'Südstern' was a German propaganda campaign by the SS against the troops of Generał dywizji Władysław Anders’s Polish II Corps deployed on the Italian front (March 1944).

Using radio broadcasts from Rome and later from Florence, the undertaking was intended without success to persuade soldiers of the Polish II Corps to defect from the Allied side, in which they were fighting as part of the British 8^th Army, and joined the Axis cause.

The undertaking was conceived and executed by the SS-Standarte 'Kurt Eggers', a Waffen-SS combat war correspondent unit which reported on the actions of all Waffen-SS combat units and formations, and saw action in all major theatres of war with the exception of North Africa. The Berichter (reporters) of the Standarte were expected to fight actively if the situation demanded it, and were therefore fully trained and well-equipped.

The SS-Kriegsberichter-Kompanie (SS War Reporter Company) had originated in January 1940 with an original establishment of four platoons of war correspondents and their support staff. The platoons were able to operate independently of each other, and each of them was equipped with still and film cameras to enable to units to visually document the actions of Waffen-SS troops in combat.

The company came under the command of ex-Allgemeine SS Standartenführer Günter d’Alquen who, on his transfer to the Waffen-SS, was given the rank of SS Hauptsturmführer der Reserve. d’Alquen commanded the unit throughout its existence, ending the war as an SS Standartenführer der Reserve.

Soon after the unit’s formation, single platoons were attached to each of the four Waffen-SS combat units and remained with these throughout the campaigns in France and the Low Countries. The platoons remained attached to the units during the campaigns in the Balkans, taking many photographs which are still well known.

By August 1941, the number of Waffen-SS formations had increased, so the SS-Kriegsberichter-Kompanie was also increased in size to become the SS-Kriegsberichter-Abteilung. As a grouping of battalion size, the unit had several more war correspondent units attached to it, enabling it to cover the actions of all the increasing number of formations which the Waffen-SS was now fielding.

As the number of SS combat formations increased, so did the number of correspondents required. In December 1943, the unit reached regimental size and received the designation SS-Standarte 'Kurt Eggers', the honour title referring to the SS war correspondent and editor of the SS magazine Das Schwarze Korps, who had been killed earlier in the year, while reporting on the battles of SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS Herbert Gille’s SS Panzergrenadierdivision 'Wiking' near Kharkov on the Eastern Front.

Many foreign volunteers, most of them multi-lingual, joined the unit as photographers, film cameramen, writers, broadcasters and recorders. Several sub-units were established within the Standarte to gather information for occupied or allied countries, and these were generally staffed by volunteers of the relevant nationality.