Street-Fighting Man: Two Books about Horst Wessel
The Making of a Nazi Hero: The Murder and Myth of Horst Wessel by Daniel Siemens, Translation by David Burnett, I.B. Tauris, 2013.
Die Fahne Hoch: Three Biographies of Horst Wessel by Erwin Reitmann, Fritz Daum and Max Kullak, Translation and Introduction by Klokke Van Aelst. Antelope Hill Publishing, 2022.
In the summer of ‘68 rocker Mick Jagger lamented that, “in sleepy London Town there’s just no place for a street-fighting man.” The same could not be said for Berlin Town forty years earlier where violent clashes between political factions were a near daily occurrence. The mayhem, previously confined to the streets and beer halls, escalated in January 1930 when a communist gang shot and fatally wounded a Sturmabteilung (SA) leader in what today would be described as a home invasion murder. The conventional narrative views the life of Horst Wessel (Wessel) largely as a prop for Gauleiter Joseph Goebbels propaganda campaign. But a closer look finds a fascinating tale of violence, sex, and political intrigue. What more could a compelling story need?
The books considered here treat the same subject in two very different formats. Prof. Siemens’ volume is an academic work written within the general liberal-left perspective of contemporary academe, but with enough objectivity to be largely led by the evidence. What really makes Siemens an interesting read is the new archival material he uncovered. Records of the Berlin criminal police from this period were seized by the Red Army in 1945. Later they were locked away in possession of the East German Ministry for State Security (Stasi). After the fall of communism, they were “lost” until Siemens discovered them while researching his book. Thus he is the first historian to include this material. At times the use of police reports gives his account the feel of the true crime genre.
Die Fahne Hoch includes three short biographies of Wesswl published in 1933 or 1934, and written a year or two earlier. Erwin Reitmann was a fellow SA man and knew Wessel personally. His account is heavily politicized. Fritz Daum’s piece is the longest of the three and is aimed at young readers. Max Kullak’s contribution is the shortest, but to me the most interesting. Kullak was also a SA man and is identified as Prof. Dr. Max Kullak on the back cover. This collection conveys the mindset of the SA during the late Weimar and early days in power of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). It also contains the lyrics of many SA songs. The material was translated and published by Antelope Hill Press. The company has received the seal of disapproval from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Horst Ludwig Georg Erich Wessel was born in 1907 in the city of Bielefeld in the province of Westphalia. His father, Wilhelm Ludwig Georg Wessel, was an up-and-coming Lutheran minister. His mother also came from a family of Lutheran clergy. In 1913 the family moved to Berlin after Pastor Wessel received a prestigious post at the Nicolai Church (St. Nicholas). Siemens describes Rev. Wessel as a volkisch theologian — a Christian ethno-nationalist. Having grown up in a liberal Lutheran church in America during the 1960s it is hard for me to imagine such a theological orientation. One element of Lutheranism that has not changed, however, is its emphasis on music. So it is not entirely surprising that a pastor’s son became a songsmith for the SA. Pastor Wessel died unexpectedly in 1922 when Horst was 15. Though in somewhat reduced circumstances, the family was able to maintain a very respectable middle-class lifestyle with a residence on (ironically) Jüdenstraße.
Horst’s father had been a strong supporter of the German National People’s Party (DNVP) and the boy was a nationalist from an early age. According to Kullak, Wessel took a six-week summer training program with the Black Reichswehr at the age of 16. The Black Reichswehr was a semi-secret organization which received some government funding and acted as an axillary to the German army which was then limited to 100,000 men by the treaty of Versailles. At 18 he joined the Bismarck League, the youth wing of the DNVP. Besides being a political organization Siemens writes that the league was influenced by a back-to-nature movement. Young Wessel enjoyed being part of this co-ed group, but ultimately found it too bourgeois for his growing militancy.
There were a multitude of right-wing groups in Germany in the mid to late 1920s and a year later Wessel joined the Viking League. This was a serious organization, the successor to Organisation Consul, described by Wikipedia as “an ultra-nationalist and antisemitic terrorist organization that operated in the Weimar Republic from 1920 to 1922.”[1] It had an adult membership, most of whom were five to ten years older than Horst. Kullak suggests a generational divide within the German Right at the time. Those of middle age who had been established before the war wanted a restoration of the old regime. Younger men who either had fought in the war or remembered the war but were too young to have fought, wanted radical change.
