The Reichsbahnzentrale für den Deutschen Reiseverkehr (RDV) was established in Berlin in April 1920 as the "Reichszentrale für deutsche Verkehrswerbung e. V.", a promotional entity founded by the Deutsche Reichsbahn to stimulate rail-based tourism. In 1928, it was reconstituted as a limited liability company ("G.m.b.H."), with the Reichsbahn as its sole shareholder. The organization retained its original acronym and the winged-wheel emblem, a symbol of modern mobility, throughout its operational history.
Operating at the intersection of graphic design, advertising, and state-sponsored propaganda, the RDV commissioned posters, brochures, and promotional materials that distilled the visual language of the Weimar Republic’s "Neue Sachlichkeit" and "Jugendstil" into mass-reproducible imagery.
Its output emphasized the sublime landscapes of Germany and Central Europe, rendered in bold chromolithography or offset printing, often juxtaposing industrial infrastructure, bridges, viaducts, locomotives, with idealized natural vistas. The posters functioned as both travel incentives and cultural artifacts, reflecting the period’s tension between technological progress and romanticized escapism.
The RDV’s graphic production became a touchstone for later German and Central European poster art, particularly in its synthesis of typography, photomontage, and painterly illustration. Its influence extended to the "Bauhaus" and "Neue Typographie" movements, where the RDV’s emphasis on functional clarity and visual hierarchy was adopted and radicalized. Postwar German and Austrian tourism campaigns frequently revisited the RDV’s formal strategies, though stripped of its original nationalist undercurrents.
