Published: Fall 2000

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Copyright (c) 2000 by the University of North Carolina Press. All rights reserved.



Chapter 1
The Coordination of the Reichsbahn, 1933-1939

In August 1932 Carl Stieler told Adolf von Batocki, his colleague on the Reichsbahn board of directors, that he expected that Hitler would end the Reichsbahn's autonomy and dramatically change its affairs.[1] With his long experience in government, Stieler was completely correct, yet he was unable to prevent the changes that he feared. The Reichsbahn's relationship with the Nazi Party was ambivalent from the outset. The railway considered itself an apolitical, technical, service-oriented enterprise. Yet its actions were in fact highly charged with political significance. The Reichsbahn's view of itself would lead it to fashion a compromise with the new national leadership that would ensure it a considerable measure of internal autonomy while serving the regime's expansionist and racist ends.

In its general propaganda, the Nazi Party had been scathing in its criticism of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft (German National Railway Company, or DRG), referring to it as the "Dawes Railway," complaining that Germany's socialized railway was under the control of American banks and stock exchange Jews. That did not stop the party from attempting to gain support from among Reichsbahn employees. Indeed, such propaganda may have been advantageous for it to do so, given the anticapitalist, anti-Western views of many DRG officials. After the abortive Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, and after Hitler's shift to a strategy of gaining power through electoral means, the party canvassed support among various occupational groups, including railroaders. It won some initial success in Saxony in 1925, when its first regional cell was founded by a Reichsbahn official in the town of Garbolzum. In 1926 the local party branch in Göttingen was led by a locomotive engineer. One of his two secretaries was a fireman. In 1928 the party began a concerted effort to increase its following among union members. To that end, it created the National Socialist Factory Cell Organization (NSBO). By November 1930 the NSBO had cells in 203 Reichsbahn offices and operating facilities, a small number compared with the overall size of the railway. The NSBO won only 3.5 percent of the total vote cast in March 1931 works council elections, though it gained a substantially greater following among the DRG's officials. Twenty percent of the votes cast at Reichsbahndirektion (RBD) headquarters went to Nazi candidates. Clearly, the DRG's tenured officials, frustrated at what they perceived to be the disadvantages that they suffered compared with their colleagues in Reich service, turned to the Nazis more often than the workers. Indeed, at least in Franconia, the party leadership considered DRG officials to be sympathetic to its message.[2]

Officially, the Reichsbahn's leadership forbade subversive political activity on the part of its employees. This position was stated clearly and frequently and was implemented. It applied to all parties, the SPD, Communists, and the Nazis alike. During its meeting on 23 September 1930, the board of directors discussed what stance it should take on the approaching works council elections in light of the intense Nazi propaganda. The general director of the DRG, Julius Dorpmüller, stated that "the Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft, as an unpolitical body, must refuse to take any position concerning legal campaign positions. Of course, no political agitation of any kind will be tolerated during work hours."[3] In line with this policy, the Personnel Section of the Main Administration issued a directive forbidding political activities while on duty. It specifically forbade the distribution of political literature of any kind at any time, even during breaks.[4] Shortly afterward, a case arose concerning agitation for the Nazi Party by a DRG official who was a Nazi county leader. After an initial warning, he was punished by a Reichsbahn disciplinary court with a transfer. He continued his political activities, however, and was fired as a result. The disciplinary court refused his appeal, stating that "activity by an official for the National Socialist German Workers Party is a violation of service regulations, because it seeks to overthrow the existing form of government through the use of force."[5]

The matter of political agitation and the reliability of its employees came up before the board again in March 1931. Mattäus Herrmann, one of the labor representatives on the board, proposed saving money by reducing the budget for the Bahnschutz, implying that it was filled with Nazis. Dorpmüller insisted that the Bahnschutz was necessary, adding that "the Main Administration will act severely against any political agitation on the job."[6] Herrmann returned to the Bahnschutz issue during the board's discussion of the closing of RBD Magdeburg in November 1932. He suggested that political considerations be used to choose who would be allowed to join this voluntary, paramilitary organization. Paul Wolf, chief of the Administrative Section, responded forcefully that the "Main Administration would not tolerate the selection of employees for the Bahnschutz according to party political viewpoints."[7] Herrmann clearly feared that the Bahnschutz would be used by the Nazis to subvert the Reichsbahn. Ironically, the Nazis considered the Bahnschutz to be a bastion of Social Democratic sentiment.