In April of 1926 Wessel enrolled in Friedrich Wilhelm University to study law. According to Reitmann, Horst joined the SA in May 1926, while Siemens writes he joined the NSDAP in December in that year. At the time one could be a member of one organization, or the other, or both. So young Wessel left reactionary nationalism behind and joined the revolutionary Right.
Siemens states that the SA was then “made up of workers and the unemployed . . . as well as right-wing nationalist-minded bourgeois academics.” In Kullak’s account, however, Wessel’s solid secondary education and university study set him apart from his mostly working-class mates. He was a middle-class college kid and “there were not many of them in the SA at that time.” Reitmann, Horst’s SA comrade, called his fellows “an uneducated, unpolished crowd.” No matter. In the SA Horst had found his calling. His enthusiasm and courage propelled him into a leadership position where he became known for his ability as a recruiter and motivator.
Berlin at the time was a stronghold of the far Left. Hitler appointed Goebbels, a Rhinelander, as the party’s regional leader to fight the Battle for Berlin. If the SA could control the streets of the capital, it would send a powerful political message. But it would not be easy. The Reds ruled the streets of the Friedrichshain District. Official police statistics report 318 incidents of “political rowdyism,” or street clashes in 1928. That number increased to 579 in 1929. Although bold, Siemens states that “Wessel was hardly a good fighter, despite having trained intensely.” He had a defensive fighting style, perhaps due to “a debilitation and deformation of the arm” cause by a severe fracture from an equestrian accident.
Wessel is probably best known as a musician and song writer. He had a good strong voice and played the piano and guitar. His Die Fahne hoch, later named the Horst-Wessel-Lied, became the official anthem of the NSDAP. Siemens notes the role of music in the movement. The SA met “at central locations, sang songs, and marched through the streets with the aim of impressing curious sympathizers as well as provoking political adversaries.” He explains that songs “reinforce the singers’ sense of identification with the cause.” The rhythm must be suitable for marching because “the liberating power of song comes from the rhythm.”
To carry the tune Wessel created a shawm band. Today’s American Right appears to be musically deficient. In addition, Horst was an excellent orator; after all, his father had been known for preaching rousing sermons.
Fate determined that 1929 would be the high point of Horst Wessel’s short life. Die Fahne hoch was first sung in the streets of Berlin in May. In August as sturmfuhrer, sturm 5 he led his group to the party congress in Nuremberg where this song was also sung.
Earlier that year Horst met Erna Jaenichen a 23-year-old prostitute, a year older than Wessel. The fact that he would became associated with a former prostitute led to the smear that he was her pimp. Siemens, the detective historian, could find no evidence to support this claim. Far more likely the idealistic young SA man rescued her from the streets. Wessel came to blows with Georg Ruhnke, Erna’s former pimp. Ruhnke claimed he bested Wessel. Biographer Fritz Daum disputes this claim, but in any case, Ruhnke left the couple alone after the fight. This theme brings to mind the movie Taxi Driver (1976) where Robert DeNiro saves the young prostitute Jodie Foster. Going back further we have St. George saving the fair maiden from a dragon, or perhaps Perseus saving Andromeda.
By November Erna moved in with Wessel who had by now left his family’s home and was living in a cheap rooming house. He had also left the university without taking his degree. He became a “worker” while devoting most of his time to the cause. While I am sure there were “benefits” to having Erna as a roommate, she did complicate his life. Siemens quotes one SA leader: “Everyone knows her, no one likes her.” They tolerated her for Wessel’s sake. Daum writes: “When his comrades . . . once did not speak of her with the respect he thought was due her, he reprimanded them and told them he would become engaged to this faithful girl. From then on they all treated the quiet Erna with the greatest respect.” While this was the official party narrative there is suspicion that Erna, a former member of the Alliance of Red Women and Girls, might not have been as loyal to Wessel and National Socialism as she appeared. I imagine that Horst’s mother, the widow of a well-known conservative clergyman, would not have welcomed a match with a former prostitute, a girl without education or family. But by this time her son had largely reject bourgeois society, though he was not estranged from his family.
