Otto Straßer

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Otto Straßer

Dr. rer. pol. Straßer of the Deutsch-Soziale Union delivering a speech in 1957 two years after his return to West Germany following World War II

Born 10 September 1897(1897-09-10)
Bad Windsheim, Kingdom of Bavaria, German Empire
Died 27 August 1974 (aged 76)
Munich, Bavaria, FRG
Nationality German
Political party Social Democratic Party (1917–1920)
Völkischer Block (1922–1925)
NSDAP (1925–1930)
Black Front (1930–1934)
German Social Union (1956–1962)
Alma mater Humboldt University of Berlin
Occupation Philosopher, editor, politician
Military service
Allegiance  German Empire
Service/branch Iron Cross of the Luftstreitkräfte.png Imperial German Army
Freikorps Flag.jpg Freikorps
Years of service 1914–1919
Rank Leutnant der Reserve
Battles/wars World War I
Awards Iron Cross

Otto Johann Maximilian Straßer (often Strasser in English; 10 September 1897 – 27 August 1974) was a German officer of the Imperial German Army, politician and an early member of the NSDAP. He was the younger brother of Gregor Straßer.

The Straßer brothers supported relatively left-wing views within the NSDAP, such as the nationalization of the economy, causing conflicts with Adolf Hitler. He was expelled from the NSDAP by Hitler in 1930. Following his expulsion, he set up his own party, the Black Front, composed of like-minded former NSDAP members, in an unsuccessful attempt to split the NSDAP. He left Germany in 1933 as Hitler rose to power. Straßer was permitted to return to West Germany in 1955, after years of being denied entry. He created a new "nationalist and socialist"-oriented party in 1956, the German Social Union, which was dissolved in 1962.

Life

Early life

Born in Bavaria, Otto was the middle of five children of the Catholic Bavarian lawyer and civil servant Peter Straßer (1855-1928) and his wife Pauline, née Strobel (1873-1943), whereas his brother Anton, a lawyer, fell () in World War II.

He took part in World War I since August 1914, he volunteered for the Royal Bavarian Army, as an artillery officer and returned to Germany in 1919. When he was in the army, he was nicknamed “the red lieutenant” because of his subscription to a social democratic magazine. He served in the Freikorps (Freikorps „Epp“) that put down the Bavarian Soviet Republic. Other sources state that he was instead leader of a pro-government workers' militia (Arbeitermiliz), later falsely claiming membership in a Freikorps.

At the same time, he also joined the Social Democratic Party. In 1920, he participated in the pro-government opposition to the Kapp Putsch and lead a socialist Rote Hundertschaft (Red Group of a Hundred). However, he grew increasingly alienated with that reformist-socialist party's stand, particularly when it put down a workers' uprising in the Ruhr, and he left the party later that year.

NSDAP

In 1925 he joined the NSDAP, which his brother had been a member of for several years, and worked for its newspaper as a journalist, ultimately taking it over with his brother. He took the 'socialist' element in the party's programme seriously enough to lead a very socialist-inclined faction of the party in northern Germany together with his brother Gregor and Joseph Goebbels. His faction advocated support for strikes, nationalisation of banks and industry, and - despite acknowledged differences - closer ties with the Soviet Union. Some of these policies were opposed by Hitler, who thought they were too radical and too alienating from parts to the German people, and the Straßer faction was defeated at the Bamberg Conference (1926), with Joseph Goebbels joining Hitler. Humiliated, he nonetheless, along with his brother Gregor, continued as a leading left-wing faction within the Party, until expelled from the NSDAP by Hitler in 1930.

Black Front and in exile

Following his expulsion, he set up his own party, the Black Front, composed of like-minded former NSDAP members, in an attempt to split the National Socialist Party. Here his lack of anti-Judaism was displayed by his willingness to associate with Jewish persons,[1] such as an exile from Germany named Helmut Hirsch, who would later be executed for an attempted plot on Hitler. His party proved unable to counter Hitler's rise to power in 1933, and Straßer spent the years of the National Socialist Germany in exile. The left-wing faction itself was annihilated during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 (in which his brother perished).

Straßer fled first to Austria, then Prague (here he resisted Hitler), Switzerland and France, and then, 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 was the famed "Prisoner of Ottawa". During this time, Goebbels denounced Straßer as the National Socialist's' "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-speaking 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 NSDAP Party member still faithful to some doctrines of National Socialism, he was 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 the Third Reich and National Socialist leadership for a number of 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. During WWII Straßer headed the Free-Germany Movement outside Germany which sought to enlist the aid of Germans throughout the world in bringing about the downfall of Hitler and National Socialism.

Return to Germany

Straßer was allowed to return to Germany in 1955 by a ruling of the Federal Administrative Court (after having previously been denied entry by the West German government) and regained his citizenship settling in Munich. He attempted to create his own, new, "nationalist and socialist"-oriented party in 1956, the German Social Union (often called a successor to the 1949-1952 forbidden Socialist Reich Party of Germany), but it was unable to attract support. For the rest of his life, Straßer continued to call for and propagate neo-National Socialism (Strasserism).

