Preliminary remark: Karl Hein was born on 20 February 1901 in Frankfurt/Main. After passing the one-year voluntary examination, he joined the Royal Prussian Railway Administration in Frankfurt in 1916, where he was initially employed in field service at railway stations and offices as well as in telegraph and radio service. In 1927 he won a prize at the 4th International Telegraph Competition in Como and obtained the Funkpatent I in Berlin. Great. From 1934 to 1941, he was responsible for drawing up express train timetables and bus traffic on Reichsautobahnen in the timetable department of the Reichsbahn Directorate in Frankfurt. Between 1941 and 1945 he organized the Wehrmacht vacation traffic and courier services at the Reich Ministry of Transport in Berlin. Immediately after World War II, Karl Hein was employed as a travel official at the Frankfurt regional office of the United States Zone in connection with U.S. Railway stations (Railway Grand Divisions and Second Military Railway Service), where he was responsible for rebuilding rail traffic. From 1947 until his retirement in 1964, he was employed in the operations department of the Head Office of the Railways (HVE), later the Head Office of the German Federal Railways (HVB), from 1947 until his retirement in 1964, and from 1948 as head of their travel agency. In this function, Karl Hein had the task of organising and supervising train journeys for high-ranking personalities, in particular heads of state and members of government, at home and abroad. Since he took part in these special train journeys himself, he came into personal contact with almost everything that had rank and name in the Federal Republic of the 50s. Among others he accompanied Theodor Heuss, Heinrich Lübke, Konrad Adenauer, Ludwig Erhard, Charles de Gaulle, Schah Reza Pahlevi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, Alcide de Gasperi, Emperor Haile Selassie I. of Ethiopia, King Paul I. of Greece, Archbishop Makarios, etc.The highlight of his career was undoubtedly his participation in Adenauer's trip to Moscow in 1955, which resulted in the establishment of diplomatic relations between Bonn and Moscow and the release of the German prisoners of war. For his work he received numerous awards, such as the Federal Cross of Merit and Officer's Crosses of Orders in Italy, Greece, Madagascar and Liberia. Karl Hein collected numerous memorabilia on his travels, especially postcards and photos, but also file material, invitation cards, travel programs etc. and kept them carefully, partly glued on photo cardboard and inscribed. This collection was donated by his daughter Lydia von Prondzynski, Bad Oberdorf, to the Ludwigsburg State Archives in 1991. It documents not only a special piece of railway history at a time when trains were still travelling as "rolling embassies" of statesmen through documents about technical details of the trains looked after by Karl Hein and about the condition of the routes travelled, but also allows a charming look behind the scenes of major state visits.The present stock PL 718, which comprises 0.4 linear m = 15 archive units, was ordered and indexed by the undersigned in February 1991. The computer-aided fair copy of the repertory was obtained by Hildegard Aufderklamm.Ludwigsburg, March 1991Leuchweis