There are three versions of the events leading up to Horst Wessel’s murder in the winter of 1930. One: Horst and Erna got into a dispute with their landlady Elisabeth Salm. Did Frau Salm demand additional rent now that two persons were occupying the premises? Or was she afraid that Erna’s reputation would reflect negatively on her establishment? Widow Salm claimed to be apolitical, but her late husband had been a member of the German Communist Party (KPD). She knew some members of the Red Front Fighters League. Did she ask them to come over to beat up Wessel and throw him out of the rooming house? But Horst and Erna had already agreed to vacate by the end of the month, so why go to extreme measures to stop a stay of only two more weeks? There is probably an element of truth in this account, but it is hardly the main story.
Two: The communist version printed in the Die Rote Fahne is that Wessel was shot in a dispute between two pimps over a girl. There was nothing explicitly political about the attack. This was pure libel on the part of the communist press, and the KPD leadership knew it. Although this version has been repeated endlessly since January 1930, including in a Wikipedia entry, it was certainly not the case. Wessel was not a pimp, and the gunman was not Erna’s former pimp, but he was a KPD member.
The third version on which both the police and the NSDAP agreed was that Wessel was the victim of a political assassination. Due to his political activism, Wessel had a target on his back. He had been doxed 1930 style, and had received numerous warnings from friends and threats from foes. On the evening of January 14, 1930 Horst was expecting a visit from two SA members. He answered a knock on the door and was immediately shot in the face by Albrecht “Ali” Höhler, a communist who joined the party in 1924 and a petty criminal associated with a Ringvereine, a gang dealing in stolen goods and prostitution. Siemens reports that during this time the “KPD had close ties to the criminal underworld.”
According to SA physician Leonardo Conti the 9mm slug knocked out the victim’s front teeth and destroyed most of his tongue, uvula, and palate. The bullet lodged in a cervical vertebra but missing the brain. A report the next day by the criminal police put it more bluntly: “His case is said to be hopeless.” Yet Wessel lingered for weeks before a fatal infection set in. Without modern antibiotics this was, unfortunately, a common occurrence. U.S. President James Garfield survived for two months with festering wounds before succumbing to his assassin’s bullets.
A family tragedy three weeks before might have contributed to Wessel’s death. His nineteen-year-old brother Werner died of hypothermia “on a Nazi-organized winter excursion” in the Silesian mountains. A blizzard hit while the outing was on the trail. They were either on skis or snowshoes, accounts vary. Four young people, three boys and a girl, became separated from the group, lost their way and froze to death overnight on December 23, 1929. Understandably, Horst was deeply affected by his younger brother’s death and his funk might have made him less careful regarding his personal safety.
Wessel died on February 23, 1930. Gauleiter Goebbels, who had visited Wessel several times in the hospital, spoke at graveside. Hermann Göring was also in attendance. The police, fearing disorder, wanted a small funeral without swastika flags. The casket was draped with a swastika flag, but piled with flowers so it was not clearly visible. Thousands came out for the procession, most in support, singing the Horst Wessel Lied. The communists were also out shouting abuse and throwing stones, but there was no major disturbance.
Meanwhile Ali Höhler, who had been identified as the triggerman, was smuggled out of the country to Prague with the help of Red Aid, the KPD legal-aid organization. But Ali decided to returned to Berlin, was arrested, and cooperated with the police, no doubt hoping for a lighter sentence.
The first Wessel murder trial later that year was a sensation in Berlin at the time. The two main defendants were Ali Höhler, who fired the fatal shot and Erwin Rückert who also had been armed and accompanied Ali. There were also several other accomplices, part of the gang that stood guard at the rooming house. The landlady Elisabeth Salm was charged as well. The defense made two contradictory claims, the shot was “fired inadvertently” and that Höhler had fired in self-defense. Reitmann describes the trial: “The defendants were shady individuals with criminal records . . . defended by Jewish lawyers.” The defense must have done a pretty good job, Höhler received the longest sentence of only six years, Salm only got eighteen months.
