Creation of a political martyr: The dark history behind this moment

Creation of a political martyr: The dark history behind this moment

Horst Wessel was the son of a Lutheran minister, a law student enrolled at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin and something of a musician and lyricist. But he led a double life, also hanging out in bars and flophouses, and later took up with a former prostitute from the slums of Germany’s capital city. He was also attracted to political extremism and fascinated by violence. Throughout the 1920s, Wessel drifted into several right-wing ext…