Nazi Martyr Horst Wessel
Beware the mobilizing martyrdom by American fascists
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bettedangerous.com/p/nazi-martyr-…
Beware the mobilizing martyrdom by American fascists
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bettedangerous.com/p/nazi-martyr-…
The moment I learned of Charlie Kirk’s death, I thought of Jeff Sharlet. Sharlet has documented extremist right-wing movements in America for two decades, and he was the one who taught me how Ashli Babbitt became a MAGA martyr.
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In an interview with RadPod on his book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, Sharlet told us:
So Ashli Babbitt, 35-year-old white woman from Southern California, Air Force veteran storms the Capitol with violent intentions - she wrote about them. That's her knife on the cover of the book. That's the evidence photo, you can see it dated 1.6.2021.
She climbs up into a window leading a mob through a broken window, they smash the window, she comes up into it.
And we see on the video that very day, the two hands of the Capitol Hill police officer who shoots her, and it is the hands of a black man, and she's a white woman, and as a student of American mythology and American history, I know right away what's going to happen with that story.
And it happened within hours. First, they started saying Ashli - she was 135 pounds, she was in her 20s. Or maybe she was 16, she was just a little white girl. And they start shrinking her - she's 125 pounds, that's not going to work. She's 115 pounds. No, she's 110. They are making her into this model of white innocence.
Now, those not familiar with the history of lynching don't realize that at the heart of lynching throughout American history has been this kind of sexualized panic. This idea that black men are coming for our - possessive, you see - white women - a kind of property.
And that's the story that they began telling.
That's when the book really started to take shape. I said I'm going to follow the formation of this martyr myth.—Jeff Sharlet, on RadPod
bettedangerous.com/p/lucid-dreami…
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So Ashli Babbitt, 35-year-old white woman from Southern California, Air Force veteran storms the Capitol with violent intentions - she wrote about them. That's her knife on the cover of the book. That's the evidence photo, you can see it dated 1.6.2021.
She climbs up into a window leading a mob through a broken window, they smash the window, she comes up into it.
And we see on the video that very day, the two hands of the Capitol Hill police officer who shoots her, and it is the hands of a black man, and she's a white woman, and as a student of American mythology and American history, I know right away what's going to happen with that story.
And it happened within hours. First, they started saying Ashli - she was 135 pounds, she was in her 20s. Or maybe she was 16, she was just a little white girl. And they start shrinking her - she's 125 pounds, that's not going to work. She's 115 pounds. No, she's 110. They are making her into this model of white innocence.
Now, those not familiar with the history of lynching don't realize that at the heart of lynching throughout American history has been this kind of sexualized panic. This idea that black men are coming for our - possessive, you see - white women - a kind of property.
And that's the story that they began telling.
That's when the book really started to take shape. I said I'm going to follow the formation of this martyr myth.—Jeff Sharlet, on RadPod
bettedangerous.com/p/lucid-dreami…
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The report I suggest reading regarding Kirk, the co-founder and executive director of Turning Point USA — a Council for National Policy-linked fascist youth organization — is Sharlet’s post in his substack, The Struggle Is Long:
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slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/the-struggle…
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slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/the-struggle…
Nazi Martyr Horst Wessel
The second person I thought of was Horst Wessel, a member of the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party who became a propaganda symbol in Nazi Germany following his murder by members of the Communist Party of Germany.
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The second person I thought of was Horst Wessel, a member of the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party who became a propaganda symbol in Nazi Germany following his murder by members of the Communist Party of Germany.
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Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels elevated Wessel to martyr to mobilize people around the Nazi movement.
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Horst Ludwig Georg Erich Wessel was killed in 1930, at the age of 22, after serving in multiple extremist youth groups before joining the SA, where he became a commander of the Nazi storm troopers.
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He had been radicalized by Nazi propaganda, dropping out of law school at the University of Berlin and becoming more and more extremist in his writings and actions.
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I learned of Wessel's martyrdom reading Bella Fromm’s diary.
