Horst Wessel

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Emre
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Horst Wessel

#1

Post by Emre » 14 Aug 2007, 20:06

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Berlin was already the location of the burial site of one of most important heroes in the Nazi pantheon - Horst Wessel. Wessel was the leader of Sturm 5 of the SA (Sturmabteilungen - Storm Troopers) in a predominately Communist section of Berlin in the late 1920s. In January 1930 he was shot in his apartment by Communists, dying in February. Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels turned him into a martyr, and Wessel's song "Die Fahne Hoch" (Raise High the Flag) became the unofficial Nazi Party marching anthem. (left - Imre Lazar, "Der Fall Horst Wessel," Stuttgart, 1980; right - Erwin Reitmann, "Horst Wessel, Leben und Sterben," Berlin, 1933 (author's collection)

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Biography:

September 9, 1907 – February 23, 1930)

Horst Wessel was born September 9, 1907, in Bielefeld, Germany. The son of a pastor, Wessel dropped out of law school in 1926 and defied his mother by joining the Nazi Brownshirt paramilitary in the final days of the Weimar Republic. He soon caught the attention of Joseph Goebbels, who sent him to Vienna in 1928 to organize the Nazi youth movement there.

Intelligent and politically astute, Wessel was also extremely violent. Upon returning to Germany, he organized an attack on the local headquarters of the Communist Party in Friedrichshain, Berlin, during which four workers sustained serious injuries. This prompted Heinz Neumann, editor of the Communist Red Flag daily to call on party members to "Beat the fascists wherever you find them," exacerbating the already tense political situation.

On January 14, 1930, Wessel got into a heated argument with his landlady, the widow of a Communist Party member. Although the exact details of the argument are still debated, what is known is that: 1) she claimed Wessel refused to pay his rent — alternately, she may have tried to raise it and Wessel refused to pay the difference; 2) she claimed he threatened to beat her; 3) Wessel refused to pay rent for his girlfriend, a prostitute (according to some accounts, a former prostitute reformed by Wessel); since the landlady was herself subletting to Wessel, she feared she would lose the rights to her apartment because a prostitute was living there. Rather than approach the police, the landlady went to a local tavern frequented by Communists for help.

The Communists saw this as an ideal opportunity to avenge themselves on Wessel for the earlier attack. Two men, Ali Höhler, a tough with underworld connections, and Erwin Rückert, an active party member, went to Wessel's apartment. When he opened the door for them, Höhler shot him in the head. He died several weeks later from his injuries.

The shooting was immediately exploited by both the Nazis and the Communists to further their political aims. The Communists portrayed Wessel as a pimp, while the Nazis claimed he had actually saved his girlfriend from a life of prostitution by introducing her to the Nazi Party and its values. Goebbels organized a public funeral for the new "martyr" to the Nazi cause, and 30,000 people lined the streets of Berlin to see the procession. Goebbels delivered the eulogy in the presence of Hermann Göring and Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia. During the Nazi era, his life was glorified in memorials, books, and films.

Some months before he died, Wessel had written the verses to what would become the "Horst Wessel Lied" but it first gained popular currency when a choir of Stormtroopers performed it at his funeral. It was later recorded, and in 1931 it became the official anthem of the Nazi Party, played alongside Deutschland über Alles at all official occasions. The song celebrates the SA (whom Hitler would soon purge in the Night of the Long Knives).

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USMC03
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Horst Wessel

#2

Post by USMC03 » 14 Aug 2007, 23:44

Nice post. Thanks for the info. After looking at the pictures of his grave site, I was wondering what happened to the site after the war. Bulldozed, I imagine...


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Geoff Walden
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Posting Copyright Materials

#3

Post by Geoff Walden » 16 Aug 2007, 18:22

Emre,

I can't see the photos you posted (they won't load), but the first paragraph of information that you posted is a direct quote from the Third Reich in Ruins webpage, http://www.thirdreichruins.com/berlin2.htm, which is copyrighted material. If you're going to quote from copyrighted material (or even any other person's writing), you should post the source of your info and photos. Posting your photo sources is required by the Axis History Forum.

Wessel's grave is still there, with even part of the original grave marker remaining (there is some debate whether Wessels' body still lies there).

Geoff Walden

Potsdamerplatz
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#4

Post by Potsdamerplatz » 16 Aug 2007, 18:39

Geoff - the photographs are nothing you haven't seen before. In fact they are your own photographs. Emre has hot-linked directly from your excellent Third Reich in Ruins website.

Emre has also stolen Horst Wessel's biography from the Jewish Virtual Library webpage. The text is identical word for word.