The DRG's relationship with the Nazis arose as a matter of controversy in another connection as well. The Nazi Party hired special trains from the Reichsbahn to transport its members and sympathizers to rallies in various parts of Germany. The Weimar government and many of the state administrations sought to prevent it from doing so. The DRG, however, citing its common-carrier responsibilities, denied that it could refuse the Nazis access to its services. In June 1931 both the Reich and the government of the state of Prussia attempted to stop the Reichsbahn from operating special trains that had been arranged by the Nazis to bring members to a Hitler rally at Cloppenburg. The DRG had granted them the usual 40 percent discount, hoping to keep the traffic away from bus operators. Ultimately, the two governments had to throw up their hands in despair because the Reichsbahn had the final say in the matter.[8]

Clearly, in the years leading up to the Nazi rise to power, the DRG had treated the NSDAP as it had the SPD and other parties that it considered subversive. However, the Reichsbahn's employees had been no more and no less susceptible to the Nazi message than other Germans. Nevertheless, since 1945 a myth about the nature of the Reichsbahn's relationship with the Nazi Party and the government of the Third Reich has been propagated by former Reichsbahner. In a contribution to an abortive official history of the Reichsbahn during World War II that was planned during the 1950s, Günter Kausche, who served in the Reich Transportation Ministry (Reichsverkehrsministerium, or RVM) during the war, contended that until late in the war, the Nazis had little influence on the Reichsbahn. The railroaders had concentrated on their technical responsibilities and avoided politics.[9] Another author who contributed to the same project, Franz Bruckauf, who was assigned to RBD Essen, claimed that the party had usually been unable to influence hiring and firing decisions.[10] As late as 1981, Anton Joachimsthaler, who was fifteen years old when the war ended and was an official with the German Federal Railway, repeated the myth that the Reichsbahn had closed itself to political influences and concentrated on its operational responsibilities.[11] In fact, the Reichsbahn was coordinated (gleichgeschaltet) like every other organization in Germany under the Third Reich.

Soon after Hitler became chancellor, Nazi political organizations were created in the Reichsbahn. The Fachschaft (Professional Association) Reichsbahn in the National Federation of German Officials (Reichsbund der Deutschen Beamten) was formed, and the Fachgruppe Reichsbahn was created in the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront) for the workers. In addition, an emissary of the Hitler Youth was assigned to the RVM.[12] The Fachschaft Reichsbahn was especially vehement in its attacks on the Reichsbahn leadership. On 20 March 1933 it made twenty-three demands for changes in the DRG. They centered on removing Jews and leftists from responsible positions and replacing them with Nazis and alleged cases of corruption.[13] The DRG ignored these demands. Consequently, the Fachschaft informed the state secretary in the chancellor's office, Hans Lammers, that the DRG had not conformed to the Nazi revolution. It complained that many democrats and Jews remained in its upper leadership, especially its publicity chief, Hans Baumann, and the head of its financial section, Ludwig Homberger, and demanded a quick rectification of these problems.[14] The government took no action, so the fanatics took matters into their own hands. At 10:30 A.M. on 6 April 1933, twenty SA men broke into the headquarters building of the DRG and approached Alfred Beyer, who headed an office that handled personnel matters relating to the DRG's leading officials. They demanded that the entire board of directors be dismissed, all Jews and Freemasons be removed, and the Social Democrats be cleaned out of the Bahnschutz. They also sought the cancellation of all contracts with Jewish firms and the laying off of employees over sixty-five and all women to make way for young men.[15] On the following day, SA men invaded the offices of the German Transportation Credit Bank (Deutsche Verkehrs-Kredit-Bank, or DVKB) and made similar demands.[16]

