Gregor Strasser (31 May 1892 – 30 June 1934) was a Nazi Party member who led its left-wing Strasserist faction (alongside his brother Otto Strasser), which advocated for a worker-based version of Nazism and sought to achieve national rebirth. He was an enemy of Adolf Hitler, leading to his death during the Night of the Long Knives on 30 June 1934.
Biography[]
Gregor Strasser was born on 31 May 1892 in Geisenfeld, Upper Bavaria, German Empire, the brother of Otto Strasser. He served in World War I and served with Franz Ritter von Epp's Freikorps in suppressing communism in Bavaria; Heinrich Himmler served as his adjutant. Strasser was ready to partake in the Kapp Putsch against the Weimar Republic in 1920, but his brother Otto Strasser helped to fight against the far-right putsch; the Strasser brothers and their Freikorps later joined the Nazi Party. He was recognized as the Sturmabteilung (SA) commander in Lower Bavaria and took part in the failed 1923 Beer Hall Putsch in Munich; in 1925, he became Gauleiter of Lower Bavaria and served as the propaganda chief of the Nazi Party from June 1926 to April 1930. Eventually, Hitler supplanted Strasser and replaced him with Joseph Goebbels due to the Strasser brothers' support of anti-capitalism, as Hitler had moved beyond that belief. The left wing of the Nazi Party gathered around the idea of "Strasserism", and Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher wanted to offer Strasser the office of Vice-Chancellor to gain the loyalty of the leftist Nazis for his national conservative side of politics. Hitler forced him to refuse the offer, and Strasser was further angered when Hitler decided to turn down the offer of the post of Vice-Chancellor, as he was angry at his holding out for the title. In the 1934 Night of the Long Knives, Strasser was arrested and shot once in the arter while in prison, and Reinhard Heydrich had his SS forces leave him to bleed out.