Empty Wessels

Thank you all for your kind comments in reply to my previous post. Mutley wondered whether I had been anywhere and actually no. Life had just carried on as normal just minus a few hours hunched in front of a monitor hoping that the muse of the blog would touch me with a piece of inspiration.

I have spent quite a bit of my time off blogging doing quite a bit of reading. Just revisiting a few of my favourite books that I hadn't read in years.

One such was Shirer's 'Rise and fall of the Third Reich'. If you don't know the work (which I'm sure you probably will) the title pretty much gives away the content. As I ploughed through the bit about the 1920's I came across the reference to Horst Wessel the SA street thug who, although killed like so many others on the streets of Germany at the time became posthumously famous for his marching song "Die Fahne hoch" which is also known as the 'Horst Wessel Lied'. The song which became the second German national anthem between 1933 and1945.

It occurred to me that I had never knowingly heard the piece so with nothing other than minor curiosity searched on YouTube to see if it was posted on there.

Of course this was a bit of a mistake. Still being a touch naive about the interweb I had of course forgotten that YOUTube is not a repository of fascinating audio and visual information posted for general interest but is rather a showcase for the bizarre and a vehicle for the self aggrandising.

I did indeed find several versions of Horst's rather dull and repetitive little tune. What I also discovered was that in the introduction to the videos I was implored to raise my right arm and sing along to with the lyrics which had thoughtfully been added to the video.

What was even more amusing was the standard of the comments left which in a condensed form seemed to run a long the lines of.

'Hey man - Hitler was the greatest - Nazi's are coming back!'.

'No F**k you, he was a one balled monster'

'Hey F**k you man, yo gonna get yours Muther F**ker - Seig Heil'.

An interesting perspective and insightful historical analysis.

What was also interesting is where the related videos took one.

I discovered a group calling themselves the British Fascist Society (I think) who had posted a video outlining their programme. Not that a member of the British Fascist was to be seen. rather they had used an animated character, not dissimilar to those in Second Life to explain the benefits of the introduction of Councils of Corporations, Re-education, public works and strong centralised authority. Benito would have been proud! Naturally they weren't racist, heaven forfend, you could be any racial descent as long as you adhered to the plan. I was mightily relieved.

I'd love to know where these people come from and how they so spectacularly missed the point of much of the suffering in the last century.

On the up side though some of the links led of towards a variety of national anthems. Some current, many no longer used or of states no longer in existence. Now that's the kind of stuff I do find interesting. In particular and in a way in keeping with the earlier part of the post I found the old national anthem of Prussia which Otto the real Iron Chancellor must have a tapped his toes to many a time.

Pretty similar to the current national anthem of Lichtenstein and oft used in other European states. I'll post a link to this one. If you want to look at the other stuff you'll have to find it for yourself. You will only have yourself to blame.