The Fachschaft assembled a list of people whom it wanted expelled from the DRG. Among the board members it included Carl Bergmann, because he opposed Hjalmar Schacht, the minister of economics and chief of the Reichsbank; Herrmann and Ernst Kaiser, because they were union leaders; Paul Silverberg, because he was a "half Jew"; and Vitus von Hertel and Franz Honold, because they represented the Catholic Church and particularist Bavarian interests. The Nazis also demanded that Homberger should go because he was a "baptized Jew"; Beyer, because he was a Freemason; Wolf, because he was seen as sympathetic to the French; and Karl Heiges, the chief of the Bahnschutz, because he supposedly leaned toward the SPD. They also called for the dismissal of Marcell Holzer, the head of Schenker, because he was a Jew.[17] The Reich government took no action itself.[18] Instead, the matter was handled internally by the Reichsbahn in coordination with the party.

The Hitler government created a legal basis for the exclusion of officials from employment in its bureaucracy and the Reichsbahn with the promulgation of the Law for the Reconstruction of the Professional Civil Service on 7 April 1933.[19] Soon after, the DRG ordered the divisions to suspend all contracts with Jewish firms and to avoid doing business with them in the future, and issued a preliminary order to remove Jewish and leftist officials from its ranks.[20] It issued a definitive order for the implementation of the expulsions on 14 June 1933. All Communists would be removed immediately. All Jews would be retired with the exception of those who had entered the civil service before 1 August 1914 or who had served at the front during World War I. Non-Aryans were defined as those with at least one non-Aryan parent, especially Jews. All officials who had been hired after 1 August 1914 were required to prove their Aryan descent by completing a questionnaire and submitting supporting documents. The actual dismissals would be conducted by Nazi representatives, who would be placed throughout the Reichsbahn.[21] The application of this directive was discussed by the new personnel committee that was attached to the board of directors in July. It accepted the provisions of the directive and added to them that the Jews who were retained due to their early entry into the civil service or the military would be transferred from positions in which they would come in contact with the public or handle personnel, financial, or military matters. The personnel officers of the divisions would be checked to determine their racial and political backgrounds, their popularity with the employees, and their ages. If they were found wanting in any of these categories, they would be replaced by Nazis.[22] The full board approved these guidelines on 13 July 1933.[23]

On 15 May 1933 Rudolf Hess, Hitler's personal secretary and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, created the Führerstab Reichsbahn as a subsection of the Liaison Staff (Verbindungsstab) of the party. It was charged with investigating the criticisms that had been made of the Reichsbahn's leadership. Named to chair it was Wilhelm Kleinmann. Born in Barmen on 29 May 1876, Kleinmann had served with the German field railways on the eastern front during World War I. After the war, he had been assigned to Eisenbahndirektion (EBD) Kattowitz in Upper Silesia and had participated in the struggle against the Polish acquisition of that territory. He then became the chief of Obl West in Essen. On 1 June 1933 he was named president of RBD Essen. Kleinmann had been mentioned by the Fachschaft on 6 April as one of the Reichsbahn officials whom it trusted. He began his association with the Nazi Party during the mid-1920s when he became transportation adviser to its regional organization in Essen. He joined the party on 1 October 1931, after it had won its first major electoral success, but before its control of the government was assured. He was not an old fighter, but his nationalist credentials were solid and he had joined the Nazis while it was still risky to do so, particularly in light of the Reichsbahn's explicit policies condemning political agitation.[24] On 25 June 1933 Kleinmann replaced Wilhelm Weirauch as vice general director of the DRG and assumed control of its personnel section.[25] Kleinmann was extremely energetic and ambitious. He was completely devoted to the railway and hoped to restore it to what he considered its proper position in German society, and return Germany to its former position among nations through the National Socialist revolution.[26]

Kleinmann very quickly assembled the Führerstab so that it could begin the business of cleansing the Reichsbahn of undesirable elements. He named as his secretary Gerhard Sommer, the personal assistant and friend of Dorpmüller, who had joined the party on 1 May 1933. Among the other members was Alfred Prang of the Finance Section.[27] The staff named representatives at each divisional headquarters who were relieved of their normal administrative duties so that they could devote their undivided efforts to rooting enemies of the regime out of the DRG.

