The Korück (short for Kommandant rückwärtiges Armeegebiet), were the staff of various units of varying sizes assigned to the

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...

Armeeoberkommando ''Armeeoberkommando'' ("Army Higher Command"; AOK) was a command level in the German and Austro-Hungarian armies, especially during the World War I and World War II. It was equivalent to a British, French, American, Italian, Japanese, or Imperial ...

. In military jargon, “Korück” did not only stand for the corresponding agency but usually also for the entire rear army area, which was subordinate to this agency, often also for the entire military unit of this agency. Each rear army area was identified by a number. For example, after the

Operation Barbarossa Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...

, Korück 582 was given the task of controlling the 9th Army's rear area at the time when its greatest expansion covered around 27,000 km² with more than 1,500 villages around

Vyazma Vyazma (russian: Вя́зьма) is a town and the administrative center of Vyazemsky District in Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Vyazma River, about halfway between Smolensk, the administrative center of the oblast, and Mozhaysk. Thr ...

. The units of Korück 582 had a staff of 1,700 men. The Korück was responsible for securing the supply routes and "pacifying" the occupied area. For this purpose, it was given security divisions (''Sicherungs-Division''), Territorial Guard (''Landesschützen'') battalions, field (''Feld''-) and local command offices (''Ortskommandanturen'') and field gendarmerie units ('' Feldgendarmerie'') as well as units of the secret field police ('' Geheimen Feldpolizei''). The transit camps for prisoners of war ( Dulag) were usually controlled by Korücks. The tasks of the Korücks changed with the situation in the war. During the retreat of the Wehrmacht some Korücks, such as Korück 594 in Italy, were given the task to maintain order, prevent the spread of

panic Panic is a sudden sensation of fear, which is so strong as to dominate or prevent reason and logical thinking, replacing it with overwhelming feelings of anxiety and frantic agitation consistent with an animalistic fight-or-flight reactio ...

and fight in its defensive positions to the last man.

Hannes Heer Hans Georg Heer (known as ''Hannes'') (born 16 March 1941) is a German historian, chiefly known for the ''Wehrmachtsausstellung'' (German: "Wehrmacht Exhibition") in the 1990s. While controversial at that time, the exhibition is nowadays widely c ...

, Klaus Neumann (ed.): ''Vernichtungskrieg. Verbrechen der Wehrmacht. Hamburg'' 1995, ,

References

{{Reflist Wehrmacht Military units and formations of the Wehrmacht Military units and formations of the German Army in World War II

See also

References