Otto Johann Maximilian Strasser (also , see ß; 10 September 1897 – 27 August 1974) was a German politician and an early member of the Nazi Party. While his older brother Gregor led the party's northern group, Otto served as its primary theoretician. Through their main publishing house, the KampfVerlag, they promoted an ideology based on Nazism, that later became known as Strasserism, which sought to replace capitalist private property with a medieval-style system of "hereditary fiefs" (Erblehen). Peter Stachura argues that the concept of so-called left-wing "Strasseism," and Gregor's image as a principled "socialist" martyr, were largely fabricated by Otto in his writings.
Freikorps and SPD (1919–1920)
Strasser 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.
According to his own later accounts, he participated in the opposition to the Kapp Putsch in 1920. During this same period, Strasser was also actively associated with the right-wing Juniklub (June Club). Working alongside conservative revolutionary ideologue Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, Strasser became a regular contributor to the club's nationalist weekly Das Gewissen (The Conscience), a group that notably sympathized with the Kapp Putsch. Still, he allegedly 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. though this "pro-soviet" claim has been disputed by Reinhard Kühnl. To achieve this vision, he advocated for relocating urban populations to the countryside (de-urbanization), dismantling heavy industry into small, decentralized structures, and phasing out banks in favor of international barter.
Throughout the late 1920s, Otto authored numerous articles and speeches that were published under Gregor's name. This practice utilized Gregor's parliamentary immunity to shield Otto from prosecution, though it consequently subjected Gregor to a series of libel lawsuits.
According to his former associates, although Strasser particularly showed opposition to "Ultramontanism" in the 1920s, he had already joked at the time that he was willing to use religion, claiming that he would return to the "bosom of the Holy Roman Church" if politically necessary, adding: "they will take me, those cowl-pissers" (Kuttenbrunzer).
Despite disagreements with Hitler, the Strassers did not represent a radical wing opposed to the party mainstream. 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. 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. This 1930 split also ended his political relationship with his brother. composed of like-minded former NSDAP membership. The group was intended to split the Nazi Party and operate as a dissident faction against Hitler's leadership.
Gregor Strasser publicly condemned Otto's secession as "pure madness" and accused Otto of treating the party in a "treacherous way".
Shortly after his exit, Strasser unknowingly confided to an undercover police informer that while the NSDAP "was no longer revolutionary," he still considered Hitler's antisemitism to be sincere and it was politically "extraordinarily effective." an avowed monarchist known for his brutal suppression of the 1920 Kapp Putsch workers' strike, and who considered ideological programs "inessential." Despite this, Strasser entrusted Buchrucker with formulating the group's "Programmatic Principles" for its first congress, which largely corresponded to earlier publications by Strasser.
The Black Front's most significant attempt to destabilize Hitler came in 1931, when they supported the Stennes revolt, a major mutiny by the Berlin SA led by Walther Stennes. According to Strasser, during this power struggle, Stennes provided him with private letters exposing SA leader Ernst Röhm's homosexuality. These letters were subsequently leaked to the Berlin police, creating a massive public scandal designed to severely damage Röhm and the Nazi Party's reputation. Following the revolt, several hundred expelled SA members joined Strasser, and the groups briefly merged. As historian Robert Gellately notes, Strasser took "remarkably few prominent members with them, no district leaders or members of the Reichstag," and his opposition "quickly faded to insignificance." Ultimately, his departure did little to alter the Nazi Party's course, which continued its appropriation of socialist-sounding rhetoric.
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. This left Hitler as the undisputed party leader; the Nazi leadership pacified the industrialists and military elite by eliminating Ernst Röhm and the SA leadership, and took the opportunity to purge former internal rivals like Gregor Strasser, who had previously engaged in political negotiations with Kurt von Schleicher. Historian Ian Kershaw dismissed Strasser’s claims regarding Hitler’s deviant sexual practices as the "fanciful" fabrications of "an out-and-out political enemy."
In January 1935, for security reasons, Strasser sent his pregnant wife and their three-year-old daughter to Samos, where their son, Gregor Peter Demosthenes, was born in May. In a telegram to Hitler, Strasser referred to his newborn son as "Gregor II."
In 1940, he went to Bermuda by way of Portugal, leaving a wife and two children behind in Switzerland. In the same year, the Austrian Jewish refugee writer Willi Frischauer issued a public warning against Strasser's movement. In his book The Nazis at War (1940), Frischauer revealed that the Black Front was financing its activities by selling bonds that promised redemption after the movement seized power in Germany. Frischauer reported that these funding bonds were segregated into two categories: Series "A" was sold exclusively to "Aryans," while Series "J" was sold exclusively to Jews.
In Bermuda, local observers noted he retained militaristic German mannerisms; archival notes describe him as a "typical German, blue-eyed, blond, stocky," who would "bow from the waist and click his heels at the slightest provocation." Even as a refugee, Strasser continued to comment on the conflict, claiming that Hitler had made a strategic error by not attacking Great Britain sooner, which Strasser attributed to Hitler being "mentally unable to depart from his well-tried plan of dealing with the weakest first." In December 1940, Strasser had an encounter with the famous English author H.G. Wells, who was stranded in Bermuda due to bad weather. Intrigued by the dissident, Wells arranged an interview to discuss the post-war order. The meeting resulted in a spectacular clash of worldviews. Wells advocated for a rational, secular "order of science" devoid of nationalism and religion, a concept Strasser rejected, citing his Catholicism. During the interview Strasser shouted "Heil Germany!" repeatedly. The encounter left Wells deeply alarmed by the leniency shown to the exile. In an article published in January 1942, Wells publicly denounced Strassers as "bloody Nazis." He described Otto as a "completely insane anti-Bolshevik who is permeated to the bone with the idea that the German people are the first and foremost in Europe and the world." Wells publicly demanded to know why officials in the United Kingdom and Canada were actively "pampering and encouraging" Strasser rather than throwing him in a prison cell.