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https://twitter.com/heidi_cuda/status/1837749228715888722
“There are men everywhere who would sell out humanity for their own personal profit. There are stupid and emotional masses everywhere who can be found to follow them, given a few slogans and some nice uniforms.”—Bella Fromm, Blood & Banquets, A Berlin Social Diary
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As Wessel became a propaganda symbol for the Nazis, they renamed a song he had written as the “Horst-Wessel-Lied”, which became the official anthem of the Nazi Party. After Adolf Hitler came to national power in 1933, the song became the co-national anthem of Germany along with Deutschlandlied (Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles).
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Wessel adopted Hitler’s rhetoric, and helped the “brown tide” pour into Germany. During 1929, Berlin was fraught with continual violence, instigated by extremist right-wing groups and leftist parties, and a virtual civil war was breaking out. This violence was accelerated and encouraged by Goebbels, and embraced by Wessel, who was often at the center of Nazi violence.
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On January 14, 1930, Wessel was shot, allegedly by a small group of Communists — the motive may have been personal, involving a prostitute, as well as political. Wessel died a month later on February 23 of sepsis.
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Nazi propaganda elevated Wessel’s status, turning his death into an opportunity to mythologize him, and ultimately, he became the party’s most famous martyr, accelerated by propagandistic books, films, and public ceremonies.
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The Nazis used the Wessel myth to call for political violence and self-sacrifice, and to encourage others to “fight or die” for the Nazis.
Here’s Elon Musk, quoting Nazis, as I predicted when writing this report:
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Here’s Elon Musk, quoting Nazis, as I predicted when writing this report:
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In addition, his death was used to justify attacks on Nazi party political targets and perceived enemies.
After the shooting, Goebbels released reports calling Wessel’s attackers “degenerate communist subhumans.”
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After the shooting, Goebbels released reports calling Wessel’s attackers “degenerate communist subhumans.”
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Three years later, the Nazis had one of his alleged assailants illegally executed.
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Apparently, Goebbels — who journalist Bella Fromm referred to as a “raging dwarf” — had been seeking a martyr for the movement, and previous attempts had failed.
Among his successes, however, were the 16 Nazis who had died during the Beer Hall Putsch — echoes of J6 deification.
Goebbels hit the jackpot with Wessel, eulogizing him in his newspaper, Der Angriff:
“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!”—Joseph Goebbels, Der Angriff
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Among his successes, however, were the 16 Nazis who had died during the Beer Hall Putsch — echoes of J6 deification.
Goebbels hit the jackpot with Wessel, eulogizing him in his newspaper, Der Angriff:
“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!”—Joseph Goebbels, Der Angriff
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Goebbels attempt to turn the funeral into a massive event was thwarted when he could not get the proper permit, but he later lied about crowd size. The funeral was filmed and turned into a propaganda tool, with Goebbels delivering the eulogy. Hitler did not attend, fearing an attack on his life.
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“Horst Wessel did a great deal more for the Nazi image as a dead pimp than he had ever done as a live Party member.”—Alan Wykes, The Nuremberg Rallies
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Three years after his death, Hitler spoke at Wessel’s grave, calling him a “blood witness,” whose song was “a battle hymn for millions.” Wessel’s image would serve as an icon for the Nazi Youth movement. City areas, street signs, a subway line, and a Nazi training ship was named after him.
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The Horst Wessel Song has been banned in Germany and Austria since the end of World War II in 1945.
As I have proven on these pages in my historic reports of fascist movements, there is a playbook being followed in America.
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bettedangerous.com/p/who-went-naz…
As I have proven on these pages in my historic reports of fascist movements, there is a playbook being followed in America.
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bettedangerous.com/p/who-went-naz…
Well-funded disinformation campaigns will be uniform in their exploitation of Charlie Kirk’s death.
But we have history to show us how this will go. These guys have been studying the fascist manual.
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But we have history to show us how this will go. These guys have been studying the fascist manual.
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Thank you as well for buying my ebooks in my ko-fi shop and offering support at my ko-fi account.
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ko-fi.com/heidicuda
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ko-fi.com/heidicuda
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