WW2 AERIAL RECON STUDIES
Western Front
Wehrmacht Hospital Trains, April 1945
The Wehrmacht operated hospital trains (Lazarettzüge) that were used both as field medical facilities and medical transportation. As Germany neared collapse in 1945 aerial reconnaissance revealed a number of these in use, suggesting the dire situation facing the Army
On 9 and 10 April 1945, seven trains were identified in Germany and, northern Austria, offering a near-synoptic look of the train’s locations and activities. For example, on 10th, hospital trains were seen at Weiden, Schwandorf, Regensburg and Ravensburg, all in southeast Germany (Graphics).
Also in April, hospital trains were identified in the vicinity Halberstadt and Bad Wilsnack In central and northern Germany, respectively. On 8 April a hospital train was at a siding 13 km west of Halberstadt and on the 13th another was headed east in the direction of Bad Wilsnack—the site of a major hospital. On the 14th, a 15-car train set was identified at a siding in southeast Berlin. In Austria, a total of 45 hospital cars were in the main rail yard at Linz on 1 April (Graphic).
Other hospital train Sightings:
• Meschade (25 March)
• Prague (25 March)
• Potsdam 24 March)
• Eberswalde 24 March)
• Hanover/Lehrte (21 March)
• Dresden (15 March)
• Braunschweig (7 February)
• Bergen-Belsen (16 September 1944)
• Königsberg (13 August 1944
• Swinemunde ( 7 & 13 August 1944)
• Radom, Poland (27 July 1944)
It is noteworthy that all of the train sets were smaller than the specified Wehrmacht complement of 37 E-30 hospital cars (according to Lexikon der Wehrmacht). In addition, most of the cars in maintenance facilities remained there for some time suggesting they were out of service. Locomotives were also affixed to trains at Weiden, Regensburg, Schwandorf, and Chemnitz-Limbach. The train at Ravensburg was likely Lazarettezug 662, which according to Lexikon der Wehrmacht, arrived from Tübingen on 7 April and received damage from an air attack on the 10th.
Most of the towns where the trains were seen had permanent hospitals or a number of ad hoc medical facilities --all identified by red crosses on roofs. The temporary hospitals were often housed in schools (Graphic). Regensburg had a large central hospital supplemented by six temporary ones.