Max Williams
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#5

Post by Max Williams » 16 Aug 2007, 18:45

It's common practice to recycle graves in Germany, usually after 25 years if ground payments are not maintained. What usually happens is that the plot is sold on and new remains are buried over the originals which, after 25 years, are reduced to almost nothing. In cases where lead lined coffins were used or much of the original material still exists when recycling occurs, the grave is emptied and the contents cremated. I believe Wessel's grave has been recycled a few times.
Max.

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Marcus
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#6

Post by Marcus » 16 Aug 2007, 18:47

Emre,

As have been pointed out above, please post the source when you quote text and images from other sites.

/Marcus

ihoyos
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#7

Post by ihoyos » 16 Aug 2007, 19:22

In my opinion body of Horst Wessel, as Heydrich, as Todd, still in the burial places, only marker were removed, and partially.
The Russians, had a lot of other things to do, no digging for bones.

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phylo_roadking
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#8

Post by phylo_roadking » 17 Aug 2007, 03:46

Wessel was the leader of Sturm 5 of the SA (Sturmabteilungen - Storm Troopers) in a predominately Communist section of Berlin
When Putzi Hanfstangl directed his film biography of Wessel inlate1933, he organised a shoot of an SA rally scene in that same area, not using the SA but using paid extras in uniform. The local Communists piled out thinking it WAS the SA and a major riot started! The SA had to be brought in in the end to drive off the Communists.

His account of the life - and death - of Wessel was so close to the truth, that it only received one or two trial showings before he was ordered to reshoot it as the "fictional" life of a fictional SA member :lol:

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ErichS
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#9

Post by ErichS » 17 Aug 2007, 21:04

Does anyone know what year Wessel's Blood Order was awarded to his family?

Dieter33
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Re: Horst Wessel

#10

Post by Dieter33 » 19 Aug 2013, 18:15

Hallo,

please check the personal documents of HW (Ausweise). Real or fake?

http://avaxnews.net/educative/Horst_Wessel.html

Greetings,
Dieter

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Erich S
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Re: Horst Wessel

#11

Post by Erich S » 20 Aug 2013, 01:01

Documents are real.

Update, Horst wessel did not receive the Blood Order nor did any of the other martyrs receive it either.

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Re: Horst Wessel

#12

Post by freddiefro » 19 Mar 2016, 23:27

The 1935 NARA photo below shows 2 SA men standing beneath a picture on the wall (it may be an Artist's rendering). The SA man on the left appears to be wearing a "Horst Wessel" cufftitle. Is the picture on the wall supposed to be Horst Wessel, or is it some other martyr? I'm familiar with other photos of Horst Wessel, but I don't remember seeing this before. Opinions, please!

Fred
Attachments
SA Fuss-Standarte Horst Wessel.jpg
cufftitle.jpg
cufftitle.jpg (42.71 KiB) Viewed 2240 times

Sejanus
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Re: Horst Wessel

#13

Post by Sejanus » 21 Mar 2016, 01:58

freddiefro wrote:The 1935 NARA photo below shows 2 SA men standing beneath a picture on the wall (it may be an Artist's rendering). The SA man on the left appears to be wearing a "Horst Wessel" cufftitle. Is the picture on the wall supposed to be Horst Wessel, or is it some other martyr? I'm familiar with other photos of Horst Wessel, but I don't remember seeing this before. Opinions, please!

Fred
Wasn't Wessel was an SA-Sturmführer? The individual in the photo does not have the same rank, he looks to me like possibly an SA-Mann. Wessel also looks different, for example:

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So not Wessel in my (non-expert!) opinion. So who is it? That is a good question that I do not have an answer for...

Image sources:

1. http://www.europeana.eu/portal/record/2 ... 11077.html
2. http://www.bills-bunker.de

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Geoff Walden
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Re: Horst Wessel

#14

Post by Geoff Walden » 30 Mar 2016, 20:16

I thought at first glance that the portrait might have been Herbert Norkus, but no, I don't think so.
Attachments
norkus_rehse.jpg
Maier-Hartmann, Fritz,
"Dokumente des Dritten Reiches. Der Sammlung Rehse"
norkus_rehse.jpg (27.81 KiB) Viewed 2026 times

infinite_one
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Re: Horst Wessel

#15

Post by infinite_one » 26 Apr 2016, 05:37

Just a small detail: the melody of "Horst-Wessel-Liad" was in existence before the lyrics were written in a well known hymm "How great thou art". He did write the lyrics however

(german link)

http://www.nmz.de/artikel/wer-hat-denn- ... erschossen

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