Kurt Wilhelm Albert Karl Agricola (15 August 1889 – 27 December 1955) was a general in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II who held senior level occupational rear-security commands in the occupied Soviet Union. A native of Saxony, Agricola entered army service in 1908 and served during World War I. During the interwar era, he held staff assignments and continued to rise through the army's ranks in the Wehrmacht of the German Reich. His career stalled in January 1939, when he was sent into retirement on political grounds because of his marriage to Martha born Hahn, a Jewish woman. Reactivated again upon the start of World War II, Agricola received exclusively positions behind the front line. As rear area commander of the 2nd Army in the occupied Soviet union during 1941–43, Agricola brought changes in the Wehrmacht's harsh occupation policies and was successful in maintaining control of his area of occupied territory from Soviet partisans. Shortly after the war's end, he was arrested by Soviet authorities, convicted of war crimes and remained in captivity for a decade. One of the last German prisoners in the Soviet Union, he was released in October 1955 and died shortly thereafter in West Germany.
Early life and World War I
Kurt Agricola was born in Döbeln, then in the Kingdom of Saxony, on 15 August 1889, into a Saxon family that traced its roots back in the 16th century. He was the second and youngest son of Lieutenant Colonel Rudolf Ernst Bernard Agricola (3 October 1860 – 29 July 1914), an officer of the Royal Saxon Army with the Garrison Administration of Dresden, and Elisabeth Emilie Anna, née von Drenkmann (14 May 1865 – 23 October 1937), daughter of the President of the Prussian Court of Appeal and Crown Syndic, Edwin Waldemar Balduin Friedrich von Drenkmann (1826–1904). He had an older brother, Werner Agricola (19 August 1887 – 29 June 1962).Gothaisches genealogisches Taschenbuch der adeligen Häuser: zugleich Adelsmatrikel der im Ehrenschutzbunde des deutschen Adels vereinigten Verbände Teil 2 (in German). Justus Perthes Verlag 1941, p. 134; David V. Agricola (1974): Agricola family history; a genealogy of the Ackermann–Agricola and Bauer–Agricola families of Eisenach, Thüringen, 1574–1974. Cleveland
Following his father's career, 18-year–old Agricola entered army service on 1 April 1908 as officer candidate in the 12th Royal Saxon Infantry Regiment No. 177 in Dresden.Wegner, Stellenbesetzung, p. xxi He was commissioned a Leutnant (Second Lieutenant) on 19 August 1909.Bradley, Hildebrand and Röverkamp, Die Generale des Heeres 1921–1945 Band 1, p. 23–24 The following years, he served primarily as adjutant, a function that was given to capable officers and gave an early advancement potential within the army. It was obvious that Agricola pursued a distinguished career as staff officer, and (typically for officers with his aims, who participated in specialized courses) attended a weapon repairs course in late 1913.Hürter, Hitlers Heerführer, p. 54
When World War I broke out, Agricola was mobilized along with his regiment, just a few days after the death of his father. Agricola served mostly at the Western front, and although he never received a troop command throughout the war (only staff assignments), this indicated that he was destined for a more ambitious career than most of his fellow troop officers; he became Adjutant of a battalion in his regiment on 2 August 1914, participated in the battle of the Marne in September and was promoted to Oberleutnant (First Lieutenant) in December. In early January 1915 he served as the regimental Adjutant of his pre–war regiment until August 1916, when he was temporarily elevated to Brigade Adjutant. In that capacity, he saw action at the Battle of the Somme, where he distinguished himself numerous times. On 9 January 1917 he was transferred to the staff of the 219th (10th Royal Saxon) Infantry Division, occupying a relatively quiet sector of the front line in Lorraine. A few weeks later, on 27 January, he was promoted to Hauptmann (Captain) and four days later, the last King of Saxony, Frederick Augustus III, bestowed him with one of Saxony's highest decorations, the Military Order of St. Henry, in recognition of his conduct during the battle of Somme the previous year. He received his last wartime assignment on 25 May 1917, when he was transferred to the staff of the XII (1st Royal Saxon) Corps.Richter, Der Königlich Sächsische Militär-St. Heinrichs-Orden 1736–1918, p. 123
Becoming a staff officer — a group considered the élite of the German Army — required a three–year course at the War Academy in Berlin after some years of active service.Hürter, Hitlers Heerführer, p. 55–56 Agricola's ambition to become a staff officer, however, was thwarted by the war, as the War Academy closed upon its outbreak. Apart from his relevant staff appointments, he had the chance to participate in a special staff officers course from January to February 1918. During the course of war, he was decorated with numerous awards, including both classes of the Iron Cross and other awards from his native Saxony.