The coordination of the board began on 3 May when Carl Friedrich von Siemens, its chairman, was forced to announce that Herrmann would not attend that day's board meeting because he had been arrested. He also stated that two other members, Honold, who had represented Baden, and Johannes Welker, who had represented inland waterway interests, had resigned.[28] At the end of the month, Franz Willuhn of the Reich Chancellery consulted the state secretary in the RVM, Gustav Koenigs, concerning what should be done about Siemens. Koenigs recommended leaving him as chairman of the board for the present. He praised Siemens for having kept the Reichsbahn's debt low and indicated that he could be replaced more conveniently from a political standpoint in the course of the usual rotation of board members at the end of 1933. Moreover, his continued presence would lend stability to the Reichsbahn and thereby make it easier to bring Nazis into its organization. Koenigs did agree that some members of the board should be replaced, though he did not think that they could simply be dismissed.[29]

While these preparations were under way, the street agitation directed particularly against Siemens, Dorpmüller, and Homberger continued. The Liaison Staff of the Nazi Party finally intervened to stop it. It informed the Fachschaft that Hitler had personally forbidden any further attacks on Dorpmüller. While on a train trip, Hitler had been informed that a massive demonstration was taking place outside the Main Administration in Voß Street. He stopped his train and telephoned the leaders of the rally to express his confidence in Dorpmüller and told them to call off the affair.[30] Siemens became concerned that the continued attacks, despite Hitler's expression of support, would destroy the authority of the Reichsbahn's leadership. He suggested that some old party members be taken on the board to calm the employees. He also thought that he should be replaced as chairman by a party member.[31] On 28 June Hitler discussed the matter of the Reichsbahn board with Reich transportation minister Peter Paul Freiherr von Eltz-Rübenach and Lammers, and decided that a complete reformation of the board at that moment was not possible. Instead, it would be transformed gradually over the next few months.[32]

The coordination of the board continued at its meeting on 4 July 1933. The three members who had either resigned or been removed for political reasons in May were replaced by Albert Pietzsch, a businessman from Bavaria; Kurt Freiherr von Schröder, a banker from Cologne who had helped Hitler become chancellor; and Karl Renninger, the mayor of Mannheim—all Nazis.[33] The transformation then proceeded behind the scenes over the next few months. One of the first targets was Vitus von Hertel, the representative of Bavaria, who was considered too old and a particularist by the youth-oriented, centralizing Nazis. The Führerstab Reichsbahn applied pressure on the Bavarian government to convince Hertel to relinquish his seat voluntarily.[34] The regime in Munich readily complied. Hertel submitted his resignation on 6 July after returning from the board meeting that had just ended in Berlin.[35] The Reich government allowed the Bavarian government a free hand in choosing whom it wished to replace von Hertel, though it asked that he be a Nazi businessman.[36]

Soon after the July board meeting, Kleinmann moved to exclude Silverberg. Immediately after the gathering, Silverberg had asked the RVM if he should leave the board. Eltz replied that he saw no need for him to do so. Then, on 10 July, Kleinmann wrote Eltz, asking that Silverberg be requested to resign so that a Nazi labor representative could be named in his place. On 28 July Eltz informed Silverberg that it was time for him to vacate his seat. Eltz apparently still doubted whether Silverberg should resign and inquired at the Reich Chancellery about Hitler's views on the matter. Hitler said that he took no interest in the Silverberg case. Against this background of moral indecisiveness, Silverberg relinquished his post on 2 August 1933.[37] Siemens wrote him on the following day to express his sympathy, telling Silverberg that he did not approve of what was taking place on the board and that he hoped to leave it as soon as possible. He predicted that a "debacle" would happen soon.[38] Despite his feelings, Siemens chaired a special meeting of the board on 10 August during which he announced the departures of Kaiser, von Hertel, and Silverberg and their replacement by three more Nazis. Georg Körner was the chief of the German Workers Association for Public Enterprises and the education officer of the County Factory Cell Organization in the NSDAP; Rolf Reiner was a Bavarian official and an officer in the Liaison Staff of the Nazi Party; and Erich Köhler was a factory owner and retired army captain.[39] Two additional changes came at the regular rotation of board members in December 1933. The Ruhr industrialist Peter Klöckner resigned, being replaced by Gustav Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach, chairman of the supervisory board of the Krupp steel firm; and Hermann Schmitz of IG Farben was replaced by Fritz Todt, the chief of the Nazi Party's office for technology and Hitler's plenipotentiary for roads.[40] Since May 1933, eight members of the board had been replaced by men who were either members of the Nazi Party or who sympathized with it.

