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 regional railways of the individual states of the German Empire. The Deutsche Reichsbahn has been described as "the largest enterprise in the capitalist world in the years between 1920 and 1932"; nevertheless its importance "arises primarily from the fact that the Reichsbahn was at the center of events in a period of great turmoil in German history". Overview The company was founded on 1 April 1920 as the ("German Imperial Railways") when the Weimar Republic, which still used the nation-state term of the previous monarchy, (German Reich, hence the usage of the in the name of the railway; the monarchical term was ), took national control of the German railways, which had previously been run by the German states (Länderbahnen). In 1924 it was reorganised under the aegis of the ("German Imperial Railway Company", DRG), a nominally private railway company, which was 100% owned by the German state. In 1937 the railway was reorganised again as a state authority and given the name ("German Imperial Railway", DRB). After the in 1938 the DR also took over the ("Federal Railway of Austria", BBÖ). The East and West German states were founded in 1949. East Germany took over the control of the DR on its territory and continued to use the traditional name , while the railway in West Germany became the ("German Federal Railway", DB). The Austrian ("Austrian Federal Railways", ÖBB) was founded in 1945, and was given its present name in 1947. In January 1994, following German reunification, the East German merged with the West German to form Germany's new national carrier, ("German Rail", DBAG), technically no longer a government agency but still a 100% state-owned joint stock company. Deutsche Reichseisenbahnen (1920–1924) The first railways to be owned by the German Empire, which was founded in 1871, were the Imperial Railways in Alsace-Lorraine, whose Imperial General Division of Railways in Alsace-Lorraine () had its headquarters in Straßburg (now Strasbourg). It was formed after France had ceded the territory of Alsace-Lorraine in 1871 to the German Empire and the newly created Third French Republic had formally purchased the French Eastern Railway Company ( or ) and then sold it again to the German