1. Gregor Strasser was a German politician and early leader of the Nazi Party.
32 Facts About Gregor Strasser
1. 2.
Gregor Strasser joined the Nazi Party in 1920 and quickly became an influential and important figure in the fledgling party.
3.
In 1923, Gregor Strasser took part in the abortive Beer Hall Putsch in Munich and was imprisoned.
4.
Gregor Strasser then renounced his Reichstag seat and retired from active politics, returning to his old profession as a pharmacist.
5.
On 30 June 1934, in a purge that became known as the Night of the Long Knives, Gregor Strasser was arrested by the Gestapo and subsequently executed.
6.
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.
7.
Gregor Strasser grew up alongside his younger brother Otto, who was considered the more intellectual of the two.
8.
Gregor Strasser 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.
9.
When war broke out in Europe in 1914, Gregor Strasser suspended his studies at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich to enlist as a volunteer in the German Imperial Army.
10.
Gregor Strasser served in the 1st Bavarian Field Artillery Regiment, rising to the rank of Oberleutnant and winning the Iron Cross of both classes for bravery.
11.
Gregor Strasser passed his state examination in 1919 and in 1920, he started work as a pharmacist in Landshut.
12.
Gregor Strasser established and commanded the Sturmbataillon Niederbayern, with the young Heinrich Himmler employed as his adjutant.
13.
Gregor Strasser was known for his enormous stature, commanding personality, and boundless organizational energy.
14.
The Gregor Strasser brothers advocated an anti-capitalist and social revolutionary course for the NSDAP, which at the same time was firmly antisemitic and anti-Marxist.
15.
In December 1924 Gregor Strasser won a seat for the "volkisch" National Socialist Freedom Movement in the Reichstag.
16.
In December 1926, Gregor Strasser's Gau merged with that of the Upper Palatinate and Gregor Strasser headed the enlarged Gau.
17.
Gregor Strasser's 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.
18.
Gregor 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.
19.
Gregor Strasser founded the National Socialist Working Association on 10 September 1925.
20.
Together with his brother Otto, Gregor Strasser founded the Berlin Kampf-Verlag in March 1926, which went on to publish the weekly newspaper the Berliner Arbeiterzeitung, which represented the more "socialist" wing of the Party.
21.
Gregor 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 Gregor Strasser himself.
22.
Goebbels and Gregor Strasser traveled there hoping to convince Hitler of the new message.
23.
Gregor Strasser accepted this position, but a car accident in March 1926 proved a setback: he was bedridden as a result.
24.
Gregor Strasser left his propaganda post to take up new responsibilities as Chairman of the NSDAP Organizational Committee, later, the Organizational Department.
25.
Gregor Strasser reorganized both the party's regional structure and its vertical management hierarchy.
26.
Gregor Strasser urged him to enter a coalition government, but Hitler saw the offer as placing him in a position of "playing second fiddle".
27.
Schleicher hoped to split the NSDAP with Gregor Strasser's help, pulling the left wing of the NSDAP to his "national conservative" side to stop Hitler.
28.
Hitler was furious and demanded that Gregor Strasser refuse Schleicher's offer.
29.
Gregor Strasser resigned from his party offices on 8 December 1932, just seven weeks before the NSDAP obtained political power.
30.
In March 1933, Gregor Strasser officially exited politics by renouncing his Reichstag seat.
31.
Whether Gregor Strasser was killed on Hitler's personal orders is not known.
32.
Gregor Strasser was shot once in the main artery from behind in his cell but did not die immediately.