Who The F^ck is Horst?

Cover of "Living Next Door to Alice" single by Smokie, via Wikipedia

Living with the name “Alice” was not always easy in the 1970s and 1980s.

For those not aware, the name of the song is actually “Living Next Door to Alice”, and was originally released by an Australian band called New World in 1972. The rest of us generally associate the song with the band Smokie, and think of it as “Alice! Who the F^ck is Alice?”.

The song is about a man’s unadmitted love for his next-door neighbour, Alice. In the 1970s, the song seemed sad and sweet, but re-reading the lyrics gives me a tiny bit of a “stalker” vibe which might not be taken in quite the same way today.

In any event, the question appears to have actually come from interjections by live audiences during concerts, and then included in later versions of the recorded song (either from “fans”, or from someone other than the lead singer). It’s a fun song,

Which brings me to Horst Wessel.

Who?

I heard the name again very recently, and recognized it, but simply could not precisely place it. Even after looking up the name, I could not recall anything concrete. I can only conclude that I had heard the name in the context of other events.

As with most “martyrs”, the actual facts of this person’s life are ultimately irrelevant, so what better time to look at the word itself?

In Ancient Greek, μάρτυς was primarily a legal term, and simply referred to a witness. Originally, there was no specific connotation of dying for a cause, but the idea of being a “witness” for one’s faith became an important feature of early Christianity, where Jesus was sometimes considered the first and greatest martyr.

By the time the word was “borrowed” into English, the idea of a martyr as one who dies for their ideals (religious, political, or otherwise) was well-established.

But, back to Horst Wessel.

He was born in 1907 to a conservative family which supported the German National People’s Party (DNVP), which was the main nationalist party in Weimar Germany, and can be described as proto-fascist. They were conservative, nationalist, anti-semitic, and also anti-Catholic and anti-communist (ie, against the Russian Communist Party).

In 1922, at age 15, Wessel joined the “Bismarck Youth” (Bismarckjugend), which was the youth wing of the DNVP, but resigned in 1925. The DNVP was the most influential right-wing party in Germany, but was generally associated with the “old guard”.

Between 1922 and 1926, he joined several organisations, including “Viking League” (Wiking Liga), and a paramilitary group called the “Olympia German Association for Physical Training”, but then joined the SA in 1926, after these other organizations were banned in Prussia and Wessel concluded that they were moving in the direction of “tolerating” the parliamentary political system.

The SA, or “Sturmabteilung”, also known as the “Brownshirts”, “Storm Troopers”, and “Storm Division”, were the original Nazi paramilitary organization. These were the thugs who provided protection for Nazi rallies, disrupted the meetings of opposing parties, and fought against the paramilitary units of opposing parties.

While the SA were key to Hitler’s original consolidation of power in 1932 and 1933, they were also seen as a threat to other factions, such as the leaders of the German army, Himmler (who wanted more power for the SS, which he led), and Göring (who was concerned about the growing power of Ernst Röhm, the current leader of the SA). This eventually led to the so-called Night of Long Knives, in which many of the leaders of the SA were killed, along with others whom Hitler considered problematic. This purge essentially completed the consolidation of Hitler’s power in Germany.

But that was later. In the late 1920s, the SA were the backbone of the Nazi party, and Horst Wessel was a young man who felt the excitement of the actions of the Nazi party. In particular, he had a very high opinion of Goebbels, and worked hard to impress him. This eventually led to Wessel becoming the “district leader” of the SA for the district in which he lived. This was in 1929, the same year he wrote the lyrics to “Die Fahne hoch!” (“Raise the Flag!”), which would later be called the “Horst Wessel Song”.

Horst was, reputedly, extremely aggressive in leading his “district” against Communist groups, resulting in his being “marked for death” by the Communists, whose slogan became “Strike the fascists wherever you find them.”

In the end, however, it appears that a rent dispute with a woman named Elisabeth Salm was what actually led to his death. After claiming that Wessel failed to pay rent and threatened her, Salm reached out to Communist associates of her late husband, who became interested when they heard that Wessel was involved.

While it seems likely that Salm expected them to force him from the apartment, they shot him, instead.

Before anything was actually known, Goebbels was already releasing statements that “degenerate communist subhumans” were responsible. While Wessel received medical attention, he later died from sepsis, which he contracted in hospital.

After Wessel’s death, the shooter, Albrecht Höhler was sentenced to jail, along with seven accomplices. (Three years later, he was removed from prison under false pretenses by the Gestapo, and “executed” – ie, murdered.)

Goebbels had been looking for a proper Nazi martyr, and laid it on thick. In a eulogy in his newspaper, he wrote:

“A Christian Socialist! A man who calls out through his deeds: 'Come to me, I shall redeem you!' ... A divine element works in him. making him the man he is and causing him to act in this way and no other. One man must set an example and offer himself up as a sacrifice! Well, then, I am ready!”

Goebbels tried to turn Wessel’s funeral into a mass demonstration, full of speeches and processions, but was unable to get the rquired permits. Instead, he claimed that the funeral was attacked and that it was watched by 30,000 people. There was discussion about Hitler attending, but he decided against it, likely due to the risk of an attack by Communist forces in “Red Berlin”.

From then on, Wessel was praised as a martyr, the “Horst Wessel Song” was added to the Nazi cult, and the reality of the actual person became irrelevant.

It’s strange, though. Why would the murder of a young, right-wing political figure being turned into a martyr be so top-of-mind now?

I wonder...

Cheers!