rail systems for the supper artillery proved to be too time consuming to build once the war started.
Germany should of spend at least an other year or two, building up their forces.
I read somewhere that the German military had 1944-45 as their target for full readiness. But Hitler jumped the gun, egged on by the success of Italy, Franco in Spain, and especially the success of the Japs.
Lots of “what if” scenarios about the Germans and World War II. No matter the time they had to prepare or their technical superiority of weapons, when you have 1/2 to 2/3 of the worlds population against your empire or your allies…your going to lose. At a point in warfare numbers matter more than technology or technological advancement. It’s a big reason we avoided conflict with China back before it’s recent technical and economic advances. World War II was a war only a mad man would start…in fact, most wars follow that template and war should never be taken lightly as a solution to anything.
Napoleon, among others, had an answer to this. And a very large part of the Nazi ‘success’ in the 1930s involved an astute use of divide-and-conquer as well as ‘let’s not get involved’. Even today there is a great deal of … well, let’s call it willingness to be exploited and p0wned by small, motivated groups with the wrong kind of strong self-identification and motivation.
The ‘military readiness’ year my father heard (the analysis done by a bunch of foreign-policy people at Columbia SIA before the late '80s) was 1943. That involved far more than just building up the numbers of tanks and Schmeissers available to start a war, and in particular it involved coordination and development of the captured industrial assets, particularly in Czechoslovakia, and the development of fuel-supply and provisioning arrangements to match Guderian’s deployment abilities.
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At a point in warfare numbers matter more than technology or technological advancement. It’s a big reason we avoided conflic
Quoting Wizlish: "I think it’s been established that Hitler’s government did not expect the war to start over the invasion of Poland…"That is true. Adolf Hitler had no idea that little rabbit “It’s peace in our time” Neville Chamberlain would turn into a wolf. He knew what Winston Churchill had been saying–but Churchill had no power in the government until after Poland was invaded.
I am only going to go over what jumps out at me off the post vs go argument by argument here.
It wasn’t the Nazi’s it was Hitler himself #1. Secondly the German Army disagreed and was weary of Hitlers various moves and considered his adventures either “lucky” or “fortunate” for not triggering a military response. They would have attempted to dipose him earlier had it not been for the oath to follow him and then his apparent success.
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That point was clearly not reached in the parts of the European war that corresponded to the ‘built-up’ and evolved forces that would have been available iby 1943, and I would argue that a properly-conducted Barbarossa would have easily handled the ‘behind-the-Urals’ strategy: whether or not the Germans provoked Stalin’s purge of his armed forces intentionally, the Russians couldn’t even defeat little Finland. Keep the masses disorganized and they become little impediment.[/q
It has been suggested;perhaps apocryphally, that Hitler’s obsession with this and other megaprojects (perhaps “megaloprojects”(as in Megalomania) is more apt) tied up vital railway engineering resources at a time in the war when Allied air power was severely disrupting the German’s rail transportation network throughout occupied Europe…
I think it’s been established that Hitler’s government did not expect the war to start over the invasion of Poland –
I seem to recall a TV documentary where they interviewed people involved in WWII in Germany (somewhat before this present 70th Anniversary of everything…)
If I recall this correctly, the Wehrmacht (Army) officer who literally led the invasion of Poland (riding a horse - he must have been a Cavalry officer) had, possibly not by coincidence, led the troops into the Sudetenland and also into Austria.
His comment was “we just did everything the same way, but this time the Poles started shooting back at us - that hadn’t happened before…”
That would suggest that the expectation of WWII not starting on the Polish border extended a long way down below Adolf Hitler…
Looking at it in terms that we’d understand here, with red DB Schenker locomotives running in many countries in Europe but particularly in the UK, and with British electric locomotives painted red for DB(S) running in Romania, I wonder if the Germans haven’t done better recently…?
The only statement I meant to make about what was ‘established’ was that the Nazi government did not anticipate widespread war breaking out over the invasion of Poland. A large part of that was the scholarship (I do not have references, but will try to find them if you want them) indicating that much of the military buildup, particularly in some aspects of armor, would not have reached desired levels until 1943, and it would make little sense to start a war over something as comparatively insignificant as Poland – particularly with Stalin eagerly going after his half – until the readiness had been secured.
I will cheerily grant you that Barbarossa’s timing seems premature, and those two years of preparation would have been particularly significant … as things turned out.
