Die Fahne Hoch

Horst Ludwig Georg Erich Wessel, born in Bielefeld in 1907, was the most celebrated martyr of the National Socialist movement. As a Sturmführer in the brown-shirted Sturmabteilung (SA), Horst Wessel led his men in Berlin, where the Communist paramilitary Red Front Fighters'' League did their best to disrupt the activities of the new German Nationalists. In response to his capable leadership, which threatened the Communist stranglehold on much of the city, the Red Front put out a hit on the young SA-Man. His resulting death at the hands of a cowardly Communist assassin-a pimp and petty criminal named Albrecht Höhler-became a rallying cry for his comrades all across Germany (Höhler would later be executed by the SA following the seizure of power in 1933). The namesake of this book-"Die Fahne Hoch," or "Raise the Flag"-is a song written by Horst Wessel as a fighting song for the SA. After his martyrdom, it was adopted as the official anthem of the NSDAP and later as