They are trying to create their own Horst Wessel, but remember "all glory is fleeting"
Wessel's funeral was given wide attention in Berlin, with many of the Nazi elite in attendance. After his death, he became a propaganda symbol in Nazi Germany. A march for which he had written the lyrics was renamed the "Horst-Wessel-Lied", 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.
The Berlin district of Friedrichshain, where Wessel died, was renamed "Horst Wessel Stadt", and the Bülowplatz in the Mitte district was renamed "Horst-Wessel-Platz" on 26 May 1933. The U-Bahn station nearby was also renamed. After the war, the name Friedrichshain was restored and Horst-Wessel-Platz in East Berlin became "Liebknechtplatz", after Karl Liebknecht.In 1947 it was renamed "Luxemburg-Platz" after Rosa Luxemburg. It has been called Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz since 1969.
In 1936, Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine (navy) commissioned a three-masted training ship and named her the Horst Wessel. The ship was taken as a war prize by the United States after World War II. After repairs and modifications, she was commissioned on 15 May 1946 into the United States Coast Guard as the USCGC Eagle (WIX-327) and remains in service to this day.
After World War II, Wessel's memorial was vandalized and his remains and the remains of his brother Werner were exhumed and destroyed (the remains of Wessel's father, Ludwig, were left interred). Such activity became common for buried Nazis in East Germany.
Afterwards, the gravesite was long marked only by the remaining part of the grave marker, which had been partly recarved and was in use as the headstone of Wessel's father, Ludwig, albeit with the surname "Wessel" removed.
In August 2013, the grave marker was removed and the grave of Wessel's father was leveled as well, as the church wished to stop the site from being a rally point for Neo-Nazis.
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