After Hitler gained office in January 1933 things changed. Horst Wessel’s life took on almost mythic status. He became the role model for German youth. The man who wrote “Comrades shot by Red Front and reaction; March in spirit within our ranks” had been shot down by the Red Front, a martyr for the cause. There was also payback, the NSDAP took revenged on whom they thought had gotten off too lightly. A second Wessel murder trial was held in 1934. Before that happened there were a couple of extrajudicial executions. Elsa Cohn, who someone labeled “the Jewish ringleader,” was convicted in September 1930, but fled before sentencing. In May 1933 she was found dead by the side of the road near the east bank of the Oder River. Ali Höhler, now serving time in Wohlau Prison, Silesia, was transferred to Gestapo headquarters for interrogation in preparation for the second trial. On the way back to prison in September 1933 he was abducted after his transport was stopped by SA men serving as auxiliary police. The body was discovered a year later by a mushroom hunter. Of the persons convicted as participants in the Wessel murder, two were extrajudicially executed, two were judicially executed, four died in prison, and four survived the war.
Some criticized Wessel’s mother Margarete for trying to profit from her son’s fame. She fought unsuccessfully to gain copyright to the Horst Wessel Lied, much to the annoyance of Goebbels. She did receive copyrights to two of Horst’s unpublished manuscripts, one a political testament and the other a travelogue of trips around Germany and Austria. She also sold his papers to the Prussian State Library. I guess one should give the widow a break, having lost her husband and two sons. Horst’s kid sister, Ingeborg, helped promote her brother’s legacy, speaking to many school groups around Berlin. She went on to become a physician and married a physician. They had one son, born in 1942, and named after his famous uncle.
Erna Jaenichen’s life took a different course. She was with Horst when he was shot. She testified at the first trial that she and Horst were engaged. The myth arose that she was spying on the KPD for Wessel. She denied ever spying, but she had connections with both the SA and the Red Front. Perhaps she was playing both sides. After the trial she seemed to have dropped out of sight until 1933 when she married Georg Ruhnke, her pimp back in ’29! The marriage did not last. In 1935 she married a guy named Fiedler. Then, after another change of name and address, she disappeared from the historical record.
Both the Siemens book and the Antelope Hill book tell us something about the beliefs and values of the SA during the late 1920s and early 30s. One thing that stands out is that they saw themselves as revolutionaries, opposed to both bourgeois capitalism and Bolshevik Marxism. They believed in the socialism of National Socialism. For Reitmann, socialism equals “social justice.” Kullak writes that being a nationalist is not enough. One must also be a socialist which meant building a national community that included “every decent German.” He advocated for the national welfare that puts common interest before self-interest—very idealistic indeed.
While not an apologist for the SA, Siemens seems to have some ambivalence towards Wessel and his cause. He notes that despite their tough guy image the SA had “echoes of the Wandervogel movement . . . and of German Romanticism too.” Ambiguously, Siemens maintains that Wessel was a man “whose intentions, however honourable in certain respects were morally discredited by virtue of his actions.” Finally, “Horst Wessel and his contemporaries can perhaps best be described as violence-prone and cold romantics behind whose ‘objective’ façade was really a burning desire for community.” One could say that there was a certain “innocence” to the movement in the late 1920s and early 30s to the extent that the SA was taking it from the Red Front and police as much as they were dishing it out.
Although neither book uses the term ‘Strasserism’, it is clear that the left-wing of the NSDAP was strong in the Berlin region at this time. This points to the fact that there were several currents within the party. Historians, who should know better, often read the history of the Third Reich backwards, that its conclusion was inevitable. The disastrous policy in the east that led to catastrophic defeat for Germany then metastasized, evolved, and avalanched to enervate and corrupt the entire West. Surely there can be no stepping over or ignoring the topics of National Socialism and World War II. They were pivotal events in Western history that still shape today’s world. The present wars in Ukraine and the Middle East both make reference to World War II. During the Balkan conflict in the 1990s the parties involved used their experience during World War II to justify their ethnonationalism. If one thinks World War II is over in Eastern Europe, consider Belarus. Independence Day, celebrated on July 3, marks the date in 1944 when the Wehrmacht was driven out of Minsk, and the countryside is peppered with monuments to every battle and partisan action from 1941–1945.
Siemens writes that he seeks to “historicize National Socialism.” By this I believe he means to emphasize the larger historical context when interpreting this ideology. Having a temporal perspective is a good starting point for analyzing National Socialism, and it is the best we can do for now.
[1] For another account of right-wing activism of the time see: Nelson Rosit, “Political Violence in Weimar Germany: Lessons for the Contemporary US,” Occidental Observer (Sept 7, 2021).