After his murder in , he was made into a martyr for the Nazi cause by Joseph Goebbels. Wessel first joined a number of youth groups and extreme right-wing paramilitary groups, but later resigned from them and joined the SA, the brownshirted street-fighting stormtroopers of the Nazi Party. He rose to command several SA squads and districts. Wessel's funeral was given wide attention in Berlin, with many of the Nazi elite in attendance. After his death, he became a major propaganda symbol in Nazi Germany. Wessel soon began to frequent low-life bars and hang out in flophouses, [11] and also founded his own youth group, the Knappschaft , the purpose of which was to "raise our boys to be real German men. Later, Wessel joined groups with a more sinister reputation, including the Black Reichswehr [15] [16] and the "Olympia German Association for Physical Training", a powerful paramilitary group which was the successor of the disbanded Reinhard Regiment. The Viking League and the Olympia Association were banned in Prussia in May , when it was discovered they were planning a putsch against the government. Wessel, realizing the League would not achieve its self-defined mission and was moving in the direction of tolerating the parliamentary political system, resigned from it on 23 November at age


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After his murder in , he was made into a martyr for the Nazi cause by Joseph Goebbels. Wessel first joined a number of youth groups and extreme right-wing paramilitary groups, but later resigned from them and joined the SA, the brownshirted street-fighting stormtroopers of the Nazi Party. He rose to command several SA squads and districts. Wessel's funeral was given wide attention in Berlin, with many of the Nazi elite in attendance. After his death, he became a major propaganda symbol in Nazi Germany.
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Horst Wessel was born September 9, , in Bielefeld, Germany. Wessel dropped out of law school and defied his mother by joining the Nazis , becoming an SA storm trooper. He lived in a Berlin slum with a former prostitute. On February 23, , someone different accounts say it was a political enemy, the woman's former boyfriend, or perhaps her pimp broke into Wessel's apartment and mortally wounded him. Joseph Goebbels , the Nazis' propaganda chief, claimed Wessel was murdered by a Communist, and made him a martyr in the party's struggle with their Communist opponents. Wessel was given an elaborate funeral, which was interrupted by stone-throwing Communists. The murder and reaction helped turn public opinion in favor of the Nazis and against the Communists. A poem Wessel had written was put to music and became the marching song of the SA and later the official song of the Nazi Party and unofficial national anthem of Germany. Hold high the banner!
From to the Nazis made it the co-national anthem of Germany , along with the first stanza of the " Deutschlandlied ". Wessel wrote songs for the SA in conscious imitation of the Communist paramilitary , the Red Front Fighters' League , to provoke them into attacking his troops, and to keep up the spirits of his men. Wessel was the son of a pastor with a university education , but he was employed as a construction worker. He became well known among the Communists when he led a number of SA incursions into the Fischerkiez , an extremely poor Berlin district where Communists mingled with underworld figures he did this on orders from Joseph Goebbels , the Nazi Gauleiter [regional party leader] of Berlin. As a result of that melee, five Communists were injured, four of them seriously. The Communist newspaper accused the police of letting the Nazis get away while arresting the injured Communists, while the Nazi newspaper claimed that Wessel had been trying to give a speech when communists emerged and began the fight.