Horst Wessel
Horst Wessel
Remarks on His 70th Anniversary of Death
by Richard Schapke
“Who came to the Berlin SA, became an outlaw. His way was a “pass”
between the
police and the mob. He had to stand firm or to get killed.”
Horst Wessel, apart from Hans Maikowski, by far the most prominent “martyr” of the Berlin SA, was born in Bielfeld, Westfalia, in 1907 as the son of a clergyman who was a free-mason. After the lower middle class family had moved to Berlin, Horst Wessel attended the grammar school there. To defy his descent and environment, he was attracted to political activities early on – thus, in 1922, he had already become a member of the “Bismarck-Order”, branch 21, “Kronprinzessin” (Crown Princess). The Order was a pre-party organization of the “Deutschnationale Volkspartei” (National German People´s Party), later led by the NS-Gauleiter (regional leader) Wilhelm Kube. As the Order protected political meetings, in 1924 Horst Wessel got into contact with the “Wiking-Bund” (Viking Federation) of Captain Ehr-hardt. This federation mainly was a reservoir for the former members of the “Marinebrigade Ehrhardt” that had actively taken part in the “Kapp-Putsch”. The members had the “Hakenkreuz” (swastika) on their helmets. Inside this federation he got to know former terrorists of the strange “Organisation Consul”. This organization was, among other actions, responsible for the killing of the compliant Weimar politician Mattias Erzberger, member of the German Catholics´ party called “Das Zentrum”, and of the Weimar Foreign Minister Walter Rathenau, a Jew. Horst Wessel was deeply impressed by the unconditioned activity of the Erhrhardt supporters, that was in contrast to the reactionary behavior of the “Deutschnationale”. Consequently he also became a member of the “Wiking-Bund”, resulting in an effort to exclude him from the “M´Bismarck-Orden” in 1924, though he was the holder of the honorary silver medal. The reason for that was the fact that the grammar school student appeared in the NS-uniform at a meeting of the “Orden”; which was not unusual for the Ehrhardt supporters.
But the break-away from the “Orden” was inevitable. On February 12th, 1925, Horst Wessel left the “Bismarck-Orden” in order to join the “Wiking-Bund” as an active member. His becoming a student of law on April 19th, 1926, did not hinder him from doing so. Only one month later the “Bund” was forbidden in Prussia, because its Berlin leader Sodenstern was said to have participated in putsch preparations. The proceedings had to be quashed because of lack of proof.
Horst Wessel, now without a political homeland, was not satisfied with the activities of his duelling student corporation. The young activist was also not satisfied with Ehrgardt´s temporary alliance with the reactionary “Stahlhelm”, the federation of the former WWI soldiers. As an alternative there was the Berlin SA which was in the process of construction. There, Heinz Hauenstein, the well-known former Freecorps leader and pioneer of the NSDAP in northern Germany, rallied the social-revolutionary elements in opposition to “Gauleiter” Schmiedicke, and SA-commander Daluege. In spite of the anarchist situation in the “Gau” Berlin of that time, Horst Wessel´s name appeared on the member list of the Berlin SA.
On November 1st, 1926, Joseph Goebbels became the leader of the collapsing NS-“Gau” and began to reorganize it. Contrary to popular belief, Horst Wessel was not very convinced of the faculties of his new “Gauleiter”, an attitude perhaps resulting from the fact that Goebbels had ousted Hauenstein.
In spite of all his doubts he became a member of the NSDAP in December. Wessel´s open character not submitting to authorities may have led to a talk with Goebbels – the diary notes have disappeared. Perhaps the “Gauleiter´s” interest in the NS-“Studentenbund” (… Student Organization) was the reason for Goebbels to contact Horst Wessel. The participation to the third NSDAP Rally may have been a very impressive experience for him, because there were heavy controversies as to the “Studentenbund”.
During the winter term 1927-28 the student of law went to Vienna. His “Gauleiter” ordered him to thoroughly study the work with the young people of the Austrian National Socialists. For some time Horst Wessel had led a unit of the “Deutsche Arbeiterugend” (German Working Youth), later “Hitler-Jugend”. During his Vienna stay he took part in the riots against the jazz opera “Johnny´s playing”. In a significant letter to a friend, Horst Wessel wrote the NS-“Gau” Wien (Vienna) which, contrary to the Berlin one, was very well organized. After his Vienna stay, Horst Wessel gave up studying law and took the command of the SA-“Zelle” (cell) Alexanderplatz (Alexander Square) in Berlin, belonging to the very social-revolutionary SA-“Sturm” 1, “Standarte 4”. Furthermore he distinguished himself as a good propaganda speaker. For example he fiercely attacked the “Deutschnationale” in Berlin-Friedenau on January 15th. After that “attack”, in a conversation with Goebbels, he complained of the missing activity inside the Berlin SA. The “Gauleiter” noted: “I´m in a fix. If we get more active in Berlin, our men will destroy everything.” Regular meetings follow in which Wessel and Goebbels discussed, above all, the relationship between the NSDAP and the “Deutschnationale”, respectively the “Stahlhelm”, to the National Socialist revolution. Goebbels also was not content when Hitler, in 1929, began approaching the bourgeois right and positively talked about the work in parliament. “Just now when it is important to keep one´s head. It is unbearable. We´ve still got too many Philistine in the party. The course of the Munich headquarters sometimes is intolerable. I´m not willing to accept a bad compromise. I intend to follow the straight way, even if it will cost my personal position. I sometimes doubt Hitler… There has already been serious confusion inside some SA-groups.” After one of those