THE NSKK OF THE NSDAP Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps “National Socialist Motor Corps” The Original 1944 SHAEF Study

The National Socialist Motor Corps (German: Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps, NSKK) was a paramilitary organisation of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) that officially existed from May 1931 to 1945. The group was a successor organisation to the older National Socialist Automobile Corps (NSAK), which had existed since April 1930.

With the outbreak of World War II in Europe on 1 September 1939, the National Socialist Motor Corps became a target for army recruitment, since NSKK members possessed knowledge of motorised transport, a coveted skill when the bulk of German ground forces relied on horses. The NSKK was used to transport German Army troops, supplies and ammunition. By the time the Second World War began, the NSKK had already trained some 200,000 men at its 21 training facilities.
During field operations in the Eastern Front, the NSKK members of the Transport Brigade Speer followed Army Group South, providing infrastructural backup and replenishment. Members of the Transport Brigade Speer wore either the gray-blue uniform of the Luftwaffe or the brown uniform of Speer’s staff. NSKK men working for Organisation Todt became members of the “NSKK Transport Brigade Todt”, which were 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 covered 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 Organisation Todt, operating in France, Italy and Russia.Historian Peter Longerich suggests that members of the NSKK along with the paramilitary police, the Waffen-SS, and the German Army were all culpable in varying degrees for large-scale arrests, torture, and mass executions.