The Journal of Transport History No 2, 2013

Special Issue: Austro-German transport histories Christian Klösch, Verena Pawlowsky, Gordon Pirie: Austro-German transport histories Reinhold Bauer: A specifically German path to mass motorisation? Motorcycles in Germany between the World Wars After rapid growth of its motorcycle industry since the early 1920s, in the 1930s Germany became the world’s largest motorcycle producer and exporter. Furthermore, in 1933 Germany was the country with by far the highest motorcycle density in the world. The paper discusses the reasons for the role motorbikes played in the German path to mass motorisation in the interwar era. The central thesis is that specific economic and political conditions in Germany allowed motorcycles to become the dominant motorised form of individual transport in the period. Bettina Gundler: Promoting German automobile technology and the automobile industry: the Motor Hall at the Deutsches Museum, 1933-1945 During the period of National Socialism, the Deutsches Museum in Munich built a large Motor Hall, which became a kind of national motor museum within the largest German museum of science and technology. The project was supported by Hitler and the German automotive industry. The history of this project demonstrates the degree to which the Deutsches Museum could serve the purposes of National Socialist politics of motorisation and the German automobile industry during the Nazi era. The project also exemplifies the institutional and social constellations that led to the museum’s collaboration with the NS regime. Christian Klösch: The great auto theft: Confiscation and restitution of motorised vehicles in Austria during and after the Nazi period In March 1938 the National Socialists seized power in Austria. One of their first measures against the Jewish population was to confiscate their vehicles. In Vienna alone, a fifth of all cars were stolen from their legal owners, the greatest auto theft in Austrian history. Many benefited from the confiscations: the local population, the Nazi Party, the state and the army. Car confiscation was the first step to the ban on mobility for Jews in the German Reich. Some vehicles that survived World War II were given back to the families of the original owners. The research uses a new online database on Nazi vehicle seizures. Christopher Kopper: Germany’s National Socialist transport policy and the claim of modernity: reality or fake? The construction of the extensive motorway network by the Nazi regime has often been seen as a textbook example of a thorough motorisation policy. But the motorway construction took place under a transport policy that favoured public railroads at the expense of private road haulage companies. A strict regulation of freight rates prevented road hauliers from competing with railroads and gaining a greater share of the freight market. The division of administrative and planning competencies between the motor-minded enthusiasts around Hitler’s road builder Fritz Todt and the railroad lobby in the Ministry of Transport contributed to a contradictory motorisation policy. Not even the design of the German motorways was favourable to commercial road hauliers. The German Autobahn was built primarily for cars and ignored the needs of the trucking industry. Verena Pawlowsky: Luxury item or urgent commercial need? Occupational position and automobile ownership in 1930s Austria The possession of an automobile prior to the Second World War was still an elite phenomenon, and the number of registered automobiles was low. Europe was no exception, especially Austria. Unusually detailed numerical vehicle registration data nevertheless show the growing importance of motorists as a target for motor vehicle advertising and as objects of official statistics in the 1930s. The paper uses the information to examine the affordability of automobility at that period of transition, automobile sales strategies and the use made of cars by Austrians in different occupations. – – – Jennifer Clark, Graham Attenborough, Steve Mullins: Museum Reviews Jennifer Clark: The Single Ship Museum: Polly Woodside (Melbourne) The Mary Rose Museum (Portsmouth) Graham Attenborough Steve Mullins: Sailing to Marege: the Colin Jack-Hinton Maritime Gallery at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory – – – Marie-Noëlle Polino, Brian Bonhomme, Andy Bruno, et al.: Book Reviews Alfred Gottwaldt: Die Reichsbahn und die Juden, 1933-1939. Antisemitismus bei der Eisenbahn in der Vorkriegszeit [The German Railways and the Jews, 1933-1939. Antisemitism on the Railways in the Pre-War Period] (Marie-Noëlle Polino) John Randolph and Eugene M. Avrutin (eds.): Russia in Motion: Cultures of Human Mobility since 1850 (Brian Bonhomme) Lewis H. Siegelbaum, ed.: The Socialist Car: Automobility in the Eastern Bloc. (Andy Bruno) Andrew Ritchie: Quest For Speed: A History of Early Bicycle Racing 1868–1903. (Peter Cox) Peter Merriman: Mobility, Space and Culture (Sasha Disko) Ian J. Kerr and John Hurd II:  India’s Railway History: A Research Handbook. (Di Drummond) Gjert Lage Dyndal: Land Based Air Power or Aircraft Carriers? A Case Study of the British Debate about Maritime Air Power in the 1960s (Eric Grove) Kathryn A. Morrison and John Minnis: Carscapes: The Motor Car, Architecture, and Landscape in England. (David Jeremiah) Molly Berger: Hotel Dreams: Luxury, Technology, and Urban Ambition in America, 1829–1929 (Botakoz Kassymbekova) Gelina Harlaftis, Stig Tenold and Jesús Valadiso, eds: The World’s Key Industry: History and Economics of International Shipping (Andrew Lambert) Gordon Pirie: Cultures and Caricatures of British Imperial Aviation: Passengers, Pilots, Publicity (Peter Lyth) Alexander Badenoch and Andreas Fickers, eds: Materializing Europe: Transnational Infrastructures and the Project of Europe (Massimo Moraglio) Ruedi Weidmann (Michael Gasser and Nicole Graf, eds), Swissair Souvenirs (Benedikt Meyer) Scott Anthony and Oliver Gree:, British Aviation Posters: Art, Design, and Flight (Robert Morley) Don Leggett and Richard Dunn (eds), Re-inventing the Ship: Science, Technology and the Maritime World, 1800–1918 (Nathan Richards) Charles Loft: Last Trains: Dr Beeching and the Death of Rural England. (Nick Richardson) Robert McCloy: Travels in the Valleys (Nick Richardson) George Revill: Railway (Hiroki Shin) Guillermo Giucci: The Cultural Life of the Automobile (Rudi Volti) Ural Kalender: Die Geschichte der Verkehrsplanung Berlins [The History of Transport Planning in Berlin] (Martin Schiefelbusch)