NAZI TRANSPORT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 39, 15 February 1941, Page 13

NAZI TRANSPORT

PROBLEMS TO BE FACED

RAILWAY BADLY NEGLECTED

POSITION IN EAST

Apart from the shortage of oil and the results of the incessant bombing of marshalling yards and canals, the inadequacy of the transport system is the most serious difficulty of the Nazi war economy both in Germany and in her new European empire, wrote a special correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian." During the years of intense re-armament and war pi"eparation in Germany the upkeep of the railway system was badly neglected. Clearly reliance must have been placed on a successful blitzkrieg, as such neglect of the railway system cannot be made good in many months.

In March, 1939. when the management of the State Railways CReichsbahn) came forward with an immense plan of improvements—a plan which owing to the outbreak of the war was never carried out—many "deficiences of the railway system were revealed. It was stated that although at the end of 1938 the traffic was 10 per cent, greater than in 1929 (at the peak of the prosperity period) there were about 4000 fewer engines and 80,000 fewer goods wagons, a fall of roughly 20 per cent. The eastern conquests of the Nazis, far from relieving this situation, made it worse. The Austrian and even the Czech rolling stock was largely obsolete; part of the Polish stock was destroyed, and Russia took a disproportionate share of the rest. With the ]increasing war effort the Nazis had to use their own rolling stock in these countries. RELIEF FROM THE WEST. The railway difficulties were not confined to the rolling-stock. The upkeep of the tracks had been neglected, and now both tracks and personnel were terribly overburdened. Great difficulties had been experienced during the building of the Siegfried Line, and the outbreak of the war multiplied them. Military' transport hampered the normal goods distribution. The black-out, especially during the winter, intensified the. troubles: the shunting of goods trains, for instance, took five times as long. The situation became critical last winter, when the canals, which handle about one-fifth of the total traffic, became useless for many weeks.

The Nazis are resorting, of course, to all sorts of .devices to improve the situation —quicker loading of wagons, renewed use of obsolete engines and wagons, restriction of the use of trains for private purposes, and so on—but all these devices give relatively little help. ;

Moreover, the inefficient railway system not only hampers the Nazi

war effort; it is a constant reminder to the German people that they are at war, just as the terrible delays, the unheated coaches, and the broken windows were a nightmare remembered for many years after the last war had ended.

Germany's western conquests introduced all sorts of fresh factors. The blockade of the western coast of the Continent increases the ■ strain on the whole European railway system, as a large part of the bulk goods (oil, coal, iron ore, timber, wheat, cotton,, and so on) came by sea even for interContinental supplies. Normally, for instance, German coal went by sea to Italy. On the other hand, the cessation of land fighting in the west and the considerable booty from the rich rolling-stocks of Holland, Belgium, and especially France brought the Germans great relief, though technical difficulties, such as differences in gauge or brake systems, set a limit to the use of foreign rolling-stock in Germany. The destruction of rollingstock during the hostilities was not considerable.

TRANSPORT IN EASTERN EUROPE

Before the collapse of the Western Front many neutral countries, even in the east, like Hungary, undertook exports in their, own goods wagons only up to the German frontiers, as in the first few months of the war the Nazis used to "retain" neutral wagons for a couple of months for their own use. This period of resistance is over, and the Nazis, with their armed might, have the whole transport system of the Continent at their disposal. Their . difficulties in the east remain nevertheless very considerable, even if these countries are used only as main supply bases; the situation might become critical in the event of a combined use of -Eastern Europe as a bcittle front and larder. The transport system of the Danubian countries is very poor. . Apart from the few main lines, all the lines are single track, and quick repairs are almost impossible in the mountainous parts. The whole system of construction is far less solid than the British, as these countries were always poor in capital. A few figures will illustrate the relative, position of the eastern railway systems. The comparative figures available (taken from German sources) refer to the beginning of 1938, but the changes since then are negligible. Length of tracks No. of (kilo- No. of goods metres). . engines, wagons. United Kingdom . 32.316 19,806 656,834 Germany 54,556 20,711 574.999 Austria 5,858 2,122 32,990 Czecho-Slovakia . 13,506 4,178 93,529 Poland 17,961 5,300 159.200 France 42,493 18,968 496.205 Belgium 4,844 3,525 101,800 Holland 3,390 1,09(5 27,226 Italy 16,899 5,865 126,968 Hungary 7.823 1.839 40,072 Rumania 11,216 3,646 56,877 Bulgaria 3,270 540 10.646 Yugoslavia 9.471 2,409 5R.494 Greece 1.330 230 4.851 IN THE BALKANS. Roughly, one-fifth of the population of Greece lives on islands and threefifths along the coasts. Among the Danubian States Hungary's position is the best, Rumania's almost the worst In Hungary there are 8:6 kilometres of tracks in every 100 square kilometres, in Rumania only 3.79 kilometres; the figure for the former Czecho-Slovak Republic was 9.7 kilometres. ' The partition has left Rumania's situation almost unchanged. Bessarabia and No"them Bukovina, with roughly one-fifth of the railway tracks, were poorly equipped, while Transylvania was better off than the provinces of the Old Kingdom. Rumanian efforts at improvement had achieved little. In the period 1932-39 altogether some 165 kilometres of new tracks were built. There was more progress in the construction of rollingstock. The capacity of the Malaxa and Resita works is considerable, though important parts have still to be imported. The inadequacy of the Rumanian railway system has provided the Nazis with a tough set of problems, especially since the shortest line of communication, through Bessarabia, is no longer available. t