A similar attempt failed in 1875 as a result of opposition from the middle powers when Albert von Maybach presented a draft Reich Railway Act to the Bundesrat.

In the wake of the stipulations of the Weimar Constitution of 11 August 1919, the state treaty on the foundation of the Deutsche Reichseisenbahnen ("German Reich Railways") came into force on 1 April 1920.

This resulted in the merger of the existing state railways (Länderbahnen) of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Württemberg, Baden, Mecklenburg and Oldenburg under the newly formed German Reich.

Nevertheless, the Great Depression and the regular payment of war reparations (about 660 million Reichsmarks annually) put a considerable strain on the Reichsbahn.

In fact, the DRG was unable to procure new stock in the numbers it wanted to both for financial reasons and due to delays in upgrading the lines to carry higher axle loads.

The high-speed lines at that time were on the Prussian Eastern Railway which ran through the Polish corridor (albeit slower there due to the poor state of the tracks), the lines from Berlin to Hamburg, via Hanover to the Ruhrgebiet, via Frankfurt am Main to southwest Germany, on which the diesel express trains ran, and the Silesian Railway from Berlin to Breslau (now Wrocław).

Within the state of Bavaria, the Bavarian Group Administration (Gruppenverwaltung Bayern) had its head office (Zentrales Maschinen- und Bauamt) and was largely independent by § III 14 of the DRG's company regulations.

Confounding German plans, the Red Army and Soviet railways managed to withdraw or destroy the majority of its rolling stock during its retreat.

Characteristic of the first six and a half years of this period was the exponential growth of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, which was almost exclusively due to the takeover of other national railways.

These movements using cattle wagons from the goods station of the great Frankfurt Market Hall, for example, thus played a significant role in the genocide within the extermination machinery of the Holocaust.

[13][14] The following is an excerpt from the testimony of Holocaust scholar Raul Hilberg: The Reichsbahn was ready to ship in principle any cargo in return for payment.

Deaths in the wagons were frequent among the young, old, sick, and disabled, especially as travel was slow and often lasted many days since the trains had low priority on the tracks.

Their small amount of luggage was stored separately, sometimes at the station and never left with the train, but examined for valuables which were stolen or resold for profit.

The Allied forces of Occupation were put in charge and instantly had myriad problems regarding food, lack of housing, fuel, displaced persons and people on the move.

The Engineering Corps of British and American forces oversaw the partial rebuilding of the lines and cars with local labour from prisoners of war, rubble women, and de-mobilized soldiers.

Deutschebahn had a critical shortage of wagons, carriages and locomotives, so much so that the US gave war surplus engines to ensure the movement of freight.

With the end of the Second World War in 1945 those parts of the Deutsche Reichsbahn that were outside the new German borders laid down in the Potsdam Agreement were transferred to the ownership and administration of the states in whose territory they were situated.

The Reichsbahn divisions of Essen, Hamburg, Hanover, Cologne, Münster (Westfalen) and Wuppertal were grouped into the Reichsbahn-Generaldirektion in the British Zone under Director General Max Leibbrand in Bielefeld.

The Soviet zone of occupation became a self-declared socialist state, the German Democratic Republic (commonly known as East Germany), on 7 October 1949.

On the formation of East Germany on 7 October 1949, the railway system in the Soviet Zone retained the name Deutsche Reichsbahn (DR), despite the connotations of the word "Reich".

This was due to the designation of the Reichsbahn in postwar treaties and military protocols as the railway operator in West Berlin, a role it retained until the creation of the unified DBAG at the beginning of 1994.

To conform to the formation of the Bizone in 1946 the Head Office of the Railways of the American and British Occupation Regions (Hauptverwaltung der Eisenbahnen des amerikanischen und britischen Besatzungsgebiets) was created.

The production, conversion and development of steam locomotives initially continued in earnest; older, especially ex-Länderbahn classes being rationalised and withdrawn from service.

A major conversion (Rekonstruktion) programme to update steam locomotives and rectify flawed, mainly wartime austerity, classes was carried out in the 1950s.

Initially the two railway administrations continued to operate separately, albeit with increasing cooperation, and in 1994 they were merged to form the new Deutsche Bahn.