Otto Strasser

Otto Johann Maximilian Strasser (also German: Straßer, see ß; 10 September 1897 – 27 August 1974) was a German politician and an early member of the Nazi Party. Otto Strasser, together with his brother Gregor Strasser, was a leading member of the party's more radical wing, whose ideology became known as Strasserism, and broke from the party due to disputes with the dominant Hitlerite faction. He formed the Black Front, a group intended to split the Nazi Party and take it from the grasp of Hitler. During his exile and World War II, this group also functioned as a secret opposition group.

Otto Strasser
Strasser delivering a speech soon after his return to West Germany following World War II
Personal details
Born
Otto Johann Maximilian Strasser

(1897-09-10)10 September 1897
Bad Windsheim, Bavaria, German Empire
Died27 August 1974(1974-08-27) (aged 76)
Munich, Bavaria, West Germany
NationalityGerman
Political partySocial Democratic Party (1917–1920)
Völkischer Block (1922–1925)
Nazi Party (1925–1930)
Black Front (1930–1934)
German Social Union (1956–1962)
RelativesGregor Strasser (brother)
Alma materHumboldt University of Berlin
OccupationPhilosopher, editor, politician
Military service
Allegiance German Empire
Branch/service Freikorps
Years of service1914–1918
RankLieutenant
Battles/warsWorld War I

Biography
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Early life and WWI

Born at Bad Windsheim, Strasser was the son of a Catholic judicial officer who lived in the Upper Bavarian market town of Geisenfeld. Strasser took an active part in World War I (1914-1918). On 2 August 1914, he joined the Bavarian Army as a volunteer. He rose through the ranks to lieutenant and was twice wounded.[1]

Freikorps and SPD (1919-20)

He returned to Germany in 1919, where he served in the Freikorps that in May 1919 put down the Bavarian Soviet Republic, which was organized on the principles of workers' councils. About this time, he joined the then-MarxistSocial Democratic Party.

In 1920, he participated in the opposition to the Kapp Putsch. Still, he grew increasingly alienated from his party's reformist stance, particularly when it put down a workers' uprising in the Ruhr, and he left the party later that year.[2]

Nazi Party (1925-30)

In 1925, he joined the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), in which his brother, Gregor, had been a member for several years and worked for its newspaper as a journalist, ultimately taking it over with his brother. He focused particularly on the socialist elements of the party's program and led the party's faction in northern Germany together with his brother and Joseph Goebbels. His faction advocated support for ideologically Nazi unions,[2] profit-sharing[3] and – despite acknowledged differences – closer ties with the Soviet Union.[2]

Despite disagreements with Hitler, the Strassers did not represent a radical wing opposed to the party mainstream.[4] Gottfried Feder was more radical and held great favour at the time. The Strassers were extremely influential within the party, but the Strasserist programme was defeated at the Bamberg Conference of 1926.[3] Otto Strasser, along with Gregor, continued as a leading Left Nazi within the party until he was expelled from the NSDAP in 1930.[3]

Nazi dissident in Germany (1930-33)

Following his expulsion, Strasser set up his own party, the Black Front, composed of like-minded former NSDAP members, to split the Nazi Party. His party proved unable to counter Hitler's rise to power in 1933, and Strasser spent the years of the Nazi era in exile. The Nazi Left was annihilated during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, during which Gregor Strasser was killed. This left Hitler as an undisputed party leader and able to pacify industrialists and the military into accepting his new Nazi regime.

Exile (1933-55)

In addition to the Black Front, Strasser at this time headed the Free German Movement outside Germany; this group (founded in 1941) sought to enlist the aid of Germans throughout the world in bringing about the downfall of Hitler and his vision of Nazism.

