In 1930 a young rising star of the Nazi Party in Germany was shot in the head and killed by two members of Communist Party. Yesterday attorney and former Trump supporter, George Conway, reminded us of that history most of us never knew, and he wondered aloud if something similar could be happening as MAGA’s attempted martyrdom of Charlie Kirk has seemingly begun in earnest.
The White Nationalist rage machine was quick to react, demanding Conway apologize. Conway would have none of it. From Raw Story:
George Conway, a former Trump associate and now vocal critic, is continuing to double down on comparisons to Charlie Kirk's killing with what happened in Nazi Germany — the assassination of Horst Wessel.
"They may not want to hear it, and it may incense them, but the parallels between what the Nazis did then, and what Trump and MAGA are doing today, are striking, chilling—and as any expert on authoritarianism will tell you, straight out of the same toxic, but dog-eared, playbook," Conway posted on X.
Conway shared an image and link to a Wikipedia page about Wessel, a 23-year-old member of the Nazi Party's paramilitary wing who was assassinated in 1930 by members of the Communist Party and hailed as a "martyr" in Nazi propaganda. Nazis used his death to mobilize others in their movement and target Communists, using the "Horst Wessel Song" as the co-national anthem of the Nazi Party and memorializing him during their reign of power.
Here is a clip from the Wikipedia article on Horst Wessel:
Horst Ludwig Georg Erich Wessel (9 October 1907 – 23 February 1930) was a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, who became a propaganda symbol in Nazi Germany following his murder in 1930 by two members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). After his death, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels elevated him into a martyr for the Nazi Party.
Wessel first joined a number of youth groups and extreme right-wing paramilitary groups, but later resigned from them and joined the SA, the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. He rose to command several SA squads and districts. On 14 January 1930, he was shot in the head by two Communists. According to sources, his murder was due to a dispute related to his procuring of women.[2][3][4] Albrecht "Ali" Höhler was arrested and charged with his murder. Höhler was initially sentenced to six years in prison but was forcibly removed from jail and killed by the SA after the Nazis came to power in September 1933.
Wessel's funeral was given wide attention in Berlin, with many of the Nazi elite in attendance. After his death, he became a propagandasymbol in Nazi Germany. A march for which he had written the lyrics was renamed the "Horst-Wessel-Lied" ("Horst Wessel Song"), and 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 the first verse of the previous "Deutschlandlied", also known as "Deutschland über alles”. . . .
Meanwhile, there’ growing evidence mounts that Conway could be correct. Yesterday, for instance, the Vice-President of the U. S. flew to Salt Lake City, accompanied Kirk’s casket to his home in Arizona, and was seen helping United States uniformed military carry the casket.
Even more bizarre, yesterday Republican Representative, Nancy Mace, announced that a resolution would be introduced in Congress to allow Kirk’s body to lie “in honor" in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
Will a tribute song from Kid Rock be next!!
And this morning the Felon-in-Chief, himself, was on Fox and Friends to remind his cult that he supports the Radical Right and that the problem is with the Radical Left. He had this to say when asked about radicalism of the Left and Right in America:
“The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. They don’t want to see crime. They’re saying: we don’t want these people coming in; we don’t want you burning our shopping centers; we don’t want you shooting our people in the middle of the street.
“The radicals on the left are the problem,” he said, “and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy.”
So the Right is justifiably radical because “they don’t want to see crime.” And who are the criminals that should be persecuted and targeted, according to Felon and his minions? Brown and black immigrants, black and brown citizens, black and brown people anywhere in the world, the poor, the homeless, the sick, the needy, anyone who is not heterosexual, and women who do not bow to their men.
I am wondering which groups Hitler’s Nazis targeted, besides the 6,000,000 Jews they starved and slaughtered. Oh, I found it in the Holocaust Encyclopedia:
The Nazis targeted people as members of the following groups (listed in alphabetical order for ease of reference):
- Black people in Germany;
- civilians (non-Jewish) accused of disobedience, resistance, or partisan activity;
- gay men, bisexual men, and other men accused of homosexuality in Germany;
- Jehovah’s Witnesses;
- people with disabilities;
- Poles;
- political opponents and dissenters in Germany;
- Roma and other people derogatorily labeled as “Gypsies”;
- social outsiders in Germany derogatorily labeled as “asocials” or “professional criminals”; and
- Soviet Prisoners of War.
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