Werner Wessel
Werner Georg Erich Ludwig Wessel (born August 22, 1910 in Mülheim an der Ruhr , † December 22, 1929 near the Schneekoppe near Krummhübel ) was a German NSDAP and SA member. After his brother Horst Wessel was the victim of a fatal attack by KPD members , the Nazi propaganda developed a cult around him as a “ martyr of the movement ”, which also included Werner Wessel.
Werner Wessel was the third child of the Protestant pastor Ludwig Wessel and his wife Margarete Wessel . His sister Ingeborg , who published extensive commemorative literature after the death of her eldest brother Horst , described him as “more romantic” than his brother, whom he always tried to emulate. Pictures show Werner Wessel in the mid-1920s together with his brother reading the Völkischer Beobachter and in Hitler Youth uniform. In the NSDAP he had the membership number 92.715.
On December 22, 1929, Wessel died while NSDAP members were on a ski hike in the Giant Mountains . He and three other participants got lost in the drifting snow. They had collapsed exhausted and frozen to death before they could be found by the rest of the hiking group. The NSDAP party newspaper The attack portrayed the four young people as victims of supernatural forces of nature, against which they could not even with extreme physical performance.
Werner Wessel was buried on December 28, 1929 in the same grave as his father. His brother Horst gave a speech at the grave. After his death he suffered a nervous breakdown from which he recovered only slowly, so that both his agitation as a speaker for the NSDAP and the energy in leading his SA storm subsided. On March 1, 1930 Horst Wessel was buried at the side of his father and brother.
On January 22, 1933, a week before the seizure of power , a memorial stone designed by Martin Meyer-Pyritz was unveiled at the Nikolai cemetery in Berlin in the presence of Adolf Hitler , Ernst Röhm at the grave of Ludwig, Werner and Horst Wessel National Socialist pilgrimage and cult site served.
At his place of residence at Jüdenstrasse 51/52 on January 14, 1934, a plaque with the inscription "Horst and Werner Wessel were fighters for Germany's honor and freedom" was placed. The address was given by Julius Lippert . The representative of the city thanked the representative of the Evangelical Nikolai congregation for the financial support.
In 1936 his mother Margarete Wessel received a 3,600 m² plot of land a few kilometers from the place of his death from the municipality of Krummhübel in Lower Silesia, on which his sister had a house with 200 m² of living space and high-quality equipment such as central heating and a garage built. As Daniel Siemens assumes, the NSDAP contributed to the costs .
literature
Daniel Siemens : Horst Wessel: Death and Transfiguration of a National Socialist. Siedler, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-88680-926-4 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Daniel Siemens, p. 36
- ↑ Ingeborg Wessel: Horst Wessel - A picture of life. Munich 1934.
- ^ Daniel Siemens; Pp. 48, 61
- ^ Daniel Siemens; P. 143
- ^ Daniel Siemens; P. 96
- ^ Daniel Siemens; P. 97
- ^ Daniel Siemens; P. 170
- ^ Daniel Siemens; P. 174
- ^ Daniel Siemens; P. 142
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Wessel, Werner |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Wessel, Werner Georg Erich Ludwig (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German SA man |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 22, 1910 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mülheim an der Ruhr |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 22, 1929 |
| Place of death | at Krummhübel , Giant Mountains |