The Man Who Wouldn't Salute

The time to resist was then, and it is also now

In that entire crowd of people, only one person who isn’t autistic.

This, of course, is sarcasm, written in response to all the Nazi apologists who proclaim Elon Musk didn’t throw two Nazi salutes at the Danger Yam’s inauguration. Instead, they say, he’s autistic and therefore socially awkward. Others say it was a “Roman salute.” A Roman salute, you say? From the Roman Empire? The same empire where one-third of the population was enslaved? The one that invaded and relentlessly conquered all their neighbors? The one that committed the world’s first genocide? The same empire that brutally tortured and murdered your lord Jesus Christ? The salute that alleged represents that Roman Empire? I guess that makes it okay. Again, sarcasm.

Regarding the brave man in the photo, his identity is uncertain, but there are two leading candidates.

The date of the photo is from June of 1936. It was taken at a shipyard in Hamburg to celebrate the launching of a military training vessel. Adolf Hitler was there, as was Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess. While it appears everyone in the crowd was being a good little obsequious Nazi, one man crossed his arms and said fuck this fascist bullshit.

Who was he?

A likely candidate is August Landmesser. He certainly had the motivation to take such a brave and potentially lethal stand against the Nazis.

Born in 1910, he joined the Nazi Party when he was twenty-one because it improved his chances of getting a job. We all did stupid shit when we were twenty-one, and the need to find work during the Great Depression so you can do things like eat can be a motivating force. Anyway, Landmesser later fell in love with a Jewish woman, Irma Eckler. In 1935, when the couple became engaged, Landmesser was kicked out of the party. Their marriage would be prevented by the enacting of the antisemitic and racist Nuremberg Laws on September 15, 1935. The couple’s first daughter was born six weeks later.

In 1936, Landmesser was working at the shipyard where the photo was taken. For obvious reasons, he was pissed at the Nazi regime. It’s entirely likely it was him in the photo. While he wouldn’t be identified and punished at the time, he and his family would suffer greatly at the hands of the fucking Nazis.

In 1937 the couple and their child attempted to flee Germany for Denmark but were stopped at the border for violating the nation’s anti-miscegenation laws. Their having a child together was considered “dishonoring the race.” A year later, Landmesser and Eckler were both sent to concentration camps. Eckler gave birth to the couple’s second daughter while imprisoned. Eckler was murdered by the Nazis in 1942. Landmesser was forced to fight in a penal battalion and died in Croatia in 1944. Their daughters survived the war, growing up in foster care.

There is another possible candidate for the man in the photo: Gustav Wegert. Some claim Wegert looks more like the man in the photo, but I’m skeptical, because Wegert was forty-six at the time. In 1936, the average forty-six-year-old looked more like they were sixty. Still, his story is worth telling.

The rally took place on a Sunday because Hitler didn’t want these rallies to interfere with military production so fuck your day off come idolize my fascist ass. Wegert was a devoted Christian who disapproved of spending Sunday at a political rally instead of at church. If the photo is of Wegert, it represents his stubborn resistance to worshiping an evil man instead of God.

In the end, it doesn’t matter who the man was. The photo speaks. The man’s arms are crossed, his face set in a visage of grim defiance and determination. Not all Germans were Nazis. Many resisted and lost their lives for having done so. For more stories of German resistance to the fucking Nazis, read my story about the Edelweiss Pirates and my story about the White Rose Network. The time to resist Nazis was then, and it is also now.

On a personal note, I know that I’ve been posting very infrequently of late because I am up to my ass in alligators with the writing of a new book titled Greedy Sexist Religious Bigots: A History of Humanity. I should have the first draft complete by the end of April and will be posting more free content regularly after that. I still do post very regularly for my paid subscribers, should you wish to become one. You can even do a free trial.

Those who cannot remember the past … need a history teacher who says “fuck” a lot. Get both volumes of my sweary history books ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY SH!T WENT DOWN.