The war correspondent unit SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers was formed in January 1940 as SS-Kriegsberichter-Kompanie. Its züge was attached to the four Waffen-SS units that fought in the west 1940 and in the Balkans 1941.
It was upgraded to SS-Kriegsberichter-Abteilung in August 1941 when the Waffen-SS expanded and the kriegsberichter (war reporters) had more units to cover.
It was again upgraded in December 1943 to SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers, the honor title refers to the former editor of the SS magazine Das Schwarze Korps who was killed near Kharkov 13 August 1943 while attached to 5. SS Panzer Division Wiking.

The soldiers of SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers were all volunteers who where skilled in writing and often in different languages. They were trained at Berlin-Zehlendorf in Berlin and following that training it was decided to what unit one was assigned to.
This unit included several foreign volunteers, usually attached to their national formation, but if no such ones existed (this was true with for example the Swedish volunteers) they were attached to one of the regular Waffen-SS units.

At least two US citizens (Martin James Monti & Peter Delaney) served in this unit, as well as three from the UK are known to have served in this unit, Railton Freeman (aka Royston and Metcalfe), Dennis John Leister (aka Beckwith) and Francis Paul Maton (aka Wood) as well as one from New Zealand: Roy Nicholias Courlander (aka Regan).
Known Swedish volunteers serving in this unit include Gösta Borg, Sten Eriksson, Hans-Caspar Kreuger, Carl Svensson and Thorkel Tillmann.
Forty-seven Norwegians are known to have served in Kurt Eggers, including Arild Hamsun, the son of the Norwegian Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun, six of them were killed in action.

Known war crimes

Karl-Gustav Lerche was sentenced to ten years in prison post-war for the shooting of a British POW near Arnhem, the Netherlands, in September 1944. (1)

Commanders

SS-Standartenführer Günther d'Alquen

Manpower strength

31 Dec 1942 334
Dec 1943 141
June 1944 1.180

Honor titles

Kurt Eggers (10 November 1905 – 12 August 1943) was a German nationalistic writer and author who had written a large number of plays, poems, chants and songs. A participant of the Kapp-Putsch and the fighting in Silesia as a Freikorps member, he worked in a diversity of occupations, both parallel to and interrupted by academic studies that included agriculture, archaeology and philosophy. After finishing his studies of theology in 1929, he became a priest but left the church in 1931 and became a free-lance writer and publisher of a nationalistic newspaper. Taking up a career in radio broadcasting, he joined the SS in 1935, initially as a member of the Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt. Volunteering for frontline duty with the Waffen-SS in 1939, he was killed southwest of Bjelgorod as a tank commander, when his vehicle took a direct hit from an anti-tank cannon.

Order of battle

Stab
- Adjutant
- Verbindungsoffizier bei SS-FHA und OKW
- Ordonanzoffizier
- Standarteingenieur
- Zensuroffizier
- Gruppenleiter Ausland
- Gruppenleiter Wort
- Gruppenleiter Bild
- Gruppenleiter Film
- Referatsleiter Film
- Gruppenleiter Rundfunk
- Gruppenleiter RF Technik (RF = Rundfunk)
- Gruppenleiter RF Sendung
- Gruppenleiter Zeichen
Abteilung Verwaltung
- Unterkunftsverwaltung
Gruppe Wort
- Verbindungsführer Presse
Gruppe Bild
- Referat Bildtechnik
- Referat Bildschriftleitung
- Referat Bildarchiv
Gruppe Rundfunk
- Referat Rundfunkstechnik
- Referat Rundfunksendung
Abschnitt Russland-Nord
Abschnitt Russland-Süd
Abschnitt Lettland und Lettische Einheiten
Abschnitt Südost
Abschnitt West
Sonderunternehmen Südost
Kommando Oslo
Kommando Kopenhagen
Kommando Frankreich
Kommando Brüssel
Kommando Südost
Kommando Adria
Ersatz-Kompanie
- Ausbildungsgruppe
Gruppe Kampfpropaganda
- 2 x SS-Kampfpropaganda Zug
Sonderunternehmen "Südstern"
- "Skorpion Ost"
- "Skorpion West" (Ober-Rhein)
- Unternehmen "Wintermärchen"

Insignia

The "SS-Kriegsbericheter" was used by the Waffen-SS war correspondents. A "SS-KB-Abt" cuff-title was introduced in 1941 when the unit reached battalion strength and the "Kurt Eggers" cuff title was authorized for this unit in December 1943.

The below photo is often identified as Yacov Djugashvili, son of Joseph Stalin, but it is Arild Hamsun, son of the Norwegian Nobel Prize winner Knut Hamsun. Note the "SS-Kriegsbericheter" cuff title.

(Courtesy of Gary)

Waffen-SS war correspondent

(Courtesy of Bundesarchiv/Wikimedia, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Germany)

SS-Sturmbannführer Gunter d'Alquen

(Courtesy of Bundesarchiv/Wikimedia, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 Germany)

Footnotes

1. "Justiz und NS-Verbrechen" by C.F. Rüter & D.W. de Mildt.

Sources used

Christopher Ailsby - Hitler's Renegades: Foreign nationals in the service of the Third Reich
Dr. K-G Klietmann - Die Waffen-SS: eine Dokumentation
Kurt Mehner - Die Waffen-SS und Polizei 1939-1945
Herbert Poller - Pansarspaning med Waffen SS på Östfronten: SS-Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 11 Nordland och svenska SS-Plutonen I Baltikum, Pommern Och Berlin 1943-45
C.F. Rüter & D.W. de Mildt - Justiz und NS-Verbrechen
Niclas Sennerteg - Tyskland talar: Hitlers svenska radiostation
Eirik Veum - De som falt
Adrian Weale - Renegades: Hitler's Englishmen
Gordon Williamson & Thomas McGuirl - German military cuffbands 1784-present

Reference material on this unit

Eric Kaden - Das Wort Als Waffe: Der Propagandakrieg der Waffen-SS und die SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers