Customer Reviews

The Most Valuable Asset of the Reich: A History of the German National Railway Volume 1, 1920-1932 (v. 1)

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A. C. Mierzejewski has provided an extremely useful insight into the workings of the Reichsbahn for a time period not well understood by many on both sides of the Atlantic. He does a good job of relating the internal railway business matters with the politics of the time, and shows an understanding of the broad variety of subjects that were interacting.

As sometimes is the case with histories, this book will not only provide the obvious aid in understanding what came next, but could also be recommended for reading by people who are working with the former COMECON countries. The author shows much about the "inside" reaction against pressure from outside for reform.

The book also will be useful for those of us working in public transit or government-owned railways, as it deals with many of the issues that we cope with today-- just made more extreme, and therefore visible, by the circumstances of the Weimar years.

The book would have merited 5 stars if it had a few more maps to support specific chapters. If a reader does not have a good handle on German geography, the book could still be educational, but I would recommend having a map of Weimar Germany handy to best understand some points.