Strasser fled first to Austria, then to Czechoslovakia (Prague), Switzerland, and France. In 1940 he went to Bermuda by way of Portugal, leaving a wife and two children behind in Switzerland. In 1941, he emigrated to Canada, where he became the famed "Prisoner of Ottawa". Goebbels denounced Strasser as the Nazis' "Public Enemy Number One" and a price of $500,000 was set on his head. He settled for a time in Montreal. In 1942, he lived for a time in Clarence, Nova Scotia, on a farm owned by a German-Czech, Adolph Schmidt, then moved to nearby Paradise, where he lived for more than a decade in a rented apartment above a general store. As an influential and uncondemned former Nazi Party member still faithful to many doctrines of Nazism, he was initially prevented from returning to West Germany after the war, first by the Allied powers and then by the West German government.

During his exile, he wrote articles on Nazi Germany and its leadership for several British, American, and Canadian newspapers, including the New Statesman, and a series for the Montreal Gazette, which was ghostwritten by then-Gazette reporter and later politician Donald C. MacDonald.

In 1950, East Germany invited Strasser to become a member of the National Front. Still, he declined, hoping that he would be permitted to return to Bavaria, which had been under US occupation until 1949.[5] In his view, West Germany constituted an American colony and East Germany a Russian colony.[6]

Return to Germany and later career (1955-74)

Strasser eventually gained West German citizenship, returned to Germany on 16 March 1955,[7] and settled in Munich.

He attempted to create a new "nationalist and socialist"-oriented party in 1956, the German Social Union (German: Deutsch-Soziale Union; sometimes called a successor to the banned[8] Socialist Reich Party (SRP) of Germany), but his organization was unable to attract any support. Strasser continued to advocate for his vision of Nazism until he died in Munich in 1974.[9]

Stance on Nazi anti-Semitism

Otto Strasser claimed that he was a dissenting Nazi regarding racial policies.[10] Throughout his life, he claimed to have actively opposed such policies within the Nazi movement, for example, by organizing the removal of Julius Streicher from the German Völkisch Freedom Party.[11]

Written works
  • Hitler and I (translated by Eric Mosbacher and Gwenda David) [Hitler und Ich. Asmus-Bücher, Band 9. Johannes-Asmus-Verlag, Konstanz 1948.] First published in English in 1940, Boston: MA, Houghton Mifflin Company
  • A History in My Time (translated by Douglas Reed)
  • Germany Tomorrow (translated by Eric Mosbacher and Gwenda David)
  • Gregor Strasser (written under the pseudonym of "Michael Geismeier")
  • We Seek Germany (written under the pseudonym of "D.G.")
  • Whither Hitler? (written under the pseudonym of "D.G.") [Wohin treibt Hitler? Darstellung der Lage und Entwicklung des Hitlersystems in den Jahren 1935 und 1936. Verlag Heinrich Grunov, Prag I 1936.]
  • Europe Tomorrow (written under the pseudonym of "D.G.") [Europa von morgen. Das Ziel Masaryks. Weltwoche, Zürich 1939.]
  • Structure of German Socialism [Aufbau des deutschen Sozialismus. Wolfgang-Richard-Lindner-Verlag, Leipzig 1932.]
  • The German St. Bartholomew's Night [Die deutsche Bartholomäusnacht. Reso-Verlag, Zürich 1935.]
  • European Federation
  • The Gangsters Around Hitler
  • Hitler tritt auf der Stelle. Oxford gegen Staats-Totalität. Berlin – Rom – Tokio. Neue Tonart in Wien. NSDAP-Kehraus in Brasilien. Die dritte Front, Band 1937,6. Grunov, Prag 1937.
  • Kommt es zum Krieg? Periodische Schriftenreihe der "Deutschen Revolution", Band 3. Grunov, Prag 1937.
  • Der Faschismus. Geschichte und Gefahr. Politische Studien, Band 3. Günter-Olzog-Verlag, München (u.a.) 1965.
  • Mein Kampf. Eine politische Autobiografie. Streit-Zeit-Bücher, Band 3. Heinrich-Heine-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1969.

