 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Otto Strasser" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(December 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
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 |
| Died | 27 August 1974(1974-08-27) (aged 76) Munich, Bavaria,West Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Political party | Social Democratic Party (1917–1920) Völkischer Block (1922–1925) Nazi Party (1925–1930) Black Front (1930–1934) German Social Union (1956–1962) |
| Relatives | Gregor Strasser (brother) Bernhard Strasser (brother) |
| Alma mater | Humboldt University of Berlin |
| Occupation | Philosopher, editor, politician |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  German Empire |
| Branch/service |  Bavarian ArmyFreikorps |
| Years of service | 1914–1919 |
| Rank | Lieutenant |
| Battles/wars | World War I |
Otto Johann Maximilian Strasser (also German:Straßer, seeß; 10 September 1897 – 27 August 1974) was a German politician and an early member of theNazi Party. Otto Strasser, together with his brotherGregor Strasser, was a leading member of the party's more radical wing, whose ideology became known asStrasserism, and broke from the party due to disputes with the dominantHitlerite faction. He formed theBlack 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 asecret opposition group.
Born atBad Windsheim, Strasser was the son of aCatholic judicial officer who lived in theUpper Bavarian market town ofGeisenfeld. Strasser took an active part inWorld War I (1914–1918). On 2 August 1914, he joined theBavarian Army as a volunteer. He rose through the ranks to lieutenant and was twice wounded.[1]
He returned toGermany in 1919, where he served in theFreikorps that in May 1919 put down theBavarian Soviet Republic, which was organized on the principles ofworkers' councils. About this time, he joined theSocial Democratic Party.[citation needed]
In 1920, he participated in the opposition to theKapp Putsch. Still, he grew increasingly alienated from his party's reformist stance, particularly when it put down a workers' uprising in theRuhr, and he left the party later that year.[2]
In 1925, he joined theNational 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 thesocialist elements of theparty's program and led the party's faction in northern Germany together with his brother andJoseph Goebbels. His faction advocated support for ideologically Naziunions,[2]profit-sharing[3] and – despite acknowledged differences – closer ties with theSoviet 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 theBamberg Conference of 1926.[3] Otto Strasser, along with Gregor, continued as a leaning Left Nazi within the party until he seceded from the NSDAP in 1930 following an aggressive attack led by Joseph Goebbels at a General Assembly on June 30, resulting in his expulsion from the meeting.[3][5]
On 1 July, Strasser telegraphed Hitler requesting an explanation for Goebbels' actions. None would come. Strasser then seceded from the National Socialists and set up his own party, theBlack 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 theNazi era in exile. The Strasserists were annihilated during theNight of the Long Knives in 1934, during whichGregor Strasser was killed. This left Hitler as the undisputed party leader and was able to pacify the industrialists and military elite by ridding the party of the influence of people like Gregor Strasser andErnst Röhm.[5]
| This sectiondoes notcite anysources. Please helpimprove this section byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged andremoved.(August 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
In addition to the Black Front, Strasser at this time[when?] headed theFree 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[when?] first to Austria, then to Czechoslovakia (Prague), Switzerland, and France. In 1940, he went toBermuda by way ofPortugal, leaving a wife and two children behind in Switzerland. In 1941, he emigrated to Canada, where he became the famed "Prisoner of Ottawa".[6] 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 inMontreal. In 1942, he lived for a time inClarence, Nova Scotia, on a farm owned by a German-Czech, Adolph Schmidt, then moved to nearbyParadise, where he lived for more than a decade in a rented apartment above ageneral store. As an influential and uncondemned former Nazi Party member still faithful to many doctrines ofNazism, he was initially prevented from returning toWest Germany after the war, first by theAllied powers and then by theWest German government.[citation needed]
During his exile, he wrote articles on Nazi Germany and its leadership for several British, American, and Canadian newspapers, including theNew Statesman, and a series for theMontreal Gazette, which was ghostwritten by then-Gazette reporter and later politicianDonald C. MacDonald.[citation needed]
In 1950,East Germany invited Strasser to become a member of theNational Front. Still, he declined, hoping that he would be permitted to return to Bavaria, which had been underUS occupation until 1949.[7] In his view, West Germany constituted an American colony and East Germany a Russian colony.[8]
Strasser eventually gained West German citizenship, returned to Germany on 16 March 1955,[9] and settled inMunich.
He attempted to create a new "nationalist and socialist"-oriented party in 1956, theGerman Social Union (German:Deutsch-Soziale Union), but his organization was unable to attract meaningful support. Strasser continued to advocate forhis vision of Nazism until he died in Munich in 1974.[10]
Otto Strasser claimed to have dissented from Nazi racial policies.[11] During his life, he claimed to have actively opposed such policies withinthe Nazi movement, for example, by organizing the removal[when?] ofJulius Streicher from theGerman Folkish Freedom Party.[12][need quotation to verify]
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.
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.
Strasser's most vitriolic attack on Hitlerite antiSemitism appeared in the [1935] article 'Genug – Ein Wort zur Judenfrage.'
Media related toOtto Strasser at Wikimedia Commons| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
.svg)
