The Awakening of the Will to Live

by Kurt Eggers

Kurt Eggers, poet and member of the Waffen-SS, discusses the necessity of embracing maturation, the sanctity of life and procreation, and the critical roles of parents and educators in guiding the young towards fulfilling their potential.

This is an excerpt from Kurt Eggers’ On Courageous Living and Brave Dying (1935).

The will to become lies hidden as a seed within humans even before they are born.

Physical becoming, or growth, concludes definitively in adulthood. Spiritual becoming, or maturation, only ends with death.

Growth and maturation together constitute true human development. It is as unnatural and absurd to inhibit maturation as it is to arbitrarily halt growth.

Inevitably, signs of decay and deformity appear. However, some people find maturation — filled with restlessness, hardship, and all sorts of discomfort — distasteful. They view childhood as the only desirable state and mourn it as a lost paradise.

They remain in the realm of childhood and do not dare step into the land of adulthood.

In their religions, they praise the state of childhood as blessed and present the demand for childlikeness as salvific. To them, childhood is a revelation. They turn children’s tales into redemptive facts.

Their paradise: a twilight state, a deliberate ignorance for the sake of peace. Being pampered and controlled. A dreamy play with the symbols of the serpent and the skull.

Their curse: life with its struggles, duties, work, vigilant sobriety, and harshness.

Their longing: to be released from this body, from this life, and to regain the lost paradise, the place of sweet, restful bliss.

The consequence: the natural should be overcome by the unnatural. Spiritual birth should be avoided due to its pains!

Being a child means dependency, which requires guidance, encouragement, and constant protection. Those who are children surrender themselves to cowardice.

But who else can retreat into the unfreedom of cowardice besides those who feel too weak when life makes its demands?

The ‘Fall of Man’ caused the end of the paradisiacal state. Childlike dreaming gave way to harsh duty. Deeds replaced dreams.

If paradise were to return today, in a hundred years there would be no more humans on this earth. The will to become has overcome paradise; as long as it is awake, paradise will not return.

Deeds will not be overcome by dreams, just as twilight cannot conquer light.

Therefore, those who want to remain children will, since they are unfit to bear fruit, turn into weeds that must be uprooted.

Those who say, ‘I am afraid to become an adult’, should be cast out of the community.

*

The focus is on sanctifying the will to live. For a thousand years, people have committed an ongoing sin against the spirit of life by venerating the will to die and withdrawing from this world. Those who see life only from the perspective of death, and who view deeds only from the perspective of sin, must inevitably deny the validity of life altogether. They cannot recognise, let alone acknowledge, the laws or order of life.

We must begin to sanctify procreation itself. For a thousand years, procreation was seen as the original sin, the hereditary evil of humanity. The child in the mother’s womb was already condemned. Men were supposed to leave their wives with regret, and mothers were to give birth to their children in shame.

The delicate soul of the child was overshadowed by the heavy thoughts of its parents.

*

Therefore, the man who joins with his wife continues the sacred task of life itself. He fulfils the law of life. For life exists only where life is given. Therefore, life sustains itself.

If someone does not continue life, he is already dead, even if he breathes. He is a lawbreaker, even if his religion, in defiance of life, praises him as blessed!

The seed of the child, maturing in the mother’s womb, is the fulfilment of the law and therefore holy. To view it as the fruit of sin blasphemes the law and mocks the order of life.

The seed of the child unfolds its growth, which is beyond arbitrary control. The mother carries the seed and sanctifies it through her joy. Joy, however, is conditioned by the mother’s knowledge of being a vessel of holy life itself. In the hour of birth, the will to become has overcome its first obstacles.

The cut of the scissors frees the child from physical dependency. The first cry is the first affirmation of one’s own life.

*

The education of the child primarily consists of awakening the will to live.

Education should not be confused with training. It is not about forcing the child to adopt manners pleasing to the parents; it is about allowing the child to develop its inherent abilities, as long as they are good.

The parents’ foremost duty is to uproot the existing weeds in a timely manner and ensure they do not consume essential nutrients. Above all, they must ensure that the child can grow upright and straight.

Since the child is not the private property of the parents but a member of the community, parents are responsible to the community for the child.

Education proves successful when the law inherent in the child has been brought to fruition.

*

Often, the reprimanded defiance of a child lies precisely in its insistence on a perspective appropriate to the child. One should not implant the parents’ opinions as the child’s own but give the young person the opportunity to form his own judgement. Often, the so-called immaturity of a young person is a genuine expression of unspoiled feelings.

The catchphrase of generational hatred continually arises.

The older generation accuses the young of arrogance and irreverence. The young despise the older generation for their indifference and compromise.

But when does hatred turn into rebellion?

It often happens that the older generation, having failed to shape their own lives due to indecision, patronisingly and enviously pat the young on the shoulder, advising them to grow older before they can understand. With a sense of grandfatherly superiority and condescension, they speak of how they were once young and had immature views, too.

Such talk does not benefit a young person. He seeks encouragement and affirmation and can tolerate a collegial suggestion, but never insights born of resignation and pessimism.

A young person quickly senses weaknesses. Then, his sense of superiority, stemming from his awareness of his own strength and youthful readiness to act, breaks through. He can indeed be very ‘arrogant’ in words and actions. Yes, his aversion can grow into contempt.

However, when the young person senses honest conviction and courageous commitment to an idea in an older person, he looks up to him with faith and willingly follows him into all fields of struggle. When an older person becomes a role model and leader, he cannot complain about the arrogance of the young person.

Generational hatred is usually caused by the failure of the older generation. The young must be won over; they cannot be persuaded.

Therefore, it is crucial who teaches and leads the young. Only the best, strongest, and wisest of the nation should be called to this role. It is partly up to them whether young people, through the fulfilment of their lawfulness, are integrated into the great order or whether they, embittered and disappointed, perish inwardly and outwardly in the camp of nihilism.

Those who are born and led into the great order do not need a rebirth that frees them from natural bonds. They will instead recognise their place of action and strive to fulfil their law dutifully. Only people who have been broken by their original life require this ‘redemption’. Therefore, the young person is not found among those in need of redemption but instead seeks the community of those who are strong and unbowed like himself.

*

The role of teachers and leaders of the young is so responsible because they have to make the first selection of those who are most valuable physically, intellectually, and spiritually. And how can anyone judge a virtue they do not possess themselves? An inferior person will only recognise the inferior and, out of a certain solidarity with the weak and bad, embrace them, while simultaneously hating and fearing the strong and good out of a sense of inferiority.

A young person thirsts for learning and role models. He desires everything that strengthens his will to live.

This means: only those educational moments are valuable that are capable of sustainably influencing the courage, character, attitude, and disposition of the young person. Knowledge that does not contribute to this becomes ballast and can contribute to confusing his heart and emotions.

(translated by Constantin von Hoffmeister)