Horst-Wessel-Lied

Horst-Wessel-Lied was performed as the Nazi Party anthem during the opening ceremony of the 1936 Summer Olympics. Its position immediately after Deutschlandlied made the party anthem part of the ceremony accompanying Adolf Hitler’s arrival and accession to the stadium’s place of honor, bringing Nazi political display into the Olympic proceedings.

Identity and Ceremonial Placement

The account identifies Horst-Wessel-Lied as the Nazi Party anthem, without discussing its composition or lyrics. During the opening ceremony, it followed Deutschlandlied in the musical sequence: after Adolf Hitler reached his viewing platform, the massed orchestra, conducted by Richard Strauss, began the national anthem, followed immediately by the party anthem.

That ordering gives the song a defined place in the scene. It came not as background music to the athletes’ procession, but during the ceremony surrounding Hitler’s arrival and presentation before the assembled crowd. The two anthems together linked national ceremony and the ruling party’s political identity within the same public event.

Performance at the Stadium

The anthem sounded after an immense orchestral and military-band ensemble had accompanied Hitler’s entrance. At exactly four o’clock, Hitler entered the western end of the stadium as 110,000 people stood and shouted Nazi salutes. Flanked by Nazi officers and followed by Olympic officials, he proceeded along the red-clay track to his platform.

A five-year-old girl, Gudrun Diem, approached him with flowers before he climbed to the viewing platform. From there, he watched the crowd as the orchestra played Deutschlandlied and then Horst-Wessel-Lied. The song’s performance thus belonged to a carefully staged sequence of entrance, salute, presentation, and music, rather than to the athletic competition itself.

Transition to the Athletes’ Parade

When Horst-Wessel-Lied ended, the stadium fell briefly silent. The bell beyond the Maifeld then began to toll, growing louder as the athletes entered, led by the Greek team. Each delegation dipped its flag as it passed Hitler; the teams’ differing forms of salute ranged from the Olympic gesture to the Nazi salute, with some gestures deliberately or seemingly ambiguous.

The placement of the anthem immediately before this parade marks a transition from the ceremony of Hitler’s arrival to the athletes’ appearance before him. The account notes that the crowd’s applause varied according to how closely each team’s gesture matched the Nazi salute. In that setting, Horst-Wessel-Lied formed part of a public spectacle in which Olympic ritual and visible expressions of Nazi authority occupied the same stadium.