Hitler and I

Hitler and I by Otto Strasser

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1AFYIBOR7NYI?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp

Strasser was a close associate with Hitler and Hitler's inner circle in the earliest days of the National Socialist Party. He opens this memoir with his recollection of meeting with Hitler in 1920, which was within a year of Hitler's joining the Nazis. Otto and his brother Gregor were responsible for establishing the Nazis in northern Germany, where they had the Nazis had their greatest successes. Gregor would go on to become one of the Nazi's first members of the Reichstag, and, eventually, was offered the Vice-Chancellor position to undercut Hitler's rise to power. Gregor was eventually executed in the Night of Long Knives in June 1934.

Otto was able to flee Germany upon Hitler's elevation to the Chancellorship in January 1933. Otto's relationship with Hitler had gone sour in 1930, which caused Otto to leave the Nazis and use his contacts with disgruntled Nazis to from the “Black Front,” which was an anti-Nazis subversive organization.

The crux of Otto and Gregor's dispute with Hitler is that the Strasser's were committed socialists. The Strassers and their followers believed that the term Socialist was the key element of the name “National Socialist”:

‘There is no question of revenge and there is no question of war,' I replied. ‘Our Socialism must be “national” in order to establish a new order in Germany and not to set out on a new policy of conquests.' ‘Yes,' said Gregor, who had been listening very seriously, ‘from the Right we shall take nationalism, which has so disastrously allied itself with capitalism, and from the Left we shall take Socialism, which has made such an unhappy union with internationalism. Thus we shall form the National-Socialism which will be the motive force of a new Germany and a new Europe.' ‘And,' I continued, ‘the emphasis in this amalgamation must be on the socialism. Don't you call your movement Nationalsozialist in a single word, Herr Hitler? German grammar tells us that in compound words of this kind the first part serves to qualify the second, which is the essential part.'

Strasser, Otto. Hitler and I (p. 9). Kindle Edition.

Socialism was originally a key part of the Nazi program, but Hitler was always the opportunist and moderated the social revolutionary/socialist aspects of the program in favor of Prussian nationalism.

Otto's version of Hitler is surprising since it is the version we expect, namely, Hitler was an overweening, crazy, perverted arsehole. A lot of the memoirs of Hitler's intimates tend to burnish Hitler's reputation - either because that's what they saw or they were so deeply invested in the Hitler mythos that they can't walk it back. Otto describes Hitler from the beginning as a shallow, two-faced ranter. I found it interesting that the tradition of saying “Heil, Hitler” did not begin until the early 1930s and the Strassers continued to refer to Hitler as “Herr Hitler” up to the end.

There are other insights that are surprising in that they are what we expect. For example, there is a constant claim on the internet that Hitler was a Christian. On this point, Otto Strasser has no doubt:


“‘Your incessant quarrels with my people. Last year it was Streicher, then it was Rosenberg, and now it's Goebbels. I've had enough of it.' ‘There is no connection between them, Herr Hitler. Julius Streicher is a dirty swine. At the Nurnberg Congress last year he served me up with Jewish sexual crimes as a “delicate aperitif.” I told him I considered his paper disgusting and that I liked literature, not pornography. In fact we had quite a violent quarrel, which, in view of its subject, should neither shock nor surprise you.' ‘And Rosenberg?' asked Hitler, discountenanced by the word ‘pornography.' ‘What have you got against him?' ‘His paganism, Herr Hitler.' Adolf rose and began to pace the room. ‘Rosenberg's ideology is an integral part of National-Socialism,' he solemnly declared. ‘I thought you had made peace with Rome.' Hitler stopped and looked me in the eyes. ‘Christianity is, for the moment, one of the points in the program I have laid down. But we must look ahead. Rosenberg is a forerunner, a prophet. His theories are the expression of the German soul. A true German cannot condemn them.' I made no answer, but stared at the man. I was genuinely taken aback by his duplicity.

Strasser, Otto. Hitler and I (pp. 77-78). Kindle Edition.

And:

“On December 20, 1924, a telegram addressed to the fortress of Landsberg ordered the immediate release of Hitler and Kriebel. Hitler left the prison the same day. Saul the revolutionary, transformed into Paul the good apostle, left on his journey towards the conquest of power. His first care was to make peace with Rome. ‘One cannot fight two enemies at once,' he explained to the deputy Jurgen von Ramin, who visited him at Landsberg. He adhered to this policy in spite of the attacks of the Right-Wing paper the Reichswart, edited by Count von Reventlow, and he solemnly informed Herr Heinrich Held, Prime Minister and leader of the Popular Catholic Party of Bavaria, that he condemned General Ludendorff's atheism. ‘The latter alone is the enemy of the Roman Church,' declared Hitler, who was profoundly imbued with German paganism, more so, perhaps, than Ludendorff or Rosenberg himself.

Strasser, Otto. Hitler and I (pp. 47-48). Kindle Edition.

Here is an interesting aside that I want to look into:

“Good Father Staempfle, a priest of great learning, edi¬ tor of a paper at Miessbach, spent months rewriting and editing Mein Kampf, He eliminated the more flagrant inaccuracies and the excessively childish platitudes. Hitler never forgave Father Staempfle for getting to know his weaknesses so well. He had him murdered by a ‘special death squad' on the night of June 30, 1934.

Strasser, Otto. Hitler and I (p. 46). Kindle Edition.

I was also interested in the attitude of the Nazi elites toward Hitler's Mein Kampf:

“It took place at the Nazi Party Congress at Nürenberg in 1927. I had been a member of the Party for two years and a half, and presented the annual report. In the courseof it I quoted a few phrases from Mein Kampf, and this caused a certain sensation. That evening, at dinner with several colleagues, Feder, Kaufmann, Koch, and others, they asked me if I had really read the book, with which not one of them seemed to be familiar. I admitted having quoted some significant passages from it without bothering my head about the context. This caused general amusement, and it was agreed that the first person who joined us who had read Mein Kampf should pay the bill for us all. Gregor's answer when he arrived was a resounding ‘No,' Goebbels shook his head guiltily, Goering burst into loud laughter, and Count Reventlow excused himself on the ground that he had had no time. Nobody had read Mein Kampf, so everybody had to pay his own bill.

Strasser, Otto. Hitler and I (p. 47). Kindle Edition.

The book is interesting for two other reasons. First, there is an excellent action/adventure story as Strasser stays one step ahead of the Gestapo after 1934.

Second, this book was written in 1940, apparently prior to the Fall of France. Thus, we have a moment of time preserved in amber and can see what people were thinking at that precise time.

In that regard, this observation is chilling:

“I shall never forget the last words of my last conversation with Gregor before my flight to Austria. ‘You'll see,' my brother said to me, ‘Adolf will end by blowing his brains out.' ‘Only if there's a sufficient audience to applaud him,' I replied, knowing his vanity, and his histrionic temperament. Hitler's individual fate matters little. Hitler and Stalin, Hitlerism, Prussianism, and Bolshevism, will be conquered by the forces of a new Germany and of a civilized Europe.

Strasser, Otto. Hitler and I (p. 185). Kindle Edition.