Kurt Eggers

Kurt Eggers (10 November 1905 – 12 August 1943) was a German writer, poet, songwriter, and playwright with close links to the National Socialist German Workers Party. He served as both a member of a propaganda company (Propagandakompanie) and as a Waffen-SS soldier at the rank of Mann in World War II, he was killed while serving in a tank regiment on the Eastern Front by the Red Army.

Kurt Eggers
A young Kurt Eggers
Born	November 10, 1905 Berlin, Brandenburg German Empire
Died	August 12, 1943 (aged 37) Western Russia
Occupation	Writer poet songwriter playwright
Nationality	German
Genre	Plays, radio drama, musical comedies, folk stories, walking songs, martial songs, and chants
Literary movement	Nazism
Spouse	Traute Kaiser
Children	4
Military career
Allegiance	Weimar Republic Nazi Germany
Service/branch	Wehrmacht Propaganda Troops Waffen-SS
Years of service	(Weimar Republic) 1921–1933 (Waffen-SS) 1933–1943
Rank	Untersturmführer
Unit	SS Division Wiking
Battles/wars	World War II

Early life

Kurt Eggers was born in 1905 in Berlin, the son of a bank clerk. In 1917 he entered the Cadet Corps and began training on a school ship. In 1919 he witnessed the defeat of the Spartacist uprising. In 1921, he joined the Freikorps and was involved in the battle for Annaberg hill during the Silesian Uprisings, where German Freikorps personnel fought against Polish nationalists.

Post World War I

After a spell in an artillery regiment, he resumed his education in 1924. He studied Sanskrit, archaeology, philosophy, and theology in Rostock, Berlin and Göttingen.[1] He was particularly interested in the German Reformation and the revolutionary Ulrich von Hutten.[2] He joined the Corps Vandalia Rostock, a student group, in 1927. After his theology exams, he became a pastor in Neustrelitz and then a curate in Berlin. However, he rapidly fell out of favor with church authorities with his "Song of the Struggling Peasants" calling for a violent revolt. It was after this that he broke off all ties with Christianity.

Nazism and World War II

With the rise of Adolf Hitler, he received rapid promotion through the new regime, gaining a succession of party positions while he continued to work as a writer, producing plays, radio drama, musical comedies, folk stories, walking songs, martial songs, and chants. His verses were widely used in NSDAP ceremonies and events.

Following the invasion of Poland, he headed for the Front, joining the staff of a Panzer company, but he later returned to writing. He was the editor-in-chief of the "Das Schwarze Korps" (The Black Corps), the official newspaper of the SS. He was also a member of an SS propaganda company.

Around the middle of 1942, while working as a writer for the Party Chancellery, he expressed a desire to return to battle, and was transferred to the Panzer reserve. It was then that he joined the SS Division Wiking, which was made up largely of foreign volunteers, he took part in the unit's retreat from the Caucasus in the winter of 1942-43.[3]

Death

In late July 1943, he rejoined the SS Division Wiking in the aftermath of the Battle of Kursk, which was followed by a Soviet offensive. On 12 August 1943 he died southwest of Belgorod (in Western Russia near the border with Ukraine), while attempting to counterattack against the advancing Red Army troops. His death was marked by a memorial service on 26 September 1943 in the Kroll Opera House in Berlin. The SS War Reporters Section, a platoon of propaganda staffers attached to SS units, was renamed the SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers in November 1943 in his honor.[4]

He had four children by his second wife, Traute Kaiser, whose father was a pastor.[5]

Literary works

• Von der Feindschaft, Deutsche Gedanken, 1941.
• Der Scheiterhaufen: Worte großer Ketzer, 1942.
• Vater aller Dinge, 1943.
• Vom mutigen Leben und tapferen Sterben.
• The Freedom of the Warrior, (English translation).
• Der Freiheit wildes Lied.
• Struggle and War, (English translation).
• Der Kaiser der Römer gegen den König der Juden
• Kamerad: Gedichte eines Soldaten

References

1. Jürgen Hillesheim, Elisabeth Michael, Lexikon nationalsozialistischer Dichter, Königshausen & Neumann, 1993
2. Jay W. Baird, Hitler's War Poets: Literature and Politics in the Third Reich, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p 226
3. Jay W. Baird, Hitler's War Poets: Literature and Politics in the Third Reich, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p 245-246
4. Jay W. Baird, Hitler's War Poets: Literature and Politics in the Third Reich, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p 251
5. Jay W. Baird, Hitler's War Poets: Literature and Politics in the Third Reich, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p 242