Otto Strasser

Otto Johann Maximilian Strasser (German: Otto Straßer; 10 September 1897 – 27 August 1974) was a German politician and an early member of the Nazi Party. While his older brother Gregor led the party's northern group, Otto served as its primary theoretician. Through their main publishing house, the Kampfverlag, they promoted an ideology based on Nazism, that later became known as Strasserism, which sought to replace capitalist private property with a medieval-style system of "hereditary fiefs" (Erblehen). Otto broke from the party due to disputes with the dominant Hitlerite faction. He formed the Black Front, a group intended to split the Nazi Party and take it from the grasp of Hitler. During his exile and World War II, this group also functioned as a secret opposition group. Historian Hans Mommsen has commented that Otto Strasser was "in most respects" the intellectual superior of his brother Gregor. Peter Stachura argues that the concept of so-called left-wing "Strasserism," and Gregor's image as a principled "socialist" martyr, were largely fabricated by Otto in his writings.