Talk:Otto Strasser

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"Otto Strasser's ideology continues to this day to influence a radical leftist strain of neo-Nazism which clamours for a variant of feudalism (with the authoritarian State in place of the King)"

Well, looks like someone has never read Strasser. I don't think any form of feudalism could be compatible with his ideology. I think without some specificity as to the movement referred to this obviously erroneously statement should be struck.

-- Bill White

Why is he referred to as "Dr"? There is absolutely nothing in the article about his academics. 165.189.169.190 (talk) 19:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Okay I think I can answer to both questions, my source are three books 1.Gossweiler, Kurt. Die Strasser-Legende, edition ost, Berlin 1994 2.Louis Dupeux, Nationalbolschewismus in Deutschland 1919-1933 – Kommunistische Strategie und Konservative Dynamik, C.H.Beck`sche Verlagsbuchdruckerei, München 1976 3.R. Kühnl, Die Nationalsozialistische Linke 1925-1930, Meisenheim am Glan So Strasser indeed thought of some feudalistic like system because he wanted to certainly underline the importance of farmers, he hated industry so he wanted to go back to basics. But then we see there was no way to build an totally agricultural not industrial and therewith for some, the middle and subclasses, social state. His ideas where, as far as I know totally ridiculous when it comes to economy. And he is referred to as a doctor because he made an essay about the "german beet cultivation" while or after he studied I am German as you probably recognized in my style of writing. Just wrote a skilled work on Otto Strasser and got like 97%. And by the way the guy on the picture is Gregor Strasser and not Otto Strasser! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.130.206.95 (talk) 16:34, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the German author of the preceding comment himself has a doctorate in "German beet cultivation"? As for Otto Strasser, he had a degree in law, which of course explains the title "Dr." I quote from "The Prisoner of Ottawa" (my pdf copy is unpaginated): "Otto Strasser returned to his studies and in March 1921 took his doctorate in law at Wuerzburg". (Both his brothers also had university degrees.) You should read Strasser's own writings and statements, especially those from the pre-war period, to get a balanced perspective. For instance Pdf versions of Fahnenträger can be found online if you search for them. They include many of Strasser's original articles. Douglas Reed's "The Prisoner of Ottawa" is also readily available. The secondary works you cite were all written by Marxist historians who erroneously equate socialism with Marxism and remain unwilling to admit that any connection existed/exists between Marxism and the national socialist left.

Otto Strasser's socio-political ideas were in all essentials identical with those of his brother. He envisaged a system of industrial ownership where for a given large company founder-owners would retain 49% ownership, the state would own 41% and the employees 10%. Surely this would be socialism provided the state itself was socialist?

Otto Strasser was no saint, but he saw through Hitler, didn't like what he saw, and from various bases abroad sought to topple the dictator. The tone in the German contributor's comments above prompts me to ask: Why is there still in Germany such a grotesque tendency to make everybody who has ever been associated with national socialism personally responible for all the atrocities committed by Hitler and his cronies? By the same logic every person that rebelled against the Russian Czar early in the 20th century should be held directly responsible for Stalin's later misdeeds. This would obviously be unreasonable.

The comparison is rather silly. "Every person that rebelled against the Russian Czar early in the 20th century" means individuals with vastly different goals and belonging to different groups, including anarchists, those seeking the independence of their homelands (whether Polish, Georgian, Armenian, etc.), liberals seeking a constituent assembly that would develop Russia's political and economic system on Western lines, and so on. The Strasser brothers were Nazis and Otto spent the rest of his life arguing he was one of the "good" Nazis. This doesn't mean he was "personally responsible for all the atrocities committed by Hitler and his cronies," but still. --Ismail (talk) 09:21, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

In writing the above, I was not so much defending Otto Strasser as attacking the sort of ahistorical, anachronistic analysis represented by the comment to which I responded. The comparison with that other violent authoritarian movement, Soviet Communism, is by no means silly. The "völkisch" movement in Post-WWI Germany was very broad in terms of ideologies and social composition, and what united it was mainly dissatisfaction with the way German had been treated after WWI. Both political movements arose as reactions to an intolerable situation, both turned seriously sour, and in both cases we cannot hold early adherents responsible for the atrocities that happened decades later -- Henrik Thiil Nielsen (talk).

Photo

I'm not sure, but I think the guy in the photo is Gregor Strasser, Otto's brother. --Appiani (talk) 19:32, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. It isn't Otto Strasser. --87.236.134.210 (talk) 13:19, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Prisoner of Ottawa?

In 1941, he emigrated to Canada, where he was the famed "Prisoner of Ottawa".

This is unexplained. What does it mean? Valetude (talk) 01:04, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Invited to East Germany?

"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."

The source for the invitation to move to the DDR is an obscure Canadian newspaper, and there's no East German or Russian source to back up their claim. Neither the German or Russian language wikipedia articles mention this claim at all. Why is it presented as fact when it's disputable if it even happened? Poke992 (talk) 00:28, 15 September 2023 (UTC)