CHARLIE KIRK'S ASSASSINATION REMINDS ME OF HORST WESSEL

By Howie Katz

 

Charlie Kirk was no Horst Wessel (right), but the symbolism of his assassination is comparable to that of Wessel

 

Horst Ludwig Georg Erich Wessel was a a prominent member of the Nazi Party's paramilitary group known as the SA when he was assassinated in 1930 by members of the German Communist Party.

Wessel's assassin was sentenced to prison, but when Hitler came to power in 1933, members of the SA dragged him out of the prison and killed him.

 

 

Wessel is pictured leading an SA unit at a  Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg in 1929

Horst Wessel's funeral procession on Jüdenstrasse in Berlin in 1930

Hitler and Geobbels at Horst Vessel's grave in January 1933

 

 

After Wessel's death Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels made him a martyr for the Nazi Party. His martyrdom was used to celebrate the Nazi ideals and to encourage others to fight and die for the party.

 

Here in the US, the Trump administration has made Charlie Kirk a martyr. It remains to be seen how his martyrdom will be used.  

 

Arnold Schwarzenegger predicted that the assassination of Charlie Kirk will result in the end of democracy. He could be right. 

 

At the time of Wessel's assassination, Germany was a Democracy under the Weimar Republic. His martyrdom by the Nazis helped Hitler to to become Der Fuhrer of Germany in 1933. That was the end of Democracy in Germany.