In 1941, he emigrated to Canada. He spent the latter part of the war in relative isolation and financial difficulty. 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. He at times relied on support from his brother, Bernhard Paul Strasser, a Benedictine monk living in the United States. Bernhard himself was spreading anti-jewish propaganda, characterizing a rival anti-Nazi "Free German Movement" based in New York as a conspiracy established "by Communists and Jews" specifically directed against his brother.
In 1941, elements of the Black Front contributed to the foundation of the Free German Movement, an organization modeled on "Free France" and based largely in Latin America. The movement officially called for a democratic constitution, federalism, regional autonomy, and "God-fearing" policies, uniting a mix of Christian, national-conservative, and social democratic exiles whose only shared stance was anti-communism. He tried to impose himself as the sole authority in the movement, but the organization was far too heterogeneous for such an approach to work.
As Strasser marketed his utility to the Allied powers, he encountered increasing distrust. The Soviet Union despised his strong anti-Bolshevism, and the Americans were never convinced of his value. Although the British and Canadian governments briefly considered utilizing him as a potential leader for an underground intelligence network, initially taking his claims of a powerful Black Front seriously, these claims were soon exposed as exaggerated. There is little evidence indicating that the Black Front maintained any significant wartime presence in Germany. Ultimately, due to concerns regarding his sympathy for Nazism, extreme anti-communism, and his lack of verifiable influence, the Allied officials abandoned their hope of establishing a political partnership with him.
In early 1949, American journalist Bill Downs reported that Strasser's movement had already pledged subscriptions totaling one million marks, primarily funded by German industrialists who viewed his movement as a useful instrument against communism.
According to a 1950 report based on his own statements, Otto Strasser positioned himself as being opposed to forming alliances with either the Eastern or Western blocs. He claimed to have rejected an invitation to join East Germany's "National Front," hoping that he would be permitted to return to Bavaria, which had been under US occupation until 1949. In his view, West Germany constituted an American colony and East Germany a Russian colony.
Strasser modified his doctrine into "Solidarism" (Solidarismus), framing it as aligned with Catholic social teaching. Historian Christoph Hendrik Müller describes this revised ideology as "an attempt to incorporate the workers and the state into the capitalist mode of production." On a global level, Strasser called for the establishment of three "White and Christian federations"—the Confederation of Europe, the British Commonwealth, and the Pan-American Union.
Strasser's public posturing did not prevent divisions among his few remaining followers. Veterans of the "Cologne Group," who had endured years in Nazi concentration camps for their Black Front ties, openly revolted against Strasser and his deputy Kurt Sprengel, accusing Strasser of suppressing them and abandoning their original ideals. A feud subsequently erupted between his long-time deputy, Bruno Fricke, the son of a Berlin banker who favored an Eastern orientation, and Waldemar Wadsack, an economist who led the pro-Western faction. As a former bank manager from Breslau, Wadsack had been tortured by the SA, stripped of his property, and had spent nearly seven years in prisons and concentration camps for high treason while waiting for Strasser's return. Despite this loyalty, Strasser used Wadsack primarily as a pawn to suppress the rebellious Cologne Group, privately mocking both Wadsack and Sprengel as outmatched "zeroes" (Nullen). and settled in Munich.
He made several unsuccessful attempts to revive his political career. In 1956, he attempted to create a new "nationalist and socialist"-oriented party, the German Social Union (). Among his other projects was an effort to found a "Catholic People's Party" (katholische Volkspartei) with the help of his brother Bernhard. His organizations were unable to attract any meaningful support. Strasser continued to advocate for his vision of Nazism until he died in Munich in 1974.
Post-war writings and historical reliability
In the post-war era, Otto Strasser published memoirs that modern historians would dismiss as unreliable. Historian Peter D. Stachura categorized his writings as "unashamed eulogies" riddled with factual errors, designed to create a false narrative of his brother Gregor as a "socialist" martyr, despite Gregor ultimately moved closer to the conservatives, while exaggerating Otto's own political significance as a principled alternative to Hitler. This lifelong attempt of distorting history included fabricating events entirely, such as a nonexistent 1920 meeting between Gregor, Hitler, and Erich Ludendorff. Historians conclude that Otto's post-war accounts must be treated with extreme skepticism as political rhetoric aimed at exaggerating his political influence, rather than objective historical records.
Ideology
Strasser's view of reality where abstract ideals are placed above the material and social spheres, has been described by historian Christoph Hendrik Müller as "German Idealism in its crudest form." In Strasser's framework, the abstract "idea" of the nation is considered the superior historical force that overrides the concrete economic or social interests of class. This explains why Strasser believed parliament could be relegated to only administrative tasks concerning the economy; in his view, the truly important questions of national destiny were not matters of political compromise but of metaphysical principle. By insulating these "sacrosanct" issues from democratic processes, his system aimed to protect the nation's perceived eternal essence from the fluctuations of popular opinion.