Editing Gregor Strasser (section)

==Political career==
[[File:Hitler 1928 crop.jpg|thumb|upright|Hitler and other top [[Sturmabteilung|SA]] officials at a party rally, 1928]]

===Nazi Party activities===
By 1920, Strasser, and his paramilitary group had joined forces with [[Adolf Hitler]]'s [[Nazi Party]] (NSDAP), another [[far-right politics|far-right]] political party seated in [[Munich]].{{sfn|Evans|2004|p=202}}{{sfn|Hamilton|1984|p=347}} During the autumn of 1922, Strasser officially became a member of the NSDAP and the [[Sturmabteilung|SA]].{{sfn|Read|2005|p=117}} Strasser's leadership qualities were soon recognized, and he was appointed as regional head of the ''[[Sturmabteilung]]'' ("Storm Detachment"; SA) in [[Lower Bavaria]].{{sfn|Kershaw|2000|p=270}} In November 1923, he took an active part in the unsuccessful [[Beer Hall Putsch]], a coup attempt by Hitler and [[Erich Ludendorff|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{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=72}}—on 12 May and sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment and a small fine.{{sfn|Stachura|1983|p=33}}

After a few weeks Strasser was released because he had been elected a member of the Bavarian [[Landtag]] for the NSDAP-associated "[[Völkisch movement|Völkischer]] Block" on 6 April and 4 May (in the Palatinate) 1924, respectively.{{sfn|Read|2005|p=118}} In December 1924 Strasser won a seat for the "völkisch" [[National Socialist Freedom Movement]] in the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]]. He represented the constituency Westphalia North.{{sfn|Stachura|1983|p=34}}

After the restoration of the NSDAP by Adolf Hitler on 26 February 1925, Strasser became the first ''[[Gauleiter]]'' of [[Lower Bavaria]].{{sfn|Read|2005|pp=123–124}} Because Strasser led up to 2,000 men in Landshut and was overworked, he began looking for an assistant.{{sfn|Read|2005|p=119}} Heinrich Himmler, who obtained the job, was tasked with expanding the organization in Lower Bavaria.{{sfn|Rosmus|2015|p=36fn}} In December 1926, Strasser's ''[[Gau (German)#The Nazi Party Gaue|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.{{sfn|Höffkes|1986|p=327}}

===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.{{sfn|Nicholls|2000|p=253}}{{sfn|Fulbrook|2015|p=45}} Due to the public-speaking ban issued against Hitler, Strasser had been deputized (by Hitler) to represent the party in the north and speak.{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=82}} Through much of 1925, Strasser took full advantage of his liberties as a member of the Reichstag; using his free railroad passes,{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=82}} he traveled extensively throughout northern and western Germany appointing Gauleiters, setting up party branches, and delivering numerous public speeches.{{sfn|Read|2005|p=126}} Lacking Hitler's oratorical gifts to move the masses, Strasser's personality alone was nonetheless sufficient to influence an audience.{{sfn|Childers|2017|pp=82–83}} 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.{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=83}} Strasser's brand of socialism is discernible from a speech he made to the Reichstag in November 1925:

{{blockquote|We National Socialists want the economic revolution involving the nationalization of the economy...We want in place of an exploitative capitalist economic system a real socialism, maintained not by a soulless Jewish-materialist outlook but by the believing, sacrificial, and unselfish old German community sentiment, community purpose, and economic feeling. We want the social revolution in order to bring about the national revolution.{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=84}} }}

