:Otto Strasser

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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.Strasser, Otto. Germany Tomorrow. Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1940, p. 11. p. 12.

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 Social Democratic Party.{{citation needed|date=December 2022}}

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.

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, profit-sharing and – despite acknowledged differences – closer ties with the Soviet Union.{{Cite book |last1=Rupp |first1=Leila J. |title=Nazi ideology before 1933 |last2=Lane |first2=Barbara Miller |publisher=University of Texas Press |year=1978 |location=Austin |pages=XX |language=en |chapter=Introduction – Nazi Ideology: Some Unfinished Business}}

Despite disagreements with Hitler, the Strassers did not represent a radical wing opposed to the party mainstream.{{Cite book |last1=Rupp |first1=Leila J. |title=Nazi ideology before 1933 |last2=Lane |first2=Barbara Miller |publisher=University of Texas Press |year=1978 |location=Austin |pages=XVII |language=en |chapter=Introduction – Nazi Ideology: Some Unfinished Business |quote=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.}} 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.{{Cite book |last1=Rupp |first1=Leila J. |title=Nazi ideology before 1933 |last2=Lane |first2=Barbara Miller |publisher=University of Texas Press |year=1978 |location=Austin |pages=XVI |language=en |chapter=Introduction – Nazi Ideology: Some Unfinished Business}} Otto Strasser, along with Gregor, continued as a leading 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.{{Cite book |last=Pool |first=James |title=Who Financed Hitler: The Secret Funding of Hitler's Rise to Power |pages=244}}

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, 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 Strasserists were annihilated during the Night of the Long Knives in 1934, during which Gregor 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 and Ernst Röhm.

{{Unreferenced section|date=August 2022}}

In addition to the Black Front, Strasser at this time{{when|date=October 2023}} 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{{when|date=October 2023}} 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".The Prisoner of Ottawa: Otto Strasser, by Douglas Reed, Cape, London, 1953 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.{{citation needed|date=December 2022}}

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.{{citation needed|date=December 2022}}

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.{{cite news |title= Strasser Asked To Join East German Reds|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=3_f9JqYsqVQC&dat=19500408&printsec=frontpage&hl=en |publisher= The Manitoba Ensign | page= 2 |date= 8 April 1950|access-date= 22 October 2019}} In his view, West Germany constituted an American colony and East Germany a Russian colony.{{Cite web|url= https://www.stripes.com/news/otto-strasser-returns-with-new-platform-1.43738|title= Otto Strasser returns with 'new' platform|last= Mahoney|first= William|date= 19 March 1955|website= Stars and Stripes|access-date= 9 February 2020|archive-date= 18 January 2021|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210118043913/https://www.stripes.com/news/otto-strasser-returns-with-new-platform-1.43738|url-status= dead}}

Strasser eventually gained West German citizenship, returned to Germany on 16 March 1955,

{{cite journal| last1= Elzer| first1= Herbert|title= Bonn oder Paradise? Die Bundesregierung, der SPD-Parteivorstand und die umstrittene Rückkehr des NS-Dissidenten Otto Straßer aus Kanada (1948–1952)| trans-title= Bonn or Paradise? The Federal Government, the SPD party leadership and the controversial return of the National-Socialist dissident Otto Strasser from Canada| journal= Jahrbuch Extremismus & Demokratie| language= de| publisher= Nomos| publication-place= Baden-Baden| publication-date= 2012| volume= 24| pages= 72–101}} and settled in Munich.

He attempted to create a new "nationalist and socialist"-oriented party in 1956, the German Social Union ({{langx |de| Deutsch-Soziale Union}}), but his organization was unable to attract meaningful support. Strasser continued to advocate for his vision of Nazism until he died in Munich in 1974.{{Cite news |date= 1974-08-28 |title= Otto Strasser, 76, Theoretician Who Broke With Hitler, Is Dead |language=en-US |work= The New York Times |issn=0362-4331 |quote = 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. |url= https://www.nytimes.com/1974/08/28/archives/otto-strasser-76-theqretician-who-broke-with-hitler-is-dead.html|access-date=12 October 2020}}

Otto Strasser claimed to have dissented from Nazi racial policies.

{{cite book

|last1 = Silverglate

|first1 = Jesse

|year = 1965

|title = The Ideology of Otto Strasser

|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=RodjAAAAMAAJ

|publisher = University of Wisconsin – Madison

|page = 56

|access-date = 19 February 2023

|quote = Strasser's most vitriolic attack on Hitlerite antiSemitism appeared in the [1935] article 'Genug – Ein Wort zur Judenfrage.'

}}

During his life, he claimed to have actively opposed such policies within the Nazi movement, for example, by organizing the removal{{when|date=February 2023}} of Julius Streicher from the German Peoples Freedom Party.

Strasser, Otto. Germany Tomorrow. Jonathan Cape LTD, 1940, pp. 73–78.

