Strasserism

Strasserism (German: Strasserismus) refers to a dissident current associated with the early Nazi movement. Named after brothers Gregor and Otto Strasser, Strasserism emphasized revolutionary nationalism, economic antisemitism, and opposition to both Marxist socialism and Hitlerite Nazism.

As a coherent ideological project, Strasserism is primarily associated with Otto Strasser, whose writings and political activities developed the doctrine in opposition to Adolf Hitler. The term itself derives from the shared surname of Otto and his brother Gregor Strasser, which Otto actively used to present their views as unified. Gregor Strasser remained within the party leadership until 1932 and did not join his brother's opposition movement before his death in 1934.

Otto Strasser had been active in the Nazi Party but broke with it in 1930 over fundamental disagreements about economic policy and the structure of the state. While the party leadership emphasized centralized authority and sought to harmonize labor and capital under state oversight, Strasser advocated breaking up industrial monopolies, placing key industries under public control, and reorganizing society through vocational representation and worker participation in economic management. He resigned from the party in 1930 over ideological differences with Hitler and subsequently founded the Combat League of Revolutionary National Socialists (the Black Front) as a dissident organization opposing Hitler's leadership and direction for the Nazi movement. Due to his opposition, Otto Strasser fled Germany in 1933 and spent the following years in exile, returning to West Germany only after World War II in 1953.

During the early 1930s, some members of the Sturmabteilung (SA) expressed support for a so-called "second revolution," which called for further social and economic transformation beyond what the Nazi leadership envisioned. While this rhetoric echoed certain themes found in Strasserist ideology, the motivations and organizational bases were distinct. Gregor Strasser held a very low opinion of Ernst Röhm, the head of the SA, whom he disparagingly referred to as a "pervert."

In July 1934, Adolf Hitler ordered the Night of the Long Knives, a political purge targeting the SA leadership and other perceived rivals. Among those killed were Ernst Röhm, the head of the SA, and Gregor Strasser, Otto's brother and a former high-ranking Nazi official who had already withdrawn from party leadership.

In the 1980s, the revolutionary nationalism and the economic anti-Semitism of Strasserism reappeared in the politics of the National Front in the United Kingdom.

While Strasserism is primarily associated with Otto Strasser's oppositionist ideology, some historians have challenged the retrospective application of this label to a broader so-called "Nazi Left" or "Strasser Wing" within the NSDAP. Peter D. Stachura argues that no such faction meaningfully existed within the party, and that what has often been interpreted as a left-wing current was, in reality, little more than an expression of petty-bourgeois panic in the Weimar Republic. In line with this interpretation, some commentators have described the concept of "Strasserite Socialism" as being shaped by persistent myths and misconceptions, particularly in discussions that project radical socialist intentions onto the Strasser brothers without close engagement with their historical roles or writings.