Strasser crisis

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The Strasser crisis was an internal party dispute within the leadership of the NSDAP in December 1932. At the center of the crisis was the dispute over the further political course of the party after the parliamentary elections of November 1932 , which the NSDAP considered disappointing , in which they lost two Millions of votes had to be accepted.

In the Strasser crisis, essentially two views clashed within the party leadership: on the one hand, the position of the group around Hermann Göring and Joseph Goebbels , who pleaded for adherence to Hitler's previous political course, which was reduced to the formula "all or nothing" , that means to continue to insist on the transfer of the Reich Chancellery to Adolf Hitler personally and on the transfer of full government power to the NSDAP. In contrast, the head of the Reich organization of the NSDAP, Gregor Strasser - who gave the crisis its name - advocated taking a more moderate course and for the time being content with a few ministerial posts in a coalition government. According to Strasser's idea, Hitler should forego the Chancellery and instead be satisfied with the office of Vice Chancellor or the party leader of the NSDAP. At the end of the crisis, Hitler - after some back and forth - sided with the advocates of the “all or nothing” course.

The most important results of the Strasser crisis were the departure of Gregor Strasser from the NSDAP leadership in favor of a further strengthening of the radical party wing as well as the failure of the cross-front concept of the then reigning Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher , who had planned when he took office in December 1932 , in the course of a “diagonal” alliance through all political camps, from the “moderate National Socialists” to the Bundische Jugend up to the trade unions, including the NSDAP group around Gregor Strasser in his government. The unexpected loss of the Strasser column is often seen in historical research as one of the most important reasons for the failure of the Schleicher government in January 1933.

consequences

Within the NSDAP, the Strasser crisis had a direct impact on the organization of the party: after Strasser's resignation, the tasks of Reich Organizational Leader were transferred to the previous Reich Inspector II of the party Robert Ley , whereby some important competencies that Strasser still held came from the area of ​​responsibility of Organizational Leader were outsourced and transferred to other officials. The supervision of the propaganda of the party, which Strasser had held, was removed from the department of the head of organization and from then on was carried out by the head of the Reich propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who until then had been subordinate to the head of organization. Furthermore, with the Central Political Commission headed by Rudolf Hess , a completely new body was added to the party's network of organizations.

literature

  • Udo Kissenkoetter : Gregor Strasser and the NSDAP. (= Series of the quarterly books for contemporary history, volume 37 ) DVA, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-421-01881-2 .
  • Peter D. Stachura : The Strasser case. Gregor Strasser, Hitler and National Socialism 1930–1932, in dsb., The Shaping of the Nazi State , 1978, pp. 88–126.