conversations the Berlin “Gauleiter” decided on an offensive, political fight against the “Deutschnationale” reaction, as Hitler had not answered any of the questions asked. The Munich headquarters stopped that campaign when they, possibly following an advice of Otto Strasser, joined in the plebiscite concerning the “Young Plan”. Here is what Bodo Uhse, a left-wing national socialist, and thus congenial to Wessel, thought of it: “Hitler has coupled the young armies of the “brown-shirts” with those people we accuse day in, day out with passion, for they violated the name of our nation by their greediness of profit, with those reactionaries full of hideous pride of place. Hitler, in a decisive hour when the battle had to be fought outside legality, had made his way into the peaceful enclosure of the Weimar democracy, had, together with known agitators to whom the nation only was a cloak for their affairs, asked the people a question that had not meant to be serious, that had been a fraud. In the very moment when it seemed that more dangerous deeds had to be done, Hitler was playing a safe game. He coupled with the reaction and the dissatisfied capitalists.” This way of Hitler´s led to what is called the “Harzburger Front”, to the persecution of party left-wingers and unorganized national socialists during the Third Reich, and culminated in the massacre of June 30th, 1934, also known as the “Röhm-Putsch” Since May 1st, 1929, Horst Wessel was in command of the SA Berlin-Friedrichshain reorganizing “SA-Sturm 5”. Among his men there were numerous former “Rotfrontkämpfer” (reds) and communists, which led to the formation of a “Schalmeienkapelle” (band) so far only known at the communists. Based on communist battle-song, Horst Wessel wrote the song “Die Fahne hoch!” (“Hitler´s banners over barricades”) which, made less pointed on the command of Röhm, later on was to become a kind of second national anthem of the Third Reich. “Die Fahne hoch!” made its breaking-through on September 6th, 1929, in Berlin, after it had made no great impression in Frankfurt (on the Oder) some time before. Shortly afterwards it was printed in the “Angriff” (attack). At that time Horst Wessel had begun to withdraw, more and more, from party activities. The reasons partly result of his disappointment with Hitler´s pro-bourgeois policy, partly of his liaison with a former prostitute Erna Jaenicke. The young couple took up quarters with widow Salm, Frankfurter Straße 62. After some trouble with the young couple the landlady remembered the comrades of her dead husband who had been an activist with the “Rote Front-kämpferbund” (Red Federation of Former Soldiers).
On January 14th, 1930, a rabble of mobsters, led by communist bully Albert “Ali” Höhler, made their way to the lodging. The planned “proletarian beating” of Wessel went out of bounds; for Höhler still knew Erna Jeanicke from the past. Even surprisingly to his comrades “Ali” draw his pistol and shot Wessel in the mouth. On February 23rd, after long weeks of heavy fighting against his death, Wessel died of his severe beatings. “Gauleiter” Goebbels, honestly shaken and possibly driven by his bad conscience, because he was indeed a rebel representative of the party left-wingers, took advantage of that event and made “Sturmführer 5” (storm-leader 5) a martyr of the movement, thus acting against the will of the Miúnich headquarters. Already on February 26th, the “Angriff” was published as a Horst Wessel special, and on March 1st, the funeral took place on the cemetery of the Nikolai Church. Orators were: Goebbels, the highest ranking SA-officer Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, “Standaetenführer” (standard-leader) Breuer , and two representatives of the “NS-Studentenbund”. Hitler begged to be excused from attendance, which may be regarded as more evidence of the bad relationship with the “Gau” Berlin. The party leader preferred to “relax” at Berchtesgaden. During the funeral communists rioted nearby, and even desecrated the cemetery with a banner reading “A last “Heil Hitler” for the bully Horst Wessel!” meant as an answer to Hitler’s lacking interest in the affair. Goebbels, in his “Sportpalast” address on April 4th, in revolutionary pose, cited passages out of “The Horst-Wessel-Lied”. On September 30th, 1930, the murders of Horst Wessel were sentenced to many years of prison with Höhler being sentenced to six years and one month. It is obvious that the bitterness of the SA at the dishonest behavior of the communists was not calmed (the wrong-doers did not escape their fate in September 1933 when the SA stormed their prison). When in 1931, the SA east of the river Elbe, under the command of Major Stennes, revolted against the Munich headquarters, the rebels refused to work together with the “Kampfbund gegen den Faschismus” (Federation Fighting Fascism), normally open to non-organized National Socialists, by pointing out the events of March 1st, 1930. Goebbels’ attitude in this affair was quite strange. It is possible that he was entangled in the preparations of the revolt. At least the rebels tried to get him and not the unsympathetic Otto Strasser as the leader of an independent North-German NSDAP.
Even after that affair, which almost brought his being trasferred for disciplinary reasons to Vienna, Goebbels continued with the public worship of his former conversation partner. In Berlin, on August 15th, 1931, he inaugurated the new banner of the “SA Standarte 5, “Horst Wessel””. In July 1932, the party publishing house published the book “Horst Wessel Leben und Sterben” (Life and Death of Horst Wessel), and over 30.000 copies were sold in a few weeks´ time of Hanns Heinz Ewers´ novel “Horst Wessel”, published in the autumn of 1932. Otto Strasser, as well, tried to take advantage of the martyr Horst Wessel. In the “Schwarze Front” (Black Front), on October 30th, 1932, he wrote an article commemorating the revolutionary National Socialist Horst Wessel.