Horst Wessel

Horst Wessel (1907-1930) was a German Nazi Party activist and an SA-Sturmführer who became a posthumous hero of the Nazi movement following his violent death in 1930. He was the author of the lyrics to the song "Die Fahne hoch" ("The Flag On High"), usually known as Horst-Wessel-Lied ("the Horst Wessel Song"), which became the Nazi Party anthem and, de facto, Germany's co-national anthem from 1933 to 1945. His death also resulted in his becoming the "patron" for the Luftwaffe's 26th Destroyer Wing and the 18th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division during World War II.

Horst Wessel in In the Presence of Mine Enemies
Following Germany's victory in World War II, three generations of German schoolchildren were taught that Horst Wessel was a hero and a martyr for the cause of Nazism. When she discovered that she and her family were secretly Jews in 2010, Alicia Gimpel began to doubt everything that she had ever been taught, including whether Wessel was truly a hero.