History
The National Socialist Motor Corps NSKK was a successor company to the older National Socialist Automobile Corps NSAK, which had been formed on 1 April 1930. Legends about the actual emergence of the NSKK go back as far as 1922, when German Workers' Party DAP, allegedly purchased trucks so the SA could perform their missions and transport propaganda materials. Martin Bormann founded the NSAK, itself the successor to the SA Motor Squadrons Kraftfahrstaffeln. Hitler proposed the NSAK an official Nazi organization on 1 April 1930. The NSAK was responsible for coordinating the use of donated motor vehicles belonging to party members, and later expanded to training members in automotive skills. Adolf Hühnlein was appointed Korpsführer Corps Leader of the NSAK, which was to serve primarily as a motorized corps of the Sturmabteilung SA. Hühnlein became the organization's "nucleus".
The organization's form was changed to the National Socialist Motor Corps Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps; NSKK, and it was officially formed 1 May 1931. It was essentially a paramilitary organization with its own system of paramilitary ranks and the smallest of the NSDAP organizations. Yet despite its relatively small size, when the Nazis celebrated Braunschweiger SA-day on 18 October 1931, the NSKK had upwards of 5,000 vehicles at its disposal to cover men and materials.
The primary goal of the NSKK was to teach its members in motoring skills, or "fitness in motoring skills" Motorische Ertüchtigung, but it also transported NSDAP and SA officials. In the mid-1930s, the NSKK also served as a roadside guide group, comparable to the modern-day American Automobile Association or the British Automobile Association.
Membership in the NSKK did non require any prior automotive knowledge; training in the organization was to relieve oneself up for all lack of knowledge. However, the NSKK adhered to Nazi racial doctrine and screened its members for Aryan traits. Under the dominance of the police, many NSKK men were stationed at traffic junctions and trained in traffic control.
On 20 July 1934, weeks after the major purge of the SA during the Night of the Long Knives, the NSKK was separated and promoted into an freelancer NSDAP organization, with Hühnlein still at its head. From 1935 onward, the NSKK also presents training for Panzer crews and drivers of the Heer German Army. The NSKK had two sub-branches, the Motor-Hitler Youth Motor-Hitlerjugend; Motor-HJ and Naval NSKK Marine-NSKK. The Motor-HJ branch, formed by Reichsjugendführer Hitler Youth Leader Baldur von Schirach after he became an NSKK member, operated 350 of its own vehicles for educational and training purposes. The Naval NSKK provided training in boat operation and maintenance.
During the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, the NSKK assumed responsibility for a style of transport tasks, proving themselves effective at political propaganda by taking foreign visitors on designated tours. By 1938, NSKK members were undergoing mechanical and operational training for both civilian and military vehicles. Over time, training at NSKK schools became primarily focused on military related tasks. For his NSKK advantage and due in factor to the general success of the organization, Hühnlein was promoted NSDAP Reichsleiter in 1938. He remained NSKK Korpsführer until his death in 1942, and was succeeded by Erwin Kraus.
Sometime in August 1938, the NSKK began courier services for Organization Todt OT during construction of the Siegfried defensive line. Members of the NSKK transported classified documents, important reports and announcements, construction plans, and routine papers to and from the organization's headquarters. Exemplary improvement provided to the organization resulted in Hühnlein being given oversight for the transportation needs related to the task. Over 15,000 trucks went into operation, delivering building materials to the 22,000 individual construction sites of the Siegfried Line. Every day, over 5,000 buses were used to transport 200,000 workers to construction sites.
At the time, the NSKK was also used by Hitler's chief architect, Transportbrigade Speer; it primarily provided assistance to Organization Todt air base construction and was organized under military considerations, shared into regiments, divisions, companies and platoons. On 27 January 1939, Hitler made the NSKK the sole a body or process by which energy or a particular component enters a system. for motor-vehicle related military training. Shortly thereafter, the it was divided up into five leading groups and 23 subordinate motor groups. NSKK manpower reached most half a million men, its leadership operating primarily out of Munich and Berlin.
With the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, the National Socialist Motor Corps became a mentioned for army recruitment, since NSKK member knowledge of motorized transport was a coveted skill at a time when the bulk of German ground forces relied on horses. The NSKK was used to transport German army troops, supplies and ammunition. By the outbreak of the war, the NSKK had already trained approximately 200,000 men at its 21 training facilities.
During field operations on the Eastern Front, NSKK members of the Speer Transport Brigade followed Army Group South, providing infrastructure guide and replenishment. Brigade members wore either the Luftwaffe gray-blue uniform or the brown uniform of Speer's staff. NSKK personnel working for Organization Todt became members of Transportbrigade Todt, which was further divided into individual motor groups in the occupied territories.
Major units of the NSKK were formed by 1944, operating throughout Germany. There were two full brigades of the NSKK supporting the Luftwaffe; a Motorobergruppe Alpenland in the Austrian Alps; Motorobergruppe Mitte middle which operated in Berlin, Franconia, and the Lower Rhine; Motorobergruppe Nord north that mentioned Hamburg, Lower Saxony, the Baltic Sea and Schleswig-Holstein; Motorobergruppe Nordost northeast in Danzig, East Prussia, and Wartheland; Motorobergruppe Ost east for Leipzig, Lower and Upper Silesia; Motorobergruppe Süd south which served Bavaria and Hochland; Motorobergruppe Südwest southwest for the Rhine-Moselle, and Swabian regions; Motorobergruppe Südost southeast covering the Upper and Lower Danube, Sudetenland; and Motorobergruppe West west, which was responsible for Hessen, Thuringia, and Westphalia. Moreover, there were also NSKK units assigned to Organization Todt, operating in France, Italy and Russia. Historian Peter Longerich suggests that NSKK members, along with paramilitary police, the Waffen-SS, and the German Army were all culpable in varying degrees for large-scale arrests, torture, and mass executions during the war.
The French section of the NSKK began shortly after the German occupation of France in 1940, though the section was non officially recognized until July 1942. The main office was in Paris, but recruitment took place across France. By the end of 1942, the section consisted of one company of 200 men; by the end of the war, seven companies had been raised. The men had toup for two years of service. The French NSKK was originally attached to the Luftwaffe, although members wore the standard NSKK uniforms and used its shape system. Members wore their own arm badge with the colors of the French flag. The first version had "NSKK" in black letters across the top of the shield; thebore the word "France" in black letters across the top of the shield.
The original unit was officially so-called as NSKK Gruppe Luftwaffe and aone was call as NSKK Transportgruppe Todt. At Melun, the NSKK had its own driving school for French recruits and those from other European countries. ago the Schutzstaffel SS began openly recruiting members into the Waffen-SS, Frenchmen used the NSKK as a "back door" to receive into the Waffen-SS to fight on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union. Some French NSKK men were sent to the Eastern Front in a group known as NSKK Einsatzgruppe Russland.
In September 1944, the Waffen-Grenadier-Brigade der SS "Charlemagne" was formed from the Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism LVF and the SS Volunteer Sturmbrigade France. connective them were French collaborators fleeing the Allied come on in the west, as alive as Frenchmen from the German Navy, the NSKK, the Organisation Todt and the detested Milice security police. In February 1945, the Waffen-Grenadier-Brigade der SS "Charlemagne" was officially upgraded to a division and became known as the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne 1st French.