{{request quotation|date=February 2023}}

• {{Cite book |title=Entwicklung und Bedeutung der deutschen Zuckerrübensamenzucht |first=Otto |last=Strasser |date=1921 |pages=92 |oclc=216126812 |language=de}} Dissertation Würzburg.
• {{Cite book |title=Wir suchen Deutschland. Ein freier Disput über die Zeitkrisis zwischen Gerhard Schultze-Pfaelzer und Otto Strasser, Major Buchrucker, Herbert Blank |first1=Herbert |last1=Blank |first2=Bruno Ernst |last2=Buchrucker |first3=Gerhard |last3=Schultze-Pfaelzer |first4=Otto |last4=Strasser |date=1931 |pages=195 |oclc=560330578 |language=de}}
• {{Cite book |title=Aufbau des deutschen Sozialismus |first1=Otto |last1=Strasser |first2=Weigand |last2=von Miltenberg |date=1932 |language=de |edition=1-5 |publisher= Wolfgang Richard Lindner Verlag (W. R. Lindner) |location=Leipzig |series=Bücher der Zielgebung |pages=101 |oclc=72217664}}
• {{Cite book |trans-title=Construction of German Socialism |title=Aufbau des deutschen Sozialismus als Anlage d. histor. Gespräch Hitlers mit Dr. Straßer [Anlaß d. Trennung] |first=Otto |last=Strasser |edition=2nd |publisher=Grunov |location=Prague |date=1936 |pages=152 |oclc=245703335 |language=de}}
• {{Cite book |title=Gregor Straßer (Gregor Strasser) |series=Männer und Mächte |first=Michael |last=Geismeier |publisher=R. Kittler |location=Leipzig |date=1933 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7-FdAAAAIAAJ |pages=94 |language=de |oclc=163008925}} Michael Geismeier is a pseudonym of Otto Strasser.
• {{Cite book |title=Die deutsche Bartholomäusnacht |first=Otto |last=Strasser |date=1935 |publisher=Reso |location=Zurich |pages=241 |oclc=3047552 |language=de}}
• {{Cite book |title=Europäische Föderation |first=Otto |last=Strasser |date=1936 |series=Kulturpolitische Schriften, Heft 6 |publisher=Reso-Verlag AG. |location=Zurich |pages=32 |oclc=40811575 |language=de}}
• {{Cite book |title=Wohin treibt Hitler? Darstellung der Lage und Entwicklung des Hitlersystems in den Jahren 1935 und 1936 |trans-title=Whither Hitler? |first=Otto |last=Strasser |date=1937 |publisher=Verlag Heinrich Grunov |location=Prague |pages=82 |oclc=1395066622 |language=de}}
• {{Cite book |title=Hitler tritt auf der Stelle |first=Otto |last=Strasser |date=1937 |publisher=Grunov |location=Prague |series=Die dritte Front, H. 6 |pages=32 |oclc=72770670 |language=de}}
• {{Cite book |title=Kommt es zum Krieg? |first=Otto |last=Strasser |date=1937 |publisher=Grunov |location=Prague |series=Die dritte Front, H. 3 |pages=15 |oclc=72770672 |language=de}}
• {{Cite book |title=Europa von Morgen : das Ziel Masaryks |first=Otto |last=Strasser |date=1939 |publisher=Weltwoche Verlag |location=Zurich |pages=284 |oclc=6821708 |language=de}}
• {{Cite book |title=Hitler and I |first=Otto |last=Strasser |translator-first1=Eric |translator-last1=Mosbacher |translator-link=Eric Mosbacher |translator-first2=Gwenda |translator-last2=David |date=1940 |pages=240 |publisher=Jonathan Cape |location=London |oclc=503756997}} Other versions: Hitler et moi, and Hitler und Ich. Asmus-Bücher, Band 9. Johannes-Asmus-Verlag, Konstanz 1948, 263 pages. Also 1940, Boston: MA, Houghton Mifflin Company.
• {{Cite book |title=Germany Tomorrow |first1=Otto |last1=Strasser |publisher=Jonathan Cape |location=London |pages=254 |date=1941 |edition=4th |oclc=312705331}}
• {{Cite book |title=A History in My Time [Erlebte Weltgeschichte.] |first=Otto |last=Strasser |translator-first=Douglas |translator-last=Reed |translator-link=Douglas Reed |date=1941 |location=London |publisher=Jonathan Cape |oclc=752976049 |pages=262}}
• {{Cite book |title=The Gangsters Around Hitler with a topical postscript "Nazi gangsters in South America" |first=Otto |last=Strasser |date=1942 |publisher=Allen |location=London |series=A Hurricane book |pages=63 |oclc=72650037}}
• {{Cite book |title=The Prisoner of Ottawa: Otto Strasser |first1=Douglas |last1=Reed |first2=Otto |last2=Strasser |location=London |publisher=Jonathan Cape |date=1953 |oclc=504698230}}
• {{Cite book |title=Der Faschismus. Geschichte und Gefahr |first=Otto |last=Strasser |series=Politische Studien, Beiheft 3 |publisher=Günter Olzog Verlag |location=Munich |date=1965 |pages=109 |oclc=901064063 |language=de}}
• Strasser, Otto; Alexandrov, Victor (1968). Le front noir contre Hitler (in French). Verviers (Belgium): Gérard et Cie, Bibliothèque Marabout n° 327, p. 305.
• {{Cite book |title=Mein Kampf : [eine politische Autobiografie] |first1=Otto |last1=Strasser |date=1969 |publisher=Heinrich Heine Verlag |location=Frankfurt |series=Streit-Zeit-Bücher, Band 3 |pages=234 |oclc=165470359 |language=de}}

• The European magazine

{{reflist}}

• {{commons category-inline|Otto Strasser}}
• {{PM20|FID=pe/017226}}
• [https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/pnd118755749.html Straßer, Otto] in Neue Deutsche Biographie

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