Horst-Wessel-Lied

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The Horst-Wessel-Lied ("Horst Wessel Song"), also known as Die Fahne hoch ("The flag on high", from its opening line), was the anthem of the National Socialist German Workers Party from 1930 to 1945. From 1933 to 1945 it was also part of Germany's national anthem.

The lyrics of the song were composed in 1929 by Horst Wessel, a Nazi activist and local commander of the Nazi militia, the SA, in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain. Wessel was assassinated by a Communist activist in January 1930, and the propaganda apparatus of the Berlin Gauleiter, Dr Joseph Goebbels, made him the leading martyr of the Nazi Movement. The song became the official Song of Consecration (Weihelied) for the Nazi Party, and was extensively used at party functions as well as being sung by the SA during street parades.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933 The Horst-Wessel-Lied was recognised as a national symbol by a law issued on May 19, 1933. Nazi Germany thus had a double anthem, consisting of the first verse of the Deutschlandlied followed by the Horst Wessel-Lied. A regulation attached to a printed version of the Horst Wessel-Lied in 1934 required the right arm to be raised in a "Hitler salute" when the first and fourth verses were sung.

With the fall of the Nazi regime in 1945, the Horst-Wessel-Lied was banned, and both the lyrics and the tune remain illegal in Germany to this day except for educational and scholarly uses (under sections 86 and 86a of the Strafgesetzbuch).

Lyrics

The lyrics of the Horst-Wessel-Lied were published in the Berlin Nazi newspaper, Der Angriff, in September 1929, attributed to "Der Unbekannte SA-Mann" (the Unknown SA-Man), as follows:

German original English translation
Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!
SA marschiert mit mutig-festem Schritt
Kameraden, die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen
Marschieren im Geist in unseren Reihen mit
Die Strasse frei den braunen Bataillonen
Die Strasse frei dem Sturmabteilungsmann!
Es schaun aufs Hakenkreuz voll Hoffnung schon Millionen
Der Tag für Freiheit und für Brot bricht an!
Zum letzten Mal wird nun Appell geblasen!
Zum Kampfe stehen wir alle schon bereit!
Bald flattern Hitlerfahnen über Barrikaden
Die Knechtschaft dauert nur noch kurze Zeit!
Die Fahne hoch! Die Reihen fest geschlossen!
SA marschiert mit mutig-festem Schritt
Kameraden, die Rotfront und Reaktion erschossen
Marschieren im Geist in unseren Reihen mit
The flag high! The ranks tightly closed!
SA marches with a firm, courageous pace.
Comrades, shot dead by Red Front and Reaction
March in spirit within our ranks.
Clear the street for the brown battalions
Clear the street for the SA man.
Already millions are looking to the swastika full of hope
The day of freedom and bread is dawning.
For the last time the rollcall has sounded
we are all ready for the fight
Soon Hitler-flags will fly over barricades
The servitude will not last long now.
The flag high! The ranks tightly closed!
SA marches at a firm, courageous pace.
Comrades, shot dead by Red Front and Reaction
March in spirit within our ranks.

The "Rotfront" ("Red Front") was a reference to the Rotfrontkämpferbund, a paramilitary organization associated with the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). It was common for Nazis' Sturmabteilung and Communists' Redfront to attack each other in violent street confrontations, which eventually grew into full-scale battles after 1930. "Reaction" was a reference to the conservative parties and the liberal democratic German state of the Weimar Republic period, which made several unsuccessful attempts to suppress the SA. "Servitude" is a reference to what the Nazis saw as Germany's "servitude" to the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, which imposed huge reparations on Germany and deprived her of her colonies and territory along her eastern border.

Some changes were made to the lyrics after Wessel's death:


Stanza 1, line 2 SA marschiert mit mutig-festem Schritt
  SA marschiert mit ruhig festem Schritt     SA marches with silent, firm pace
 
Stanza 3, line 1 Zum letzten Mal wird nun Appell geblasen!
  Zum letzten Mal wird Sturmalarm geblasen!     For the last time the storm-call has sounded
 
Stanza 3, line 3 Bald flattern Hitlerfahnen über Barrikaden
  Bald flattern Hitler-Fahnen über allen Straßen     Soon Hitler-flags will fly over all streets


The dropping of the reference to "barricades" reflected the Nazi Party's desire in the period 1930-33 to be seen as a constitutional political party aiming at taking power by legal means rather than as a revolutionary party.

After Wessel's death, new stanzas were composed in his honour. These were frequently sung by the SA but did not become part of the official lyrics used on party or state occasions.

Sei mir gegrüsst, Du starbst den Tod der Ehre!
Horst Wessel fiel, doch tausend neu erstehen
Es braust das Fahnenlied voran dem braunen Heere
SA bereit, den Weg ihm nachzugehen
Die Fahnen senkt vor Toten, die noch leben
Es schwört SA, die Hand zur Faust geballt
Einst kommt der Tag, da gibts Vergeltung, kein Vergeben
wenn Heil und Sieg durchs Vaterland erschallt
Greetings, you died the death of a hero!
Horst Wessel fell, but a thousand new [men] arise.
The banner-song blasts forth before the Brown Army
SA ready to follow after him.
Lower the flags before the dead who still live.
The SA vows, with clenched hand
The day will come for reprisal, no forgiveness
when Heil and Sieg ring out throughout the Fatherland.

