The Kharkov railwayman and the Reichsbahn

When von Reichenau's 6th Army takes Kharkov on 24 October 1941, it seizes one of the most important rail junctions in the USSR, commanding the links between Crimea, the Caucasus, the Dnieper and the Donbass. To move munitions, fuel and reinforcements, the Wehrmacht must keep the network running. But the Soviet track gauge has to be converted and staff are lacking: the Germans put the local railwaymen back to work under the authority of the Deutsche Reichsbahn.

For a railwayman who has stayed in Kharkov, the question is vital. The military administration confiscates food on a massive scale: by January 1942, a third of the roughly 300,000 inhabitants are suffering from hunger, and winter kills through the cold. A job with the Reichsbahn promises a ration card and a wage, but that wage buys almost nothing in an emptied market, and Eastern workers are paid far below the Germans.

Volunteering is only a façade: quotas, round-ups, deportation to Germany as Ostarbeiter, of whom Ukraine would supply the largest share. Working on the spot can for a time protect against deportation; refusing means risking the round-up or hunger. And the Soviets regard as suspect anyone who has passed under enemy administration: after the reconquest, the NKVD's "filtration" (interrogations, screening camps, sometimes the Gulag) awaits the civilians returning from occupied territory.