You know, I like to think of myself as an educated person — especially on World War II. However, there’s always a new bit for me to dive into that seems to have an unsettling parallel to the way things are going now. 

I never heard of Horst Wessel until this week, and to be honest, that shocked me. However, because of how things are happening, I think we need to talk about who he was and the alarming reason why he’s a topic of conversation right now.

Horst Wessel was a German man who was an avid fan of Hitler back during World War II. But let’s just start from the beginning. He was born in 1907. He died in 1930, far before World War II and the Holocaust truly started to roil the world.

At first glance, it’s easy to see why Horst Wessel caught the attention of Nazis. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and square-jawed, he was quite literally the perfect example of what eugenicists believed was the “Ubermensch” in appearance. 

As the son of a Lutheran priest, Horst took religion seriously and also took country seriously. At the behest of his parents, Wessel partook in young right-wing paramilitary groups and youth groups. 

He climbed the ranks of the Viking Youth, the German National People’s Party, and the “Olympia German Association for Physical Training,” which was a paramilitary group. By 1926, he was a Nazi party member and he eventually became a member of the Brown Shirts.

He quickly earned a reputation for his ardent, and at times, scary devotion to the Nazi cause. On a social level, he was particularly adored by young men. He actually started Nazi programs that were designed to help mold young boys into Nazi-style men. 

Though he never quite made it to the top ranks, Wessel was a highly regarded up-and-coming member of the Brown Shirts. His moves even got the attention of Hitler’s inner circle. 

In fact, he had actually marched alongside Goebbels during a march in Berlin at a time when the SA was banned. So, for all we know, they may have actually crossed paths.

Wessel was as close to an influencer as he could be for a man of his time. While he may not have been as famous as Charlie Kirk was today, he still held quite a lot of clout. 

Wessel only lived to be 23 years old. Much like Kirk, he was shot. However, the circumstances behind Wessel’s demise were very different than Kirk’s. Wessel was not well-heeled and often spent time in bars and flophouses. 

Eventually, he rented a room. He stopped paying rent. His landlord, the widow of a Communist Party member, asked him to leave. Wessel refused. She allegedly called her late husband’s friends, which ended in Wessel being killed. 

With that said, there were doubts to this story. Some say he had pimped out his girlfriend, got the landlady angry, and got shot. Regardless, he either didn’t pay or was trafficking sex on the skin market. Kinda scummy, no?

In most other circumstances, his death would have been left unnoticed — a footnote in history. However, it was a killing committed by two Communists against a well-liked, ardent Nazi.

Moreover, his sibling also died while “in service” of the Nazi Party. 

That changed everything.

The Nazi Party was looking for a person who they could use as a martyr figure. They wanted to look like the victims of brutal commie jerks. Goebbels himself ensured that it would happen. 

The Nazi Party started holding Horst as a martyr to Nazis — an example of the violence that happened as a result of their “leftist threat.” A grand funeral was held. Goebbels spoke about him. Newspapers lit up. 

The overreaction was meant to deliver two different messages to two different people. The message was clear to Nazis: “We grieve our own. And we avenge those losses.”

And for anyone who wasn’t fully on the party line? Well, the message was, “MOURN AND JOIN, OR ELSE.”

The Nazi Party even used a song written by Wessel as a national anthem. By dying, Wessel became the vessel for the Nazi Party’s messaging, and it worked.

Officially, they were sentenced to years in prison. Six months in, they were taken out and shot. More people who were targeted by the Nazi Party got additional charged thrown at them as being implicated in the murder as well. 

In other words, Wessel’s death paid dividends and encouraged violence against leftists. 

Much like Wessel, Kirk was viewed as a mentor for young men and a very loud voice for right-wing propaganda. Kirk was also very heavily linked to Christian nationalist movements and is now being “backpainted” as a “good, Christian man” despite being a racist, sexist person.

When he was shot, right-wing outlets scrambled to try to tie it to a leftist. It failed because the dude who did it seems to be pretty right-wing, from a right-wing family. 

The way the GOP treated Kirk’s death was something that shocked the world. They turned it into a massive spectacle, with many people openly calling it a “declaration of war” against the left, which, once again, had nothing to do with this. 

Many influencers who once butted heads with Kirk started to glom onto him after his death, saying they loved him. People are trying to erect statues to him in schools. People insisted on having a moment of silence for him — not only in Congress, but during a global meetup.

Meanwhile, Melissa Hortman, the lawmaker from Minnesota (and her spouse and dog), was not treated like a big deal despite actually having died from a political attack.

Why? Because Kirk is now being treated as a martyr for the right-wing cause. The GOP can’t propagandize a leftist’s death, so they have no need to act like they care. Kirk’s death was basically propaganda gold, and it would have played out exactly like Wessel’s death had it been done by a leftist. 

What more is there to say? History’s rhyming pretty hard, and it seems like we have every reason to be worried.