Melody

After Wessel's death, he was officially credited with having composed the melody as well as having written the lyrics for the Horst-Wessel-Lied. Between 1930 and 1933, however, German critics disputed this claim, pointing out that the melody had a long prior history. Such criticism became impossible after 1933.

The most likely immediate source for the melody was a song popular in the German Navy during World War I, which Wessel would no doubt have heard being sung by Navy veterans in the Berlin of the 1920s. The song was known either by its opening line as Vorbei, vorbei, sind all die schönen Stunden, or as the Königsberg-Lied, after the German light cruiser Königsberg, which is mentioned in one version of the song's lyrics. The opening stanza of the song is:

Vorbei, vorbei sind all die schönen Stunden
die wir verlebt am schönen Ostseestrand
Wir hatten uns, ja uns so schön zusamm'n gefunden
es war für uns der allerschönste Ort.
Gone, gone are all the happy hours
that we spent on the beautiful Baltic shore.
Things were so beautiful between us all
and it was for us the finest place of all.

In 1936 a German music critic, Alfred Weidemann, published an article in which he identified the melody of a song composed in 1865 by the Weimar composer Peter Cornelius as the "Urmelodie" (source-melody). According to Weidemann, Cornelius described the tune as a "Viennese folk tune." This appeared to him to be the ultimate origin of the melody of the Horst-Wessel-Lied [1].

Other uses

During the 1930s and '40s the Horst-Wessel-Lied was adapted for use by fascist groups in other European countries. The anthem of the British Union of Fascists was set to the same tune, and its lyrics were to some extent modelled on the Horst-Wessel-Lied, but appealing to British nationalism rather than German nationalism. Its opening stanza was:

Comrades, the voices of the dead battalions,
Of those who fell that Britain might be great,
Join in our song, for they still march in spirit with us,
And urge us on, to gain the fascist state!

In Spain, the Falange fascist movement sang to the same tune:

Por el honor, la Patria y la justicia,
luchamos hoy en este amanecer.
Y si la muerte llega y nos acaricia
Y Arriba España! diremos al caer.

While in Vichy France the fascists of the radical Milice sang:

Nous châtierons les juifs et les marxistes,
Nous vengerons nos frères tués par eux,
Afin que l'idéal national-socialiste
Puisse être un jour fier et victorieux

It is interesting that the French version is explicitly anti-Semitic. There is no reference to Jews in the German Horst-Wessel-Lied.

Parodies

Between 1930 and 1933 the German Communists and Social Democrats sang various parodies of the Horst-Wessel-Lied during their street battles with the SA. Some simply changed the political character of the song, such as:

Die Fahne hoch, die Reihen fest geschlossen
Rot Front marschiert mit eisenfestem Schritt
Genossen, die vom Stahlhelm Hakenkreuz erschossen
Marschieren im Geist in unsern Reihen mit
The flag high! The ranks tightly closed!
Red Front marches with iron-firm pace.
Comrades, shot dead by the Steel Helmet and Swastika
March in spirit within our ranks.

The Stahlhelm was a veterans' organisation closely aligned with the Nazis.

Others substituted completely new lyrics:

Ernst Thälmann ruft uns auf die Barrikaden!
Bauer, steh auf! Erheb dich Arbeitsmann
Gewehre nehmt! Gewehre gut und scharf geladen!
Tragt rote Fahnen hoch im Kampf voran!
Ernst Thälmann calls us to the barricades
Farmer arise, workman lift yourself up
To arms! Load the guns well with live ammunition
Carry high red flags onward into the fight

Ernst Thälmann was the KPD leader.

These versions were of course banned once the Nazis came to power and the Communist and Social Democratic parties repressed. But during the years of the Third Reich the song was parodied in various underground versions, most of them poking fun at the corruption of the Nazi elite. One version ran:

Die Preise hoch, die Läden dicht geschlossen
Die Not marschiert und wir marschieren mit
Frick, Joseph Goebbels, Schirach, Himmler und Genossen
Die hungern auch doch nur im Geiste mit
The prices high, the shops tightly closed
poverty marches and we march with it
Frick, Joseph Goebbels, Schirach, Himmler and Comrades
they go hungry as well, but only in spirit

Wilhelm Frick was the Interior Minister. Baldur von Schirach was the Hitler Youth leader. Heinrich Himmler was head of the SS and police.

In the first year of the Nazi regime radical elements of the SA sang their own parody of the song, reflecting their disappointment that the "socialist" element of National Socialism had not been realised[2]:

Die Preise hoch, Kartelle fest geschlossen
Das Kapital marschiert mit leisem Schritt
Die Börsianer sind nun Parteigenossen
Und für das Kapital sorgt nun Herr Schmitt
The prices high, the Cartels are tightly closed
Capital marches with a quiet step
The Stockbrokers are now Party Comrades
And Capital is now protected by Herr Schmitt

Kurt Schmitt was Economics Minister 1933-35.

See also

References

This article is largely based on George Boderick, "The Horst-Wessel-Lied: A Reappraisal," International Folklore Review Vol. 10 (1995): 100-127, available online here

  1. Alfred Weidemann: Ein Vorläufer des Horst-Wessel-Liedes? In: Die Musik 28, 1936, S. 911f. Zitiert nach Wulf 1989, S. 270.
  2. Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (Allen Lane 2006), 71