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.{{sfn|Nicholls|2000|p=253}}{{sfn|Fulbrook|2015|p=45}} The [[NSDAP/AO|party's own foreign organization]] was also formed on Strasser's initiative.{{sfn|Newton|1992|p=38}} He also founded the [[National Socialist Working Association]] on 10 September 1925.{{sfn|Stachura|1983|p=45}} This was a short-lived group of about a dozen northern and western German ''Gauleiter'', who supported the more "socialist" wing of the Party and sought to increase its appeal to the working class in Germany's large industrial cities.{{sfn|Pridham|1973|p=48}} Together with his brother Otto, Strasser founded the Berlin ''Kampf-Verlag'' ("Combat Publishing") in March 1926, which went on to publish the weekly newspaper the ''Berliner Arbeiterzeitung'' ("Berlin Workers Newspaper"), which represented the more "socialist" wing of the Party.{{sfn|Nicholls|2000|p=253}}{{sfn|Longerich|2015|pp=100–101}} Strasser appointed the young university-educated political agitator from the Rhineland, [[Joseph Goebbels]] as the managing editor of the ''Kampfverlag'', a man who was drawn to the NSDAP political message and to Strasser himself.{{sfn|Childers|2017|pp=84–85}} The two men drafted a revised version of the NSDAP political program during the winter of 1925–1926, one which leaned much further to the left and incensed Hitler.{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=84}} To deal with these proposed changes head-on, Hitler called for a meeting in the northern Bavarian city of [[Bamberg]] on 14 February 1926. Goebbels and Strasser traveled there hoping to convince Hitler of the new message.{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=84}} During the speech at the [[Bamberg Conference]], Hitler lambasted the extreme ideas in the new draft, ideas which he conflated more with Bolshevism, a development which profoundly shocked and disappointed Strasser and Goebbels. Strasser's follow-on speech was bumbled and ineffectual, the result of Hitler's powerful oration; Hitler's refutation of Strasser's policy suggestions at Bamberg demonstrated that the party had officially become Hitler's and the NSDAP centered around him.{{sfn|Childers|2017|pp=86–87}}

Placating the northern German NSDAP branches in the wake of Bamberg, Hitler assigned leadership of the SA, which was temporarily vacated by [[Ernst Roehm]], to one of Strasser's own key members, [[Franz Pfeffer von Salomon]].{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=87}} More importantly perhaps, Hitler began a personal campaign to lure away Strasser's chief lieutenant, Goebbels, into his personal fold—a move which proved immediately successful.{{sfn|Evans|2004|p=206}}{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=88}} The future Führer also struck a deal with Strasser to disband the National Socialist Working Association and asked him to assume responsibility for the party propaganda department.{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=88}} Strasser accepted this position, but a car accident in March 1926 proved a setback: he was bedridden as a result. Upon recovery, he was welcomed back into this position.{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=89}} Thus, in addition to his Gauleiter responsibilities, from 16 September 1926 until 2 January 1928, he was the NSDAP's national leader for propaganda (''Reichspropagandaleiter'').{{sfn|Stachura|1983|p=62}} Strasser left his propaganda post to take up new responsibilities as Chairman of the NSDAP Organizational Committee, later, the Organizational Department ''(Organisationsableitung)''.{{sfn|Höffkes|1986|p=327}}
       
Between 1928 and 1932, Hitler turned over the NSDAP's national organizational work to Strasser, whose skills were better suited to the task, as Hitler was uninterested in organizational matters and preferred to give his attention to ideological concerns.{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=110}} On 18 December 1931, Hitler granted Strasser the rank of SA-''[[Gruppenführer]]'' and, in 1932, Strasser also became the editor of several biweekly and monthly Nazi news sheets.{{sfn|Miller|Schulz|2021|p=326}} By June 1932, Strasser was named ''Reichsorganisationsleiter'', and had further centralized the Party's organizational structure under his command.{{sfn|Höffkes|1986|p=327}} During the course of the reorganizations, Strasser refashioned the NSDAP district boundaries to more closely align with those of the Reichstag and increased the authority of ''Gauleiters''.{{sfn|Childers|2017|p=110}} Strasser reorganized both the party's regional structure and its vertical management hierarchy.{{sfn|Stachura|1983|pp=64–65}} The party became a more centralized organization with extensive propaganda mechanisms.{{sfn|Fulbrook|2015|p=45}}{{sfn|Nicholls|2000|p=253}} In the 1928 General Election on 20 May, Strasser was elected from electoral constituency 26 ([[Franconia]]) as one of the first 12 Nazi deputies to the Reichstag.{{sfn|Stachura|1983|p=66}} While the NSDAP only received 2.6 percent of the national vote that year, it became the second largest party in the Reichstag by September 1930, securing 18.3 percent of the vote.{{sfn|Fulbrook|2015|p=44}} Strasser's organizational strengthening contributed to this success and the Nazis became the largest party in July 1932 with 37.3%.