Other

Straßer is seen as a dissenting National Socialist regarding racial policies, and he claimed to have actively opposed such within the National Socialist movement. For example organizing the removal of Julius Streicher from the German Völkisch Freedom Party.[2] He is cited as an influence by some movements similar to his own form of National Socialism, such as National-Anarchist founder Troy Southgate.

Awards and decorations

  • Eisernes Kreuz (1914), 2nd and 1st Class
    • 1st Class for numerous daring deeds, e.g. the capture of a British brigade staff
  • Military Merit Order (Bavaria)
  • Wound Badge (Verwundetenabzeichen 1918) in Black (wounded twice)
  • Nominated and submitted twice for the Knight's Cross of the Military Order of Max Joseph

Works

Journals as editor (selection)

  • "German Freedom" (Munich)
  • "Goal and Way" (Frankfurt am Main)
  • "Preview of World Politics and Current Affairs - Weekly Correspondence by Dr. Otto Strasser"

Books

  • Die Entwicklung der deutschen Zuckerrübensamenzucht (Dissertation), 1921
  • Wissen Sie das auch schon?, 1928
  • Der Sowjetstern geht unter, 1929
  • Internationaler Marxismus oder nationaler Sozialismus, 1930
  • Ministersessel oder Revolution, 1930
  • Die Revolution der Männerkleidung, 1930
  • Der Sinn des 9. November 1923, in: Ernst Jüngers „Der Kampf um das Reich“, 1931
  • Aufbau des deutschen Sozialismus. Wolfgang-Richard-Lindner-Verlag, Leipzig 1932
  • Sozialistische Einheitsfront, 1932
  • Mit oder gegen Marx zur deutschen Nation?, 1932
  • Aufbau des deutschen Sozialismus, 1932 (1936 2. erweitere Auflage, Verlag Heinrich Grunov, Prag)
  • Das Ende der Reichswehr, 1933
  • Die deutsche Bartholomäusnacht. Reso-Verlag, Zürich 1935
  • Sozialistische Revolution oder faschistischer Krieg?, Prag 1935
  • Wie lange?, Wien 1935
  • Wohin treibt Hitler? Darstellung der Lage und Entwicklung des Hitlersystems in den Jahren 1935 und 1936. Verlag Heinrich Grunov, Prag 1936
  • Hitler tritt auf der Stelle. Oxford gegen Staats-Totalität. Berlin – Rom – Tokio. Neue Tonart in Wien. NSDAP-Kehraus in Brasilien. Die dritte Front, Band 6. Grunov, Prag 1937.
  • Kommt es zum Krieg? Periodische Schriftenreihe der „Deutschen Revolution“, Band 3. Grunov, Prag 1937
  • Europa von morgen. Das Ziel Masaryks. Weltwoche, Zürich 1939
  • Hitler und Ich, Edition Trenkelbach, Buenos Aires 1940
  • Germany Tomorrow, London 1940
  • Hitlers Sturz durch die „Frei-Deutschland“-Bewegung, Buenos Aires 1941
  • The Gangsters Around Hitler, W. H. Allen, 1942
  • Hitler’s Shadow Over South Amerika (together with Douglas Fairbanks jr.), Free German Movement, Brooklyn 1942
  • Flight From Terror, 1943
  • Germany in a Disunited World, Eastbourne 1947
  • Wiedervereinigung sofort möglich …, 1956
  • Deutsch-Soziale Union – Weg und Ziel, 1957
  • Exil, Erinnerungen, 1958
  • Deutsch-Soziale Union – Gefahr und Hoffnung, 1959
  • Deutschland und der 3. Weltkrieg, 1961
  • Es gibt nur ein Ziel: Wiedervereinigung, 1962
  • Publisher of Ziel und Weg der nationalen Opposition by Prof. Dr. med. Alfred Karl Fikentscher, 1962
  • Der Faschismus. Geschichte und Gefahr. Politische Studien, Band 3. Günter-Olzog-Verlag, München (u. a.) 1965
  • Mit de Gaulle für die Neutralität, 1966
  • Le Front Noir (together with Victor Alexandrov), 1968
  • Mein Kampf – Eine politische Autobiographie. Streit-Zeit-Bücher, Band 3. Heinrich-Heine-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1969

Further reading

  • Douglas Reed: The Prisoner Of Ottawa – Otto Strasser, 1953
  • Troy Southgate: Otto Strasser: The Life and Times of a German Socialist, 2010

External links

References

  1. "...but because a Black Fronter there, a Jewish doctor, had thrown open his sanitarium to us." Strasser, Otto: "Flight from Terror", page 297. National Travel Club, New York, 1943. Archived here: http://mailstar.net/otto-strasser-flight.html
  2. Strasser, Otto. Germany Tomorrow. Jonathan Cape LTD, 1940, p. 73-78.