Surprisingly, at least from his standpoint, Siemens was renominated by the government as a member of the board and, in January 1934, was reelected as chair.[41] Yet the need to maintain appearances, primarily to support Schacht's international financial maneuvers, diminished by the end of 1934. Seven members of the board were due to be replaced. The government decided that Siemens would be supplanted by the state secretary of the RVM, Gustav Koenigs. Siemens had disapproved of the racist steps taken by the Nazi regime, particularly with the Reichsbahn. But he, like so many other bourgeois Germans, had been unable to bring himself to take a clear moral stand against them. In May 1933 he had participated in a private discussion at the home of the Jewish banking family Mendelsohn concerning the anti-Semitic policies of the Hitler government. Siemens doubted that much could be done because of the wide popularity enjoyed by the Nazis. All that he could do was recommend drafting a memorandum that would demonstrate that the Jews had helped rather than harmed Germany, in the hope that this rational approach would convince the German public.[42] When it became clear to him that he would finally relinquish the post that he had tried to leave in 1930, he told Krupp that by leaving the board, he was rendering the Reichsbahn the best service that he was still capable of giving. He made no mention of the exclusion of the members of the board or DRG employees because of their race.[43] Siemens also turned to his old friend Paul Silverberg at this moment. He wrote Silverberg that his time had run out and that he was glad to be leaving, mentioning only that he had been unhappy because he had been forced to tolerate management mistakes.[44] Clearly, Siemens had developed an emotional attachment to the Reichsbahn. This, along with his views as a businessman and his patriotism, prevented him from acting against, and possibly even seeing the full implications of, the injustices that the Nazis had inflicted on Silverberg and other members of the Reichsbahn.

With Siemens's departure, seven new members of the board were named. Koenigs assumed the chair. He was not a member of the Nazi Party but was quite prepared to lead the Reichsbahn in conformance with its desires. He was technically competent but lacked the moral authority necessary to counter the use of the railway by the regime for its purposes.[45] The last of the original board members to leave was Carl Bergmann. He died in September 1935 and was replaced by the leader of the Nazi Party's office for tourism and travel, Hermann Esser.[46] Only Hermann Münchmeyer and Tilo von Wilmowsky remained from the Weimar era. Both accommodated themselves to the new circumstances until 1942.

The transformation of the board facilitated the coordination of the Reichsbahn's tenured officials. This took three forms: the exclusion of politically and racially undesirable individuals, the preferred hiring and promotion of Nazis, and the absorption of the officials' unions into the NSDAP's organizations. The process of replacing the unions with nazified bodies began immediately after Hitler came to power. The Fachschaft quickly emerged as the Nazi organization that claimed to speak for the officials. In April, Gottfried Feder, head of the Subcommission for Business, Technology, and Job Creation at the NSDAP headquarters in Munich, convinced the powerful Union of German Locomotive Engineers to join the Nazi Reich Association of German Technology.[47] At the end of June, the works councils of the officials were abolished.[48] Yet even these steps were insufficient for Kleinmann and the Nazi enthusiasts in the Reichsbahn. On 3 July 1933 Kleinmann sent a letter to Siemens demanding that the board take decisive steps to nazify the railway's work force at its meeting the next day. In particular, he told Siemens that pay would have to be raised for officials and workers alike, SA and SS members would have to be given jobs, and the board would have to be restructured and the Main Administration arayanized. Finally, Nazis would have to take control of the personnel offices of the divisions.[49] As we have seen, Siemens was not disposed to stand in Kleinmann's way. The board decided to form a special personnel committee composed of its new Nazi members Pietzsch, Schröder, Renninger, and Stieler.[50] Kleinmann, in his capacity as assistant general director, de facto chief of the Personnel Section of the Main Administration, and head of the Führerstab Reichsbahn, was named the committee's chairman. Dorpmüller attended the panel's meetings and played a prominent role in its discussions.