===Conflicts with Hitler===
The [[Great Depression]] greatly affected Germany and by 1930 there was a dramatic increase in unemployment. During this time, the Strasser brothers started publishing a new regional daily newspaper in Berlin, the ''Nationaler Sozialist''.{{sfn|Longerich|2015|pp=125, 126, 127}} Like their other publications, it conveyed the brothers' own brand of Nazism, including nationalism, anti-capitalism, social reform, and anti-Westernism.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=200}} Goebbels complained vehemently about the rival Strasser newspapers to Hitler and admitted that their success was causing his own Berlin newspapers to be "pushed to the wall".{{sfn|Longerich|2015|pp=125, 126}} In late April 1930, Hitler publicly and firmly announced his opposition to Gregor Strasser's socialist ideas and appointed Goebbels as Reich leader of NSDAP propaganda.{{sfn|Evans|2004|p=244}} When Hitler visited Goebbels on 2 May 1930, Goebbels banned the evening edition of the ''Nationaler Sozialist''. Gregor Strasser distanced himself from his brother and relinquished his position as publisher of the ''Nationaler Sozialist'' by the end of June, while Otto left the Party at the beginning of July.{{sfn|Longerich|2015|pp=128, 129}}

In August 1932, Hitler was offered the job of [[Vice-Chancellor of Germany]] by then Chancellor [[Franz von Papen]] at the behest of President [[Paul von Hindenburg]], but he refused. Strasser urged him to enter a coalition government, but Hitler saw the offer as placing him in a position of "playing second fiddle".{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=233, 234}}<ref name="gunther1940">{{cite book | url=https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.149663/2015.149663.Inside-Europe#page/n35/mode/2up | title=Inside Europe | publisher=Harper & Brothers | author=Gunther, John |location=New York|author-link=John Gunther| year=1940 | pages=14, 38–39}}</ref> While many in his inner circle, like Goebbels, saw his resistance as heroic, Strasser was frustrated and believed Hitler was wrong to hold out for the Chancellorship. The ideological and personal rivalry with Hitler grew when the successor Chancellor [[Kurt von Schleicher]] had discussions with Strasser as to becoming Vice-Chancellor in December 1932.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=244, 245}} Schleicher hoped to split the NSDAP with Strasser's help, pulling the left wing of the NSDAP to his "national conservative" side to stop Hitler.{{sfn|Nicholls|2000|p=253}} Hitler was furious and demanded that Strasser refuse Schleicher's offer.{{sfn|Nicholls|2000|p=253}} At a meeting of Nazi Reichstag members Hitler confronted the 30-40 that supported Strasser, forcing them to publicly support the former and denounce the latter.{{r|gunther1940}} Strasser resigned from his party offices on 8 December 1932, just seven weeks before the NSDAP obtained political power.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=245}} Hitler temporarily took over the post of ''Reichsorganisationsleiter'', eventually turning it over to [[Robert Ley]].{{sfn| Orlow| 1969| p=295}} On 16 January 1933, Hitler "publicly repudiated Strasser" for his interactions with Schleicher.{{sfn|Overy|2010|p=59}} In March 1933, Strasser officially exited politics by renouncing his Reichstag seat.{{sfn|Stachura|1983|p=121}}