1944 Rybnik Wehrpaß: questions...

**huddyhuddy** · 01-12-2011, 08:14 AM

Hi,

Was hoping that more info can be located on this mans service and war duties. I loaded this WP before but back then was not enough info found.
I think he was working on the railways system, but not sure if civilian or army and if the late war service and close to the routes used by transport trais to camps, was he maybe assisting with traffic of trains?

Thanks,
Neil

**Espenlaub Militaria** · 01-12-2011 08:14 AM

We also buy and trade your items and full collections!

**hucks216** · 01-12-2011, 12:42 PM

There is no information recorded in the WP to determine what he may of done with regards to the railways. This man registered for military service in April 1944 (when the wehrpass was issued) and by the looks of his units page the only military service he saw was in WW 1. He was classed as 'useable' and assigned to Landsturm IA but other than that I don't think he saw any military service in WW2.

**huddyhuddy** · 01-12-2011, 01:41 PM

Thanks for the help.

**hucks216** · 01-13-2011, 04:25 PM

The definition of Landsturm I is 'trained, territorial, replacement reserves, aged over 45'.

**HPL2008** · 01-13-2011, 05:12 PM

His civilian occupation was "Eisenbahn-Ladeschaffner" (Roughly "Loading-Conductor"); this is a low-ranking railway official.

The job descricption, according to the 1931 duty regulations*, was as follows:

"(1) The Ladeschaffner's primary task is to take care of the correct acceptance and issuance of luggage and express goods, express freight and cargo, dead bodies**, livestock and milk. Furthermore, unless other personnel are assigned these tasks, he is to supervise the loading, transfer and unloading in the sheds and loading docks, to present declarable goods to customs and, where necessary, to take care of their further processing as well as taking care of other duties relating to the loading sector, especially the weighing of wagonloads and the connected tasks, the evaluation of the weight of bulk goods, the keeping of the car- and district control books and, on train processing duty, the transfer and acceptance of the trains according to the duty regulations for train supervisors.

(2) Along with the Lademeister (Loading Master), he is responsible for the correct execution of all loading duties. On local orders, he has to take over the Lademeister's duties as well."

*) Regulations taken from: DRG-Dienstanweisung für die Ladebeamten , translation by me.

**) Nothing sinister, here. This simply refers to the then-usual transfer of bodies for burial in more distant locations by rail.