In October many older members of the Main Administration and the division managements were retired. Ernst Spiro, chief of the Reichsbahn Central Office for Purchasing, who was Jewish, was excluded as part of this action.[51] By the board's meeting at the end of November 1933, Kleinmann could report that of the upper officials 21 were retired due to age and 102 were transferred to new jobs. Among the middle and lower officials, 182 men were either transferred or retired. A further 280 cases were still under investigation. Among the officials transferred, 25 were divisional personnel officers who lost their positions to Nazis. In light of the agitation and excitement provoked by the Fachschaft, one is impressed by the small number of officials who were actually affected by the nazification effort, only 0.07 percent of all officials and 4 percent of the upper officials, according to Kleinmann's calculations.[52] Most of the remaining cases were resolved by September 1934. Of the 60 personnel officers at divisional and other headquarters, 46 were changed. More than a third of the people assigned to the Reichsbahn's personnel offices, chiefs and subordinates, were now Nazis.[53]

The small number of officials who lost their jobs gives no indication of the pain inflicted on those who were affected or of the extreme discomfort of those whose futures were not decided in 1933. Probably the most prominent of the individual cases was Ludwig Homberger, the chief of the Finance Section in the DRG Main Administration, who had been born into a Jewish family. He had married a German woman and become a Lutheran to please her. He had served the Royal Bavarian Railway and then the Reichsbahn loyally and with exceptional competence. He had proved his patriotism by serving as an adviser to German delegations to reparations talks, helping them lower and ultimately cancel the DRG's annuities. Because of his competence, because he was well liked, and because from the Nazi racist perspective he remained a Jew, even though he had changed his religion, Homberger immediately became an issue to be handled by the board's special personnel committee. It discussed his future at its meetings of 17 July and 9 August 1933. Stieler attended both meetings and Siemens the latter. The committee decided to retain Homberger because of his exceptional expertise and the Reichsbahn's difficult financial situation.[54] Homberger remained in his post as head of the Finance Section and continued to brief the board. However, he no longer appeared in public representing the Reichsbahn. Although no announcement was made, Alfred Prang replaced Homberger in the public's eye.

Homberger kept his job for the time being, though under degrading circumstances. Others left immediately. Wilhelm Weirauch, who was perceived by the workers as their enemy due to his role in the labor contract negotiations of the 1920s, was accused by the Fachschaft of being sympathetic to the SPD and anti-Nazi. Siemens was able to move Weirauch out of the way by appointing him head of the Reichsbahn's Auditing Office when Kleinmann replaced him as vice general director.[55] Dorpmüller's chief of publicity, Hans Baumann, was also moved out of the Main Administration. Because Baumann had fought at the front during World War I, he could not be dismissed, even though the Nazis considered him a racial Jew. Consequently, he was provided a job in the Reich Office for German Travel with the approval of Goebbels.[56]

The Reichsbahn's subsidiaries were also nazified and arayanized. Jews were removed from the leadership of the DVKB in May and June 1933.[57] At Schenker, an initial wave of dismissals occurred in June 1933 during which the firm's director, Marcell Holzer, was discharged. In November 1933 the Reichswehr complained that there were still too many Jews in the company's management for it to be trusted with foreign business. Dorpmüller responded that removing the remaining Jews from Schenker would cause business difficulties in eastern and southeastern Europe. He promised to make changes in the forwarder's management when the relationship between the Reichsbahn and trucks was resolved. Hitler's economic adviser, Wilhelm Keppler, raised the matter again in March 1934. Once again, Dorpmüller was able to put off any changes. Ultimately, these employees had to go as well. Incredibly, Holzer fought for his due. He brought suit against the DRG for damages in a court in New York State, which found in his favor. To avoid adverse publicity, Dorpmüller chose to settle on Holzer's terms.[58]