All the other ‘points’ I was making were, of course, opinion and speculation. There are references that back up aspects of those opinions, of course, but for every speculative reference there are plenty of equally-well-reasoned different ones…
To correct your various misassumptions would require your enrolling in upper level European history classes and seminars as a major, at a minimum. The grounded background needed takes time.
Adequate preparation for an actual invasion of Great Britain would, of course, have involved construction of a great many cross-Channel ships and, probably, amphibious craft, together with much more preparation than Seelowe actually wound up getting ‘in the event.’ There were other actions, including a better blockade, that would easily have been available to the Germans had the Battle of Britain gone other than it did.
With respect to the ‘strength’ of the British Navy in repelling a cross-Channel invasion: you evidently have not learned the lesson taught by (perhaps ‘to’ is a better word) the Repulse and the Prince of Wales. (Or the Bismarck and the other large German capital ships, or the Yamato and Musashi, not to be excessively anti-British). Had the Germans acquired effective air superiority over Britain, which I do not consider would have been terrifically difficult given more buildup of Luftwaffe reserves, and development of countermeasures against Chain Home and other radar systems, I would not think much of the chances for any element of the British Navy ‘in being’ in 1941 to be effective in stopping a large-scale German invasion for any substantial length of time, or to overcome a submarine blockade.
That presupposes, of course, that the United States could be kept from coming into the war on Britain’s side. To me that is perhaps the dumbest of all the dumb mistakes Hitler made, declaring war on the United States shortly after Pearl Harbor. Perhaps I am chauvinistic, but I do not think the Allies would have won the war nearly as quickly, or with ‘unconditional surrender,’ had the United States not participated directly, as early as it did (but still not nearly early enough for
There has been some arguments made about Hitler being goaded into declaring war by FDR since the mood in the US was very much opposed to getting involved in another European war. The fact that the US declared war on Germany on Dec 11 as opposed to the December declaration of war on Japan is one of the lesser told stories.
The US was biding its time as well, trying to get war production ramped up before getting into the fight. The US build up before WW2 is another one of the lesser told stories. As it was the production led offensive didn’t get going “full steam ahead” until 1944.
I remember my friend’s father telling me that they swapped axles on trains going into Russia. I had read that engineer batallions were laying a third rail and pulling up the outside rail for use later. They followed right behind the army.
He insisted on how they jacked up the car and swapped the axles. You have to accept his version, as he was fighting in Russia at the time.
Also remember that the German Army trained in Russia (away from prying eyes), for their armoured tactics. In return, they trained Russian officers in armoured tactics.
Later, Stalin purged the officer corps, fearing many were German spies, since they had worked with the Germans and been trained by them. During the invasion, the bonus was the Russians reacting exactly how the Germans had trained them.
Where did you read about changing the gauge by re-laying the rail? That would make reasonable sense for an organized invasion being backed up by full railborne support from a nation or network using standard gauge, that did not intend to make any use of captured equipment without first changing its gauge. But there would be colossal requirements for new power when consolidating operations in a newly-conquered region, particularly areas with extensive switched trackage – if I remember correctly, Russia had very large numbers of standard locomotive designs, including the greatest number of 2-6-2s in the world, which would be difficult or impossible to convert to standard gauge even on an emergency basis.
Of course, there are a number of practical accounts of very rapid mass gauge changes in the United States, for example for some of the southern lines. A very large number of workers were provided all down the line, and if I remember correctly an adequate number of ‘gauge’ spikes were measured for and driven. At a prearranged time (or ona prearranged signal) the workers would unspike the rail on the side to be moved, slide it to the waiting spikes, and counterspike to hold it, then drive the ‘rest’ of the spikes. My suspicion is that some gentle waving back and forth of the line of the rails was done so that many switches could be left at least temporarily undisturbed, but the references I have seen don’t mention this point.
I would think that changing gauge via wheelset replacement would be a quicker and somewhat easier appr
Fact is, the German Wehrmacht had no plans for invading Britain at all, that just wasn’t part of the plan. Any invasion of Britain by the Germans would have been an improvised operation which the German Army and Navy weren’t crazy about at all. NO military men like to do things “on the fly,” especially the Germans. Even Hitler was VERY reluctant to invade Britain. When the Brits wouldn’t quit Hitler reluctantly gave the go-ahead but no-one had any real enthusiasm for it.
The Luftwaffe, maybe. They were sure they could hold up their end of the operation.