TACO and the MAGAts now have their own Horst Wessel.

Horst Wessel
SA officer (1907-1930)
Horst Ludwig Georg Erich Wessel was a member of the Sturmabteilung, the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, who became a propaganda symbol in Nazi Germany following his murder in 1930 by two members of the Communist Party of Germany. After his death, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels elevated him into a martyr for the Nazi Party.

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For a few years Wessel lived a double life, as a middle-class university law student and as a member of the primarily working-class SA, but in some ways the two worlds were converging in ideology. At university, Wessel joined a dueling society dedicated to "steeling and testing physical and moral fitness" through personal combat, while with the SA, which was always interested in a good street fight, he was immersed in the antisemitic attitudes typical of the extreme right-wing paramilitary culture of the time. His study of jurisprudence at school was seen through the filter of his belief that the application of the law was primarily an instrument of power; and his personal beliefs, already geared toward anti-Jewish attitudes, were further hardened by the novel From Double Eagle to Red Flag by White emigre General Pyotr Krasnov, which is set between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Red Guards' victory at the end of the Russian Civil War, and which was first published in the Weimar Republic in 1922. According to Wessel's sister, General Krasnov's novel was enormously influential upon her brother.[25]

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In 1929, Wessel became the Street Cell Leader of the Alexanderplatz Storm Section of the SA.[29] In May, he was appointed district leader of the SA for Friedrichshain where he lived,[30] SA-Sturm 5.[31] with the rank of Sturmführer.[32] In October 1929, Wessel dropped out of university to devote himself full-time to the Nazi movement.[33] In that same year, Wessel wrote the lyrics to "Die Fahne hoch!" ("Raise the Flag!&quot , which would later be known as the "Horst Wessel Song".[5] Wessel wrote songs for the SA in conscious imitation of the Communist paramilitary, the Red Front Fighters' League – in fact, the music to Die Fahne hoch!" was taken from a Communist song book[15] – to provoke them into attacking his troops, and to keep up the spirits of his men.[32] Wessel was recognized by Goebbels and the Berlin Nazi hierarchy as an effective street speaker;[15] in the first 11 months of 1929, for instance, he spoke at 56 NSDAP events.[34]

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Following his death, the National Socialists and the Communists offered different accounts of the events.[2] The police, led by Chief Inspector Teichmann, and several courts determined that both political and private reasons had led to Wessel's assassination.[2] By 17 January 1930, the police had announced that Höhler, whom Jänicke had identified as the gunman, was their prime suspect.[51]

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"Horst Wessel Song"
Main article: The Horst Wessel Song

Wessel played the schalmei (Martinstrompete), a brass instrument[82] which featured in groups called Schalmeienkapellen ("Schalmeien orchestras or bands&quot , and which is still used in folk celebrations.[82] Wessel founded an "SA Schalmeienkapelle" band, which provided music during SA events.[82] In early 1929, Wessel wrote the lyrics for a new Nazi fight song Kampflied ("fight song&quot , which was first published in Goebbels's newspaper Der Angriff in September, under the title Der Unbekannte SA-Mann ("The Unknown SA-Man&quot .[42] The song later became known as Die Fahne Hoch ("Raise the Flag&quot and finally the "Horst-Wessel-Lied" ("Horst Wessel Song&quot .[42] The Nazis made it their official anthem and, after they came to power, the co-national anthem of Nazi Germany, along with the first stanza of the Deutschlandlied.[83] The song was also played in some Protestant places of worship, as elements of the Protestant Church in Germany had accepted and promulgated the Horst Wessel cult, built as it was by Goebbels on the model of past Christian martyrs.[84]

It was later claimed by the Nazis that Wessel also wrote the music to the song, but it was considered more likely that the tune was in reality adapted from a World War I German Imperial Navy song, and was probably originally a folk song.[42] A German court finally determined in 1937 that Wessel was not the composer of the melody.[42]


Thier own Riechstadt fire will be next.