Ramsay the peacemaker
QUESTION Who was the first British Prime Minister to visit
the United States? The first Prime Minister to make an official visit to the U.S. was Labour’s Ramsay MacDonald. Relations between the Americans and the previous Baldwin government had been poor, so much so that Stanley Baldwin told Neville Chamberlain he’d come to loathe the Americans so much he hated meeting them.
So it fell to MacDonald to attempt a reconciliation, and President herbert hoover agreed he should invite himself to Washington as part of the process.
As the first PM in office to visit the U.S., MacDonald received a ticker-tape welcome on Broadway, New York, in October 1929, and was photographed with hoover outside the White house.
he also became the first PM to address the U.S. Senate, on October 7, 1929. The visit eventually resulted in the signing of the London Naval Treaty of April 22, 1930 — an agreement by the five great naval powers America, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan to demilitarise.
Other British premiers had visited the United States before being appointed. edward Stanley, 14th earl of Derby (17991869) travelled to Canada and the U.S. in 1824, visiting several of the east coast states. he subsequently served as Prime Minister three times — from February 23 to December 17, 1852; February 20, 1858 to June 1, 1859; and from June 28, 1866 to February 25, 1868.
Martin Smith, Coventry.
QUESTION There are several River Dees in Britain. Do their names share the same origin? MANY river names in england, Scotland, Wales and Ireland stem from the ancient Celtic form deva, divine or goddess.
Such is the case with the Irish River Dee, which flows into the Irish Sea north of Annagassan (Co. Louth); the english River Dee, which flows into the Irish Sea in Cheshire; and the Welsh rivers Afon Dwyfawr (Big Dee) and Afon Dwyfach ( Small Dee), which unite below the village of Llanystumdwy in the Lleyn Peninsula (Gwynedd).
In Scotland, two rivers Dee are recorded: the one which flows into the Irish Sea in Kirkcudbright (Dumfries and Galloway) and the one which joins the North Sea at Aberdeen (Aberdeenshire).
There are numerous French examples, too, including La Dieue, a tributary of the River Meuse in Dieue; La Dives, which flows into the english Channel in Divessur-Mer; La Dive, a tributary of the River Thouet in Saint- Just- sur-Dive; and La Divette, which flows into the english Channel at Cherbourg.
Marie Coralen, Tenby, Pembrokeshire.
QUESTION What is known of Horst Wessel, the man who wrote the infamous Nazi song? hORST Ludwig Georg erich Wessel (right) was born in 1907 in Bielefeld, Germany. his parents, both Lutherans, were Dr Wilhelm Ludwig Georg Wessel, and Bertha Luise Margarete Wessel, nee Richter.
Wilhelm (1879-1922), became a doctor of philosophy in 1904 at erlangen and was ordained in the Lutheran Church at Dortmund-Brechten in 1905. In July 1913, he became the Second Deacon at the Nikolai Church in Berlin, and he and his family all lived in a large rectory in Judenstraße, 100m from the church. he brought up his son on a diet of German nationalism.
horst attended the Volksschule (primary school) i n Colln f rom 1914, before progressing to two neighbourhood high schools ( Gymnasium).
In 1926, he enrolled at university to study law, but dropped out to work in the construction industry and devote himself to Right-wing politics. In December 1926, aged 19, Wessel joined the Nazi Party and the brown-shirted Stormtroopers, the SA ( Sturmabteilung), the party’s original paramilitary wing.
Wessel impressed Joseph Goebbels and rose to become leader of SA-Sturm 5 in Friedrichshain, and he was noted in his locality for being a public speaker and writer of rousing songs for the party.
Wessel played a double-reed woodwind instrument, the Schalmei, which is still played today, and in early 1929 wrote the lyrics for a new Nazi Kampflied (fighting song). It went through several names before becoming the Horst Wessel Lied (horst Wessel Song).
Wessel led his SA group into the poorer parts of Berlin, where there were fights with Communist groups. In one clash, outside a pub used by the Communist Party (KPD), five Communists were injured, four seriously. From then on, Wessel was a marked man with his name, address and photograph featured on Communist street posters.
At about 10pm on January 14, 1930, two or three KPD members burst into the flat he shared with erna Janicke, a former prostitute, and shot Wessel in the face.
he was not killed instantly, but was taken to St Joseph’s hospital. Surgeons stopped the internal bleeding, but were not able to remove the bullet from his brain. he was taken from hospital to his mother’s home, where he died of blood poisoning six weeks later.
he was buried in Berlin on March 1, 1930. hermann Goring, Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia and Goebbels were among the 30,000 mourners.
Changes were made to the song’s lyrics after Wessel’s death to promote the person of hitler, and soften the words. Rather than implying the gaining of power by revolution, the Nazis tried to paint themselves as a normal political party wanting to gain power by legal means.
The song was recognised under Nazi law on May 19, 1933, as a national symbol. It had been the Nazi Party song since 1931, but had attained an equal status with Deutschlandlied.
Nazi Germany now had a double anthem, consisting of the first verse of the Lied der Deutschen, followed by the Horst Wessel Lied. The combination was known as the Lieder der Nation (Song Of The Nation).
From the end of World War II, the song — including lyrics and music — was banned, and remains so today, other than for limited educational purposes.
Michael Cassidy, Kenley, Croydon.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB. You can also fax them to 0141 331 4739 or you can email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.