Ostbahn (General Government)

[1][2] The trains were used to cleanse and resettle interwar Poland with the German-speaking colonists in the name of "Lebensraum",[3] and played an essential role in the mass deportations of Jews to extermination camps during the Holocaust.

[4] In November 1939, as soon as the semi-colonial General Government was set up in occupied central Poland, a separate branch of DRB called Generaldirektion der Ostbahn (Kolej Wschodnia in Polish) was established with headquarters called GEDOB in Kraków;[4] all of the DRB branches existed outside Germany proper.

[6] In December 1939, on the request of Hans Frank in Berlin, the Ostbahndirektion was given financial independence after paying back 10 million Reichsmarks to DRB.

[8] The Polish management was either executed in mass shooting actions (see: the 1939 Intelligenzaktion and the 1940 German AB-Aktion in Poland) or imprisoned at the Nazi concentration camps.

[4] The new Eastern Division of DRB acquired 7,192 kilometres (4,469 mi) of new railway lines and 1,052 km of (mostly industrial) narrow gauge in the annexed areas.