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Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Barry Hoffman Nazi Postcard Collection

Horst Wessel Song

September 18, 2024

Accession Number: 2022.02.4.33

Historical background:

The Horst Wessel Song was the co-national anthem of the Nazi Party from 1930 to 1945. It was written in 1929 by Horst Ludwig Georg Erich Wessel, a Sturmführer for the Sturmabteilung (SA, a Nazi Party paramilitary wing). Wessel wrote the song in 1929 as a demeaning imitation of music by the  Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD, the Communist Party of Germany). The KPD was an opponent to the Nazi Party. The song was designed to provoke the KPD’s militia, the Rotfront (Red Front), into picking fights with Nazis. This strategy worked, and the Rotfront’s slogan became “strike the fascists wherever you find them” (Reuth, 1993). Tensions rose as an era of streetfighting between the Rotfront and the SA began (Reuth, 1993). 

The Nazi Party outlawed the KPD the day after the German election of 1933 officiated the Nazi’s accession to power. It maintained an underground presence, but suffered heavy losses between 1933 and 1939, with 30,000 communists executed and 150,000 sent to Nazi concentration camps (Mcdonough, 2006).

“The Horst Wessel Song”, performed by the choir of the Leipzig Church of St. Thomas in 1936.

McDonough, F. (2006). Opposition and resistance in Nazi Germany (5th print). Cambridge Univ. Press.

Reuth, R. G. (1993). Goebbels (1st U.S. ed). Harcourt Brace.

[Front]

Postcard depicting Horst Wessel and sheet music for his song.

Front

A photograph of Horst Wessel. Beneath him lies the sheet music for the first verse of the Horst Wessel Song followed by the remaining three verses.

Das Horst Wessel Lied

  1.  Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen dicht geschlossen! S. A. marschiert mit mutig festem schritt. Kam’raden, die Rotfront und Reaktion er-schossen, marschier’n im Geist in unsern Reihen mit. 
  2. Die straße frei den braunen Bataillonen, die Straße frei dem Sturmabteilungsmann! Es schau’n aufs Hakenkreuz voll Hoffnung schon Millionen, der Tag für Freiheit und für Brot bricht an!
  3. Zum letzten Mal wird nun Appell geblasen, zum Kampfe steh’n wir alle schon bereit. Bald flattern Hitlerfahnen über allen Straßen. Die Knechtschaft dauert nur noch kurze Zeit!
  4. Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen dicht geschlossen. S. A. marschiert mit mutig festem schritt. Kam’raden, die Rotfront und Reaktionen er-schossen, marschier’n im geist in unsern Reihen mit.

gez.d. [gezeichnet] SS M. E. Marcus 2/4/46

The Horst Wessel Song

  1. Raise the flag! The ranks tightly closed! The SA marches with calm, steady step. Comrades shot by the Red Front and reactionaries march in spirit alongside our ranks.
  2. Clear the streets for the brown battalions, clear the streets for the storm division man! Millions are looking upon the hooked-cross full of hope, the day for freedom and for bread dawns!
  3. For the last time, the call to arms will be sounded! We all stand prepared for battle! Hitler’s banners will soon fly over all streets. The time of bondage will last but a little while now!
  4. Raise the flag! The ranks tightly closed! The SA marches with calm, steady step. Comrades shot by the Red Front and reactionaries march in spirit alongside our ranks.

[signed] SS M. E. Marcus 4 October, 1946

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