The third way in which the Personnel Committee's action affected the Reichsbahn's officials was preferred hiring. In August 1933 the Main Administration announced a policy of hiring members of the SA, SS, and Stahlhelm before other applicants for positions as both officials and workers. The Reichsbahn expanded these preferences in January 1934, when it announced that it would promote officials faster if they had been members of the Nazi Party prior to 30 January 1933. In March 1934, "old fighters," party members who had membership numbers below 100,000, were granted additional advantages in promotions. By March 1935 the preferences given to the Nazis were extended to men who had fought at the front during World War I. Although the Reichsbahn was attempting to reduce its work force at the time, it created jobs to fulfill these goals at an estimated cost of 900,000 RM annually. Until mid-1936, the sole reason for the increase in the number of officials with the Reichsbahn was the desire to employ and promote Nazis. Only afterward did an increase in traffic necessitate additional appointments.[59] Later, the change in the relationship of the Reichsbahn to the Reich government increased the preferences given to Nazi officials. Dorpmüller issued a directive in April 1937 providing that "proven early fighters for the national awakening" be given preference for promotions in the divisions if they possessed technical qualifications comparable with their competitors. To ensure that this directive was carried out, at least one Nazi was assigned to all promotion examination panels.[60]

By late 1937 the Reichsbahn was encountering difficulty hiring qualified officials, particularly with technical backgrounds. The regime's rearmament program had increased industrial activity, leading to wage competition for trained engineers. In the board meeting of 6 October 1937, representatives of the Personnel Section argued that the effort to hire Nazis and front veterans placed the Reichsbahn at a disadvantage in this competition. Kleinmann reassured them, saying that test scores were frequently no guide to the competence of an individual. Of equal or greater importance was the applicant's character.[61] Finally, in January 1938 the Reichsbahn further lowered the bar to entry and gave Nazis an additional advantage. Now, all members of the party who had not been members before 31 March 1936 because they had not had the opportunity to join or because they were employed in Reich, state, or local government institutions were given preference when applying for positions as officials.[62]

Despite the Reichsbahn's efforts to conform to the situation created by the Hitler government, some members of the party and especially the Fachschaft remained dissatisfied. In the summer of 1933, the Fachschaft continued to lead demonstrations in Voß Street.[63] For Dorpmüller, these antics combined with the continued political agitation directed against him and the Reichsbahn leadership in general had become intolerable. As early as May 1933, he had pleaded with the new regime to allow the Reichsbahn the freedom to manage its internal affairs itself. He called upon the Hitler government to allow the railway the "self-administration" that was traditional practice in Prussian and German administrative affairs. In return, the Reichsbahn would place itself unreservedly in the service of the government's policies.[64] At the end of June 1933, Dorpmüller complained about the chaos that was being spread into the railway by the political agitation of the Nazis. In a memorandum sent to the Reich Chancellery, Dorpmüller demanded a halt to demonstrations and politically motivated interventions in the Reichsbahn's internal administrative functions for the sake of operational safety. He insisted that discipline be restored and demanded authority to use all of his powers as general director, even against the Nazi Fachschaft and NSBO.[65] However, the coordination had still not gone far enough for Dorpmüller to be able to reassert his authority. Finally, in September 1934, he achieved the compromise that he was seeking. In the meeting of the Personnel Committee on 20 September 1934, Dorpmüller said: "The Führerstab is really a foreign body. Initially, it was necessary. But today everyone knows how they are supposed to behave. The shop stewards out in the workplaces should remain, but be named by the president of the division in consultation with the Gauleiter." Schröder then leaped to Dorpmüller's assistance and stated bluntly that the Führerstab had to be dissolved or Hess would gain excessive influence over the Reichsbahn.[66] The committee merely agreed to change the composition of the Führerstab. For Dorpmüller, this was inadequate. He wrote a letter to Eltz that day complaining of the indiscipline being caused in the Reichsbahn by Nazi agitation. Eltz brought the matter before Hess and Martin Bormann. Hess agreed to dissolve the Führerstab.[67] The compromise with the Nazi Party that Dorpmüller had proposed in May 1933 was finally concluded in September 1934. The Reichsbahn would manage its own internal affairs. In return, it would implement the party's ideological dictates and conform to the government's economic and military policies. This compromise would be observed by both sides until the collapse of the Third Reich.
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