Horst Wessel

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Horst Wessel
Born	October 9, 1907(1907-10-09) Bielefeld, Westphalia, Germany
Died	February 23, 1930 (aged 22) Berlin, Germany

Horst Ludwig Wessel (October 9, 1907 – February 23, 1930) was a German Nazi activist who was made a posthumous hero of the Nazi movement following his violent death in 1930. He was the author of the lyrics to the song "Die Fahne hoch" ("Raise High the Flag"), usually known as Horst-Wessel-Lied ("the Horst Wessel Song"), which became the Nazi Party anthem and Germany's official co-national anthem from 1933 to 1945.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Nazi activist 3 Posthumous fame 4 References

[edit] Early life

Wessel was born in Bielefeld in Westphalia, the son Dr. Ludwig Wessel, a Lutheran minister at the Nikolaikirche, one of Berlin's oldest churches. Wessel's mother, Luise Margarete Wessel, also came from a family of Lutheran pastors. The family lived in the nearby Judenstraße (the Jews' Street),^[1] which in mediaeval times had been the centre of Berlin's Jewish community. Wessel's father was a supporter of the conservative German National People's Party (DNVP), and when he was 15, Wessel joined the DNVP youth group, the Bismarckjugend. He soon became a local leader, engaging in street battles with youth members of the Social Democratic Party and Communist Party.

Wessel attended the Volksschule des Köllnischen Gymnasiums (primary school) from 1914 to 1922, and the Gymnasium (high school) in Königstadt from 1922. For his final year of school he attended the Luisenstadt Gymnasium, where he passed his Abitur (the German final examination before graduation). In April 1926 he enrolled in the law faculty of Friedrich-Wilhelm University (now Humboldt University) in Unter den Linden.^[2]

[edit] Nazi activist

By 1926 Wessel had become too radical for the German National People's Party, and in December of that year he joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party), and its paramilitary organisation, the Sturmabteilung (SA).

Wessel soon impressed Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Party's Gauleiter, and in January 1928, during a period when the Berlin city authorities had banned the SA in an effort to curb political street violence, Wessel was sent on a trip to Vienna, to study Nazi organisational and tactical methods. In May 1929, Wessel was appointed leader of SA-Troop 34, based in the Friedrichshain district, where he lived. In October 1929 he dropped out of university to devote himself fulltime to the Nazi movement.

Wessel played the schalmei (shawm), a type of oboe popular in Germany, and he founded an SA Schalmeienkapelle (shawm band), which provided music during SA events. In early 1929, Wessel wrote the lyrics for a new Nazi fight song (Kampflied), which was first published in Goebbels's newspaper Der Angriff in September, under the title "Der Unbekannte SA-Mann" (the Unknown SA-Man). This song later became known as "Die Fahne hoch" and as the "Horst Wessel Song". It was later claimed by the Nazis that Wessel also wrote the music, but the tune was likely taken from a World War I German Imperial Navy song, and is probably originally a folk song.

At that time, the Alexanderplatz, the centre of Berlin's nightlife, was part of the territory of Wessel's SA troop. In September 1929, he met Erna Jänicke, an 18-year-old prostitute, in a bar. Soon he moved into her apartment in Große Frankfurter Straße (today Karl-Marx-Allee). The landlady was Frau Salm, whose late husband had been an active Communist. After a few months, there was a dispute between Salm and Wessel over unpaid rent.^[3]

In the evening of 14 January 1930, Wessel answered a knock on his door, and was shot in the face by an assailant who then fled the scene. Wessel lingered in hospital until he died on 23 February. Albrecht Höhler, an active member of the local Communist Party (KPD) branch was sentenced to six years imprisonment for the shooting, and was murdered by the Gestapo after the Nazi accession to power in 1933.^[4] The KPD, however, denied any knowledge of the attack and said it resulted from a dispute over money between Wessel and his landlady. It is possible that Salm asked her late husband's old comrades to help deal with her recalcitrant tenant.^[5] Another version says Wessel's murderer was a rival for the affections of Jänicke. It is also possible that the shooting was revenge by local Communists for Wessel's alleged role in the murder of a 17-year-old Communist, Camillo Ross, earlier in the day.^{[citation needed]} The matter was never resolved.

[edit] Posthumous fame

Wessel was buried on 1 March in the Nikolaifriedhof, in Prenzlauer Allee. It was reported that 30,000 people lined the streets to see the funeral procession. Goebbels delivered the eulogy in the presence of Hermann Göring and Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, son of former emperor Wilhelm II, who had joined the SA.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, an elaborate memorial was erected over the grave, and it became the site of annual pilgrimages by the Nazis, at which the Horst Wessel Song was sung and speeches made. Wessel was elevated by Goebbels' propaganda apparatus to the status of leading martyr of the Nazi movement. Nazi propaganda glorified his life. Die Brünnen, the SA journal, declared, "How high Horst Wessel towers over that Jesus of Nazareth - that Jesus who pleaded that the bitter cup be taken from him. How unattainably high all Horst Wessels stand above Jesus!"^[6] Wessel was commemorated in memorials, books and films. Hanns Heinz Ewers wrote a novelistic biography of him. One of the first films of the Nazi era was an idealised version of his life, based on Ewers's book. Goebbels, however, disliked the film and temporarily banned it, eventually allowing its release with alterations and with the main character's name changed to the fictional "Hans Westmar".^[7]

The Berlin district of Friedrichshain, where Wessel died, was renamed Horst Wessel, and a square in the Mitte district, Bülowplatz, was renamed Horst-Wessel-Platz, as was the U-bahn station nearby. After the war the name Friedrichshain was restored, and Horst-Wessel-Platz (which was in East Berlin), became Liebknechtplatz (after Karl Liebknecht). In 1969 it was renamed Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz after the Leninist Rosa Luxemburg, the name by which it is still known.^[8]

In 1936, the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) commissioned a three-masted training ship and named her the Horst Wessel. The ship was taken as a war prize by the United States after World War II. After repairs and modifications, she was commissioned on 15 May 1946 into the United States Coast Guard as the USCGC Eagle, and is still in service.

Examples of German military units adopting the name of the Nazi-era "martyr" in World War II include the 18th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division, known as the "Horst Wessel" Division, and the World War II era Luftwaffe's 26th Destroyer (or heavy fighter) Wing (Zerstörergeschwader 26), as well as its successor day fighter unit Jagdgeschwader 6, which was similarly named the "Horst Wessel" wing.

The "martyrdom" of Horst Wessel led directly to the promotion of his song "Die Fahne hoch" as the official Song of Consecration (Weihelied) for the Nazi Party. From 1933 it was adopted as the unofficial second part of the German National Anthem, to be played and sung immediately after the Deutschlandlied. The song was banned along with all other Nazi symbols in 1945, and both the lyrics and tune remain illegal in Germany to this day.

With the fall of the Third Reich in 1945, Wessel's grave was in communist East Berlin. The memorial was destroyed and Wessel's remains were apparently disinterred and also destroyed. The grave site was long marked only by part of the headstone of Wessel's father Ludwig, from which the surname "Wessel" had been removed.^[9] This was destroyed c. 2005 and the site is now marked only by a raised mound of earth bounded by ivy, with two iceplants in the center. However, the nearby grave of relative Clara Wessel (1876-1951) has been given a new headstone, which tells gravesite-seekers they are near the right spot.

[edit] References