Interwar period
Following the end of World War I in November 1918, Agricola was retained in the Reichswehr holding a variety of staff roles. He was promoted to major in 1928. From 1927 to 1930, he commanded a company of the 10th Infantry Regiment. In February 1930 he returned to the staff of Gruppenkommando 1 and in 1931 to that of the 4th Division, where, as an Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) from 1932, he saw the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933. Soon thereafter, in July 1934, he received his promotion to Oberst (Colonel), and after a two-month transfer in the Command of the Wehrkreis (Military District) IV (Dresden) he was named commander of the Infantry Regiment Breslau in 1934 and retained his command after it was redesignated as the 49th Infantry Regiment on 15 October 1935.Wegner, Stellenbesetzung der Deutschen Heere 1815–1939 Band 2, p. 508
Arguably, Agricola could hope, at the time, that he would have a successful career in the ongoing re–organization of the new armed forces of Germany — the Wehrmacht. Besides his tenure of multiple staff positions, Agricola also received very positive reports from his superiors; he was praised as "very talented", and described as an "especially reliable staff officer", "an excellent regimental commander", while it was noted in most of his assignments that he performed brilliantly at his position.Hartmann, Wehrmacht im Ostkrieg, p. 165 Nonetheless, his hopeful career soon started to fade away. On 12 October 1937, he was named commander of Heeresdienststelle 3, a rather obscure unit tasked with guarding the eastern borders of the Third Reich;Absolon, Wehrgesetz und Wehrdienst 1935–1945, p. 72 during this time, his superiors observed that "sometimes he underestimated his great concern for the troops", an indication of his caring leadership style.Hartmann, Wehrmacht im Ostkrieg, p. 185 On 1 January 1938 he was promoted to Generalmajor (Major General), but no higher commands awaited him: on 10 October 1938 he was named Landwehr Commander in Oppeln (present-day Opole in Poland) and simultaneously given the command over the fortifications of the city. In his function as Landwehr commander, he had attend to the organization and the training of older reservists (35–45 years of age), some of them veterans of World War I.Kroener, Müller and Umbreit: Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg Band 5/1, p. 710 This was a backwater post for an officer such as Agricola, whose once–promising career came finally to an abrupt end on 31 January 1939, when he, 49 years old at the time, retired from the army and was simultaneously given the honorary rank (Charakter) of a Generalleutnant (Lieutenant General).
The reason for Agricola's retirement was never officially disclosed and remained a puzzling question, until his chief of staff testified in 1967 that the ground was that Agricola's wife was Jewish. For a staunchly antisemitic regime such as the Nazi one, and with the implementation of racial laws, marriage with a Jewish woman could be a threat to an officer's career as well as life. His personal papers indirectly reveal that Agricola had been put on watchlist for racial reasons. Soon, his own ancestry came under official, if indirect, investigation. Initially, Agricola was asked to prove (and was able to do so) his "Aryan" ancestry (up until his great–grandfathers) in 1937. As the effect of the Nazi racial policies became more dangerous to the life of his wife and the couple's children — naturally classified as Mischlinge — Agricola was forced to divorce his wife Martha, who afterwards fled with her son Wilhelm to Brazil. Agricola also sent their other children to the Bethel Institution in Bielefeld for their own protection.Hartmann, Wehrmacht im Ostkrieg, p. 165–166
In 1939, Agricola also published the book Der rote Marschall. Tuchatschewskis Aufstieg und Fall (The Red Marshal. Tukhachevsky's Rise and Fall), an account of the career of Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who was executed during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge in 1937. This publication revealed, among others, that Agricola was a convinced Anti-bolshevist.Hartmann, Wehrmacht im Ostkrieg, p. 148
World War II Agricola's retirement was short-lived, as on 1 September 1939 Nazi Germany invaded Poland, marking the start of World War II in Europe, and Agricola was reactivated and appointed as commander of the city of Oppeln. There he spent the following two years on an inactive front, witnessing the Invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941.
Rear security operations in the Soviet Union (1941–1943)
With the Battle of Moscow and the Soviet counter-offensive of the winter of 1941/42, the rear security of the occupied territory was considered by the German High Command of paramount importance, given how stretched the Wehrmacht's supply lines were. The resistance movement and the Soviet partisans, reinforced by Red Army soldiers who had evaded capture when their units were destroyed during the initial stages of the invasion, posed the most essential threat to the control of the areas behind the front. The main formations tasked with the protection of the supply lines and the destruction of the partisans were the Korück (acronym for Kommandant rückwärtiges Armeegebiet, Commander of the Rear Area Army Territory).Hartmann, Wehrmacht im Ostkrieg, p. 388–389
Agricola was appointed Korück 580, in the rear area of the 2nd Army, with headquarters in Kromy on 19 December 1941, with the battle for Moscow in full swing, succeeding the 64-year old Generalleutnant Ludwig Müller (who had requested his relief because of a heart ailment). Besides holding a command that lacked probability of advancement or distinction — being far behind the front — Agricola had to deal with immense problems as soon as he took over the appointment. Korück 580 was the sole formation responsible for the protection of approximately 37,000 km2 of occupied territory, 800 km of railway (including the vital Kursk–Oryol line), 500 km of roads and 320 bridges. The forces at the Korück's disposal were insufficient for such a task, merely 800 men of questionable fighting value who had to operate in difficult winter conditions. Opposing Agricola's forces were 2,000 to 2,500 armed partisans.Hartmann, Wehrmacht im Ostkrieg, p. 387–389