See also

References
  1. Strasser, Otto. Germany Tomorrow. Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1940, p. 11. p. 12.
  2. Rupp, Leila J.; Lane, Barbara Miller (1978). "Introduction - Nazi Ideology: Some Unfinished Business". Nazi ideology before 1933. Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. XX.
  3. Rupp, Leila J.; Lane, Barbara Miller (1978). "Introduction - Nazi Ideology: Some Unfinished Business". Nazi ideology before 1933. Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. XVI.
  4. Rupp, Leila J.; Lane, Barbara Miller (1978). "Introduction - Nazi Ideology: Some Unfinished Business". Nazi ideology before 1933. Austin: University of Texas Press. pp. XVII. If their writings are looked at as a whole, however, it would appear that Otto, not Gregor, was the disciple, and that far from being a disappointed dissident, Gregor successfully introduced more new ideas into the mainstream of Nazi thought than anyone else. Gregor wrote more than any other Nazi leader except Rosenberg and had one of the most fertile minds of all the Nazi writers. Nor was he a radical; he was, if anything, more conservative than Feder. Apart from the complications Otto's memoirs have created in interpreting Gregor Strasser's thoughts, there are several other reasons why he has often been regarded as a dissident and disappointed radical. The first is Hitler's rejection in February I926 of the draft program by Goebbels and Strasser. Goebbels' descriptions in his diaries of this event are highly emotional and portray it as a major defeat. The second reason is Gregor's organizational role in the party-his efforts to strengthen the party in the northern cities and his proposals to form Nazi trade unions. Finally, as Propagandaleiter, Strasser is known to have laid great stress on the frequent use of the term "socialism" in Nazi propaganda. Hitler's rejection of the draft program at the Bamberg conference has often been misinterpreted. He did not explicitly reject the content of the Strasser-Goebbels draft; instead, he convinced the assembled party leaders that it was inappropriate to formulate a new major program at that time. It was Goebbels who was disappointed -- not Strasser. Gregor went on to write many more programs, major and minor; at least one of the major ones — the full-employment program of I932 — was wholly endorsed by the party, and it is quite probable that he also had a significant part in drafting the agricultural program of I930.
  5. "Strasser Asked To Join East German Reds". The Manitoba Ensign. 8 April 1950. p. 2. Retrieved 22 October 2019.
  6. Mahoney, William (19 March 1955). "Otto Strasser returns with 'new' platform". Stars and Stripes. Archived from the original on 18 January 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2020.
  7. Elzer, Herbert (2012). "Bonn oder Paradise? Die Bundesregierung, der SPD-Parteivorstand und die umstrittene Rückkehr des NS-Dissidenten Otto Straßer aus Kanada (1948–1952)" [Bonn or Paradise? The Federal Government, the SPD party leadership and the controversial return of the National-Socialist dissident Otto Strasser from Canada]. Jahrbuch Extremismus & Demokratie (in German). Baden-Baden: Nomos. 24: 72–101.
  8. On 4 May 1951, the West German cabinet decided to apply to the Federal Constitutional Court to find the SRP anticonstitutional and to impose a ban. On 23 October 1952, the court, citing Article 21 Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law, adjudicated the party unconstitutional and dissolved it, prohibited the founding of any successor organizations, withdrew all Bundestag and Landtag mandates, and seized the party's assets. BVerfGE 2, 1
  9. "Otto Strasser, 76, Theoretician Who Broke With Hitler, Is Dead". The New York Times. 28 August 1974. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 12 October 2020. MUNICH, West Germany, Aug. 27 (AP)—Otto Strasser, a prominent Nazi spokesman who broke with Hitler over party ideology, died today in Munich. He was 76 years old.
  10. Silverglate, Jesse (1965). The Ideology of Otto Strasser. University of Wisconsin - Madison. p. 56. Retrieved 19 February 2023. Strasser's most vitriolic attack on Hitlerite antiSemitism appeared in the [1935] article 'Genug - Ein Wort zur Judenfrage.'
  11. Strasser, Otto. Germany Tomorrow. Jonathan Cape LTD, 1940, pp. 73-78.
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