German State Railway Confronts Holocaust Role

Germany's state railway company admitted the central role its Nazi-era predecessor played in the Holocaust yesterday, saying that without the cooperation of the network the systematic murder of millions of people would never have been possible.

Launching its first touring exhibition about the Holocaust, Deutsche Bahn (DB) said the tracks and freight of the Reichsbahn were integral to the Nazis' extermination plan. "Without the Reichsbahn the industrial murder of millions of people would not have been possible," said DB's in-house historian, Susanne Kill.

At least 3 million Jews and Roma - including 1.5 million children - were gathered from across Germany and Nazi-occupied Europe and transported on the Reichsbahn to extermination camps. Adult prisoners and children over four were even charged a fare, earning the railways millions of Reichsmarks. Trainloads of 400 or more, which amounted to massive overcrowding, received a 50% discount.

But the exhibition, whose title translates as Special Trains to Death and which opened in central Berlin's Potsdamer Platz, has been controversial.

The head of DB, Hartmut Mehdorn, long resisted the idea of showing it at a working railway station, lest it "put off" commuters from using the trains. But supporters said exhibiting it at a railway station would increase its impact and the numbers of people who saw it.

Yesterday the transport minister, Wolfgang Tiefensee, who pushed for the exhibition to proceed, told the Guardian: "I'm glad that people will be confronted with this topic in a public place on their way to or from work, because the question is still one for everyone, not just the railways to answer: 'how was it possible that people allowed such crimes to happen?'"