Skip to main content

Horst Wessel (German Sturmführer ("Assault Leader"))

  • Horst Ludwig Georg Erich Wessel
Sort Name
Wessel, Horst
Ratings
No reviews
Type
Person
Gender
Male
Date of birth
1907-10-09
Place of birth
Bielefeld
Date of death
1930-02-23
Place of death
Berlin

Wikipedia

Horst Ludwig Georg Erich Wessel (9 October 1907 – 23 February 1930) was a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA), 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 (KPD). After his death, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels elevated him into a martyr for the Nazi Party.

Wessel first joined a number of youth groups and extreme right-wing paramilitary groups, but later resigned from them and joined the SA, the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. He rose to command several SA squads and districts. On 14 January 1930, he was shot in the head by two Communists. Albrecht "Ali" Höhler was arrested and charged with his murder. Höhler was initially sentenced to six years in prison but was forcibly removed from jail and killed by the SA after the Nazis came to power in September 1933.

Wessel's funeral was given wide attention in Berlin, with many of the Nazi elite in attendance. After his death, he became a propaganda symbol in Nazi Germany. A march for which he had written the lyrics was renamed the "Horst-Wessel-Lied" ("Horst Wessel Song"), and became the official anthem of the Nazi Party. After Adolf Hitler came to national power in 1933, the song became the co-national anthem of Germany, along with the first verse of the previous "Deutschlandlied", also known as "Deutschland über alles".

Continue reading at Wikipedia... Wikipedia content provided under the terms of the Creative Commons BY-SA license

Editions


Add Edition

There are no Editions yet!

Help us complete BookBrainz


Not sure what to do? Visit the help page to get started.

Identifiers

Wikidata ID
Q57163

Related Collections

This entity does not appear in any public collection.
Click the "Add to collection" button below to add it to an existing collection or create a new one.

Add Work

Reviews No reviews

No reviews yet.


Last Modified
2021-10-05