Main Railway Directorate of Army Group Center

Collection

Holding institution (official language):: Национальный архив Республики Беларусь

Title (official language):: ГЛАВНАЯ ЖЕЛЕЗНОДОРОЖНАЯ ДИРЕКЦИЯ ГРУППЫ АРМИЙ «ЦЕНТР»

Scope and content:: Pertaining to Jewish history in the fond are particular documents and file fragments, including orders (13 and 24 November 1941) of the military commander of Belorussia, Major Gen. Gustav von Bechtolsheim, on how the Jewish population was to be treated; and the same official’s operations report on the mass shooting of Jews in the Uzliany-Rudensk district on 8 October 1941; statements of the director of the security police (German: Schutzpolizei) of Belorussia Eberhard Herf to the Main Railway Directorate of Army Group Center on the subject of transporting Jews from Germany to Belorussia and on scheduling the railway transport of Jews from Germany and Poland to Belorussia (1941-42); information on acts of “sabotage” on the railroads, and on the executions of Jews and POWs suspected of having committed them (1941-43), and on wages and nutritional standards for Jewish workers (1942); orders of the Reich Ministry of Railways and correspondence on the distribution of antisemitic propaganda (1942-44).

Administrative/biographical history:: Army Group Center (German: Heeresgruppe Mitte) was an operational-strategic formation of Wehrmacht troops during the Second World War commanded (1941-43) by Gen. Field Marshal Günther von Kluge. The Main Railway Directorate of Army Group Center began operations in the territory of occupied Belorussia in June 1941. It was located in Minsk. It was originally one of the four main railway directorates of the Eastern Railways Administration (German: Betriebsleitung Osten beim Chef des Transportwesens) in Warsaw, and was subordinate to Gen. Rudolf Gercke, director of the Wehrmacht military transport service. In January 1942, a special Military Directorate of Railways (German: Feldbetriebsleitung beim Chef des Transportwesens) was ordered established in Warsaw; the Main Railway Directorate of Army Group Center in Minsk was also subordinate to this military directorate. The Main Railway Directorate of Army Group Center in Minsk was tasked with ensuring the uninterrupted railway transport of Wehrmacht personnel and equipment, maintaining the railways in good working condition, combating sabotage and partisan attacks on military echelons and railway stations, and employing local personnel to service rail transport operations. It ceased to exist in July 1944 upon the liberation of Belorussia from Nazi occupation.

Subject terms:: Antisemitism; Antisemitism--Antisemitic propaganda; Correspondence; Forced labour (of Jews); Holocaust; Holocaust--Deportation; Holocaust--Rescue and resistance; Law enforcement; Mass murder; Occupation (military)

System of arrangement:: The fond includes a single inventory systematized according to the structural-chronological principle.