Kurt Eggers
Kurt Eggers | |
---|---|
Russian SFSR, Soviet Union | |
Occupation |
|
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/ | Wehrmacht Propaganda Troops Waffen-SS |
Years of service |
|
Rank | |
Unit | SS Division Wiking |
Battles/wars | World War II |
Kurt Eggers (10 November 1905 – 12 August 1943) was a German writer, poet, songwriter, and playwright with close links to the
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
Nazism and World War II
With the rise of
Following the
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
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
- ^ Jürgen Hillesheim, Elisabeth Michael, Lexikon nationalsozialistischer Dichter, Königshausen & Neumann, 1993
- ^ Jay W. Baird, Hitler's War Poets: Literature and Politics in the Third Reich, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p 226
- ^ Jay W. Baird, Hitler's War Poets: Literature and Politics in the Third Reich, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p 245-246
- ^ Jay W. Baird, Hitler's War Poets: Literature and Politics in the Third Reich, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p 251
- ^ Jay W. Baird, Hitler's War Poets: Literature and Politics in the Third Reich, Cambridge University Press, 2008, p 242