The Bavarian Group Administration or ''Gruppenverwaltung Bayern'' was a largely autonomous railway administration within the

Deutsche Reichsbahn The ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'', also known as the German National Railway, the German State Railway, German Reich Railway, and the German Imperial Railway, was the German national railway system created after the end of World War I from the regiona ...

(German Imperial Railways) between the two

world wars A world war is an international conflict which involves all or most of the world's major powers. Conventionally, the term is reserved for two major international conflicts that occurred during the first half of the 20th century, World WarI (1914 ...

. It was formed on 1 April 1920 from the former Bavarian State Railways, and was unique,

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

being the only former German state to have such status after the merger of the seven state railway companies into the Reichsbahn. The rest of

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

was simply divided into various regional Reichsbahn railway divisions. The Bavarian Group Administration itself also had four railway divisions:

Augsburg Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

and Regensburg which reported to it and not, as in the rest of Germany, to the Reichsbahn directly. The former Palatinate Railway formed the Ludwigshafen division. On 1 October 1933, as the only group administration within the Deutsche Reichsbahn, the ''Gruppenverwaltung Bayern'', was disbanded. Between 1920 and about 1924 when the

Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft The ''Deutsche Reichsbahn'', also known as the German National Railway, the German State Railway, German Reich Railway, and the German Imperial Railway, was the German national railway system created after the end of World War I from the regiona ...

was created as a company to run the railways, wagons of the Bavarian Group Administration continued to display the blue and white Bavarian state shield.

Sources

* Geschäftsordnung der Deutschen Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft, ss. 14, 15, 20, 21 und 24 (Regulations of the Deutsche Reichsbahn-Gesellschaft, Section III, paragraphs 14, 15, 20, 21 and 24). Se

Sources

See also