Gregor Strasser (German: Gregor Straßer, 31 May 1892 – 30 June 1934) was a German politician and early leader of the Nazi Party. Along with his younger brother Otto, he was a leading member of the party's northern group, which brought them into conflict with the dominant faction led by Adolf Hitler. Gregor's willingness to engage in political negotiations with Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher in 1932 ultimately led to his resignation and murder in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934. The brothers' strand of the Nazi ideology is later known as Strasserism, a political concept largely popularized by Otto after he left the party in 1930.
Born in Bavaria, Strasser served in an Imperial German Army artillery regiment during World War I, rising to the rank of first lieutenant and winning the Iron Cross of both classes for bravery. After the war, he and his brother became members of Franz Ritter von Epp's Freikorps. He joined the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in 1920 and quickly became an influential and important figure in the fledgling party. In 1923, Strasser took part in the abortive Beer Hall Putsch in Munich and was imprisoned. After securing an early release following his election to the Reichstag, he joined a revived NSDAP in 1925 and once again established himself as a powerful and dominant member. A highly skilled organiser and effective public speaker, Strasser oversaw a major increase in the party's membership and reputation in northern Germany, transforming the NSDAP from a marginal southern party to a nationwide political force. By mid-1932, Strasser was in charge of the party's national organizational work.
The Strasser brothers jointly drafted the "Strasser Program" for 1925–1926, which included some radical proposals, mainly developed by Otto, such as reorganizing large agricultural estates into "hereditary fiefs" (Erblehen). This program had led Hitler to repudiate Gregor at the 1926 Bamberg Conference. The two later reconciled, with Strasser acknowledging that Hitler had assumed the role of ideological leader for the movement while he himself continued as organizer. In 1932, he introduced the party's "Emergency Economic Program" (Wirtschaftliches Sofortprogramm), a program advocating for state-funded work creation. In December 1932, his relationship with Hitler became permanently fractured when Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher offered him the post of Vice-Chancellor. Accused of attempting to split the party, he subsequently resigned from all party offices. Strasser then renounced his Reichstag seat and retired from active politics to serve as a director at the Schering-Kahlbaum pharmaceutical company. On 30 June 1934, in a purge that became known as the Night of the Long Knives, Strasser was arrested by the Gestapo and subsequently executed.
Historian Hans Mommsen has commented that Otto Strasser was "in most respects" the intellectual superior of his brother Gregor. Peter Stachura views Gregor as a realpolitisch opportunist, and that his reputation as a principled "revolutionary" is a myth exaggerated and often fabricated by his brother Otto.
Gregor Strasser was born on 31 May 1892 into the family of a Catholic judicial officer who lived in the Upper Bavarian market town of Geisenfeld. He grew up alongside his younger brother Otto, who was considered the more intellectual of the two. He attended the local Gymnasium and after his final examinations, served an apprenticeship as a pharmacist in the Lower Bavarian village of Frontenhausen from 1910 until 1914.
When war broke out in Europe in 1914, Strasser suspended his studies at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU) to enlist as a volunteer in the German Imperial Army. He served in the 1st Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment, rising to the rank of Oberleutnant and winning the Iron Cross of both classes for bravery. In 1918, he resumed his studies at Friedrich-Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg. He passed his state examination in 1919. In 1920, he started work as a pharmacist in Landshut.
In 1919, Strasser and his brother joined the right-wing Freikorps led by Franz Ritter von Epp. The aim of the group was to suppress communism in Bavaria. He established and commanded the Sturmbataillon Niederbayern ("Storm Battalion Lower Bavaria"), with the young Heinrich Himmler employed as his adjutant. Strasser was known for his enormous stature, commanding personality, and boundless organizational energy. By March 1920, Strasser's Freikorps were ready to participate in the failed Kapp Putsch, whereas his brother Otto had temporarily aligned with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and politically opposed the right-wing coup d'état.
By 1920, Strasser, and his paramilitary group had joined forces with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party (NSDAP), another far-right political party seated in Munich. During the autumn of 1922, Strasser officially became a member of the NSDAP and the SA. Strasser's leadership qualities were soon recognized, and he was appointed as regional head of the Sturmabteilung ("Storm Detachment"; SA) in Lower Bavaria. In November 1923, he took an active part in the unsuccessful Beer Hall Putsch, a coup attempt by Hitler and Ludendorff against the Weimar Republic. He was tried with other putschists shortly after Hitler's trial, convicted of aiding and abetting high treason—his actual arrest was for attempting to recruit soldiers for the NSDAP, which had been outlawed—on 12 May and sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment and a small fine.
After a few weeks, Strasser was released because he had been elected as a member of the Bavarian Landtag (for the Palatinate) on 4 May 1924 as a candidate of the Völkisch-Social Block, an electoral alliance of Nazis and the German Völkisch Freedom Party. In December 1924, Strasser won a seat in the Reichstag for the "völkisch" National Socialist Freedom Movement, a Nazi front organization. He represented the constituency Westphalia North.
After the lifting of the ban, and the reestablishment of the NSDAP by Adolf Hitler on 26 February 1925, Strasser rejoined the Party with membership number 9, and was appointed by Hitler as the first Gauleiter of Lower Bavaria. Because Strasser led up to 2,000 men in Landshut and was overworked, he began looking for an assistant. Heinrich Himmler, who obtained the job, was tasked with expanding the organization in Lower Bavaria. In December 1926, Strasser's Gau merged with that of the Upper Palatinate and Strasser headed the enlarged Gau. After a subsequent partition on 1 October 1928, the Upper Palatinate was taken over by Adolf Wagner while Strasser continued as Gauleiter of Lower Bavaria until 1 March 1929.
Role in the Nazi Party's national organisation
After 1925, Strasser's organizational skills helped transform the Nazi Party from a marginal south-German splinter party into a nationwide party with mass appeal. Due to the public-speaking ban issued against Hitler, Strasser had been deputized (by Hitler) to represent the party in the north and speak. Through much of 1925, Strasser took full advantage of his liberties as a member of the Reichstag; using his free railroad passes, he traveled extensively throughout northern and western Germany appointing Gauleiters, setting up party branches, and delivering numerous public speeches. Lacking Hitler's oratorical gifts to move the masses, Strasser's personality alone was nonetheless sufficient to influence an audience. His concerted efforts helped the northern party so much that before the end of 1925, there were some 272 local NSDAP chapters compared to the 71 that existed before the failed putsch.
To compete with Marxist parties for the loyalty of the urban working class, Strasser's northern bloc reinforced the "anti-capitalist", "socialist" aspects of the Nazi program. It was under the guise of this strategy that the group commonly referred to by modern opinions as the "Nazi Left" or "Strasser wing." Strasser established the Party in northern and western Germany as a strong political association, one which attained a larger membership than Hitler's southern party section. The party's own foreign organization was also formed on Strasser's initiative. He also founded the National Socialist Working Association on 10 September 1925. This was a short-lived group of about a dozen northern and western German Gauleiter.