- published: 20 Nov 2013
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Fredrik Bajer (April 21, 1837 – January 22, 1922) was a Danish writer, teacher, and pacifist politician who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1908.
The son of a clergyman, Bajer served as an officer in the Danish army, fighting in the 1864 war against Prussia and Austria where he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant. He was discharged in 1865, and moved to Copenhagen where he became a teacher, translator and writer.
He entered the Danish Parliament in 1872 as a member of Folketinget and held a seat there for the following 23 years. As a member of parliament, he worked for the use of international arbitration to solve conflicts among nations, and it is due to Bajer's efforts that foreign relations became part of the work of the Danish Parliament and that Denmark participated in the Inter-Parliamentary Union from the beginning and earned a distinguished position among its members.
He supported many peace organizations, both inside Denmark and Europe-wide, and helped guide the passage of a bill to reach arbitration agreements with Sweden and Norway.
Horst Ludwig Wessel (October 9, 1907 – February 23, 1930) was a German Nazi activist and an SA-Sturmführer who was made 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 passing also resulted in him becoming the "patron" for the Luftwaffe's 26th Destroyer Wing during World War II.
Wessel was born in Bielefeld in Westphalia, the son of Dr. Ludwig Wessel, a Lutheran minister at the Nikolaikirche, one of Berlin's oldest churches. Wessel's mother, Luise Margarete Wessel, also came from a family of Lutheran pastors, and Horst Wessel himself would remain a devout Lutheran throughout his life. The family lived in the nearby Judenstraße (the Jews' Street), which in mediaeval times had been the centre of Berlin's Jewish community. Wessel's father was a supporter of the monarchist German National People's Party (DNVP), and when he was 15, Wessel joined the DNVP youth group, the Bismarckjugend. He soon became a local leader, engaging in street battles with youth members of the Social Democratic Party and Communist Party.