The Breitspurbahn was a proposed railway system planned and partially surveyed by the Nazi government during the late 1930s and early 1940s.
The project envisioned a broad-gauge railway with a track width of 3,000 millimeters — or 9 feet and 10 1⁄8 inches — more than twice that of the standard-gauge railway used across western Europe. The system was planned to connect major cities within the planned Greater Germanic Reich and selected neighboring territories.
The concept emerged in a period when the German national railway system faced significant financial and infrastructure challenges. Following World War I, reparations obligations limited investment in track expansion and rolling stock maintenance. As economic activity increased after Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist German Workers Party came to power, freight and passenger demand further strained the existing railway network.
Adolf Hitler regarded the standard railway gauge as inadequate for the future needs of the German state. He believed that wider tracks would allow for higher-capacity trains, greater stability, and more imposing rolling stock. The proposed railway was conceived as a land-based equivalent to large ocean liners, reflecting the regime’s vision of a continental empire dependent on internal transportation rather than maritime trade.
The plan gained support from Fritz Todt, a German construction engineer and senior Nazi official, who proposed constructing a new imperial gauge railway system. Objections from railway engineers, who warned of technical difficulties and incompatibility with existing lines, were dismissed.
Initial routes were proposed between Hamburg, Berlin, Nuremberg, Munich, and Linz.
Several industrial firms, including Krauss Maffei, Henschel, Borsig, Brown Boveri and Company, and Krupp, were involved in preliminary planning. Despite continued work by officials and engineers during World War II, the project did not advance beyond surveys and conceptual design.
