Gregor Strasser

Nazi party and regime Fascists and Nazis 1892–1934 ✕ Murdered

Nazi organisation chief who built the party in the north, broke with Hitler in 1932 and was killed in the Night of the Long Knives

When Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher offered him the vice-chancellorship in December 1932, he was accused of trying to split the party and broke with Hitler. He then resigned all his party offices.

Born to a Catholic judicial official in Bavaria, he trained as a pharmacist and served as an artillery officer in the First World War. He joined the Nazi Party in 1920, was jailed after the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 and freed on his election to the Reichstag in 1924. In the refounded party of 1925 he organised northern Germany and with his brother Otto issued the anti-capitalist “Strasser Program”, which Hitler repudiated at the Bamberg Conference of 1926. As Reich Organisation Leader from June 1932 he controlled the party apparatus and promoted a state-funded job-creation “Emergency Economic Program”. Offered the vice-chancellorship by Kurt von Schleicher in December 1932, he broke with Hitler and resigned his party offices. He was arrested by the Gestapo and killed in the Night of the Long Knives on 30 June 1934.

Also known as: Gregor Straßer