Archive for the 'National Bolshevism' Category

Diseased Jewess Denies that her Art Project is Fiction [Jews are not normal people!]

Published
by
Friedrich Braun
on April 18, 2008
in Art & Design , Jewish Diaspora , Kooks, Marxism & Culture War , National Bolshevism, Oh Tempora, Oh Mores , The Greatest Man in History, The Jewish Question and The Third Reich
. 14 Comments

What did Hitler think of jewish “art,” again? Can someone please point out where Hitler was wrong about the jews?

Fucked up Jewess (Jews, like women, tend to be masochistic and neurotic…now, imagine a what a Jewess must be like) has spoken to the Yale Daily News and is denying claims from her own University that her self-induced miscarriages as an art piece is an elaborate prank.

Here are some of the LOWlights from her rebuttal:

- Shvarts stood by her project, calling the University’s statement “ultimately inaccurate.”

- But Shvarts reiterated Thursday that she repeatedly used a needleless syringe to insert semen into herself. At the end of her menstrual cycle, she took abortifacient herbs to induce bleeding, she said. She said she does not know whether or not she was ever pregnant.

- “No one can say with 100-percent certainty that anything in the piece did or did not happen,” Shvarts said, “because the nature of the piece is that it did not consist of certainties.”

- Shvarts showed the News footage from tapes she plans to play at the exhibit. The tapes depict Shvarts — sometimes naked, sometimes clothed — alone in a shower stall bleeding into a cup.

Source.

“For the past year, I performed repeated self-induced miscarriages. I created a group of fabricators from volunteers who submitted to periodic STD screenings and agreed to their complete and permanent anonymity. From the 9th to the 15th day of my menstrual cycle, the fabricators would provide me with sperm samples, which I used to privately self-inseminate. Using a needleless syringe, I would inject the sperm near my cervix within 30 minutes of its collection, so as to insure the possibility of fertilization. On the 28th day of my cycle, I would ingest an abortifacient, after which I would experience cramps and heavy bleeding.

To protect myself and others, only I know the number of fabricators who participated, the frequency and accuracy with which I inseminated and the specific abortifacient I used. Because of these measures of privacy, the piece exists only in its telling. This telling can take textual, visual, spatial, temporal and performative forms — copies of copies of which there is no original.

This piece — in its textual and sculptural forms — is meant to call into question the relationship between form and function as they converge on the body. The artwork exists as the verbal narrative you see above, as an installation that will take place in Green Hall, as a time-based performance, as a independent concept, as a myth and as a public discourse.

It creates an ambiguity that isolates the locus of ontology to an act of readership. An intentional ambiguity pervades both the act and the objects I produced in relation to it. The performance exists only as I chose to represent it. For me, the most poignant aspect of this representation — the part most meaningful in terms of its political agenda (and, incidentally, the aspect that has not been discussed thus far) — is the impossibility of accurately identifying the resulting blood. Because the miscarriages coincide with the expected date of menstruation (the 28th day of my cycle), it remains ambiguous whether the there was ever a fertilized ovum or not. The reality of the pregnancy, both for myself and for the audience, is a matter of reading.

This ambivalence makes obvious how the act of identification or naming — the act of ascribing a word to something physical — is at its heart an ideological act, an act that literally has the power to construct bodies. In a sense, the act of conception occurs when the viewer assigns the term “miscarriage” or “period” to that blood.

In some sense, neither term is exactly accurate or inaccurate; the ambiguity is not merely a matter of context, but is embodied in the physicality of the object. This central ambiguity defies a clear definition of the act. The reality of miscarriage is very much a linguistic and political reality, an act of reading constructed by an act of naming — an authorial act.

It is the intention of this piece to destabilize the locus of that authorial act, and in doing so, reclaim it from the heteronormative structures that seek to naturalize it.

As an intervention into our normative understanding of “the real” and its accompanying politics of convention, this performance piece has numerous conceptual goals. The first is to assert that often, normative understandings of biological function are a mythology imposed on form. It is this mythology that creates the sexist, racist, ableist, nationalist and homophobic perspective, distinguishing what body parts are “meant” to do from their physical capability. The myth that a certain set of functions are “natural” (while all the other potential functions are “unnatural”) undermines that sense of capability, confining lifestyle choices to the bounds of normatively defined narratives.

Just as it is a myth that women are “meant” to be feminine and men masculine, that penises and vaginas are “meant” for penetrative heterosexual sex (or that mouths, anuses, breasts, feet or leather, silicone, vinyl, rubber, or metal implements are not “meant” for sex at all), it is a myth that ovaries and a uterus are “meant” to birth a child.

When considering my own bodily form, I recognize its potential as extending beyond its ability to participate in a normative function. While my organs are capable of engaging with the narrative of reproduction — the time-based linkage of discrete events from conception to birth — the realm of capability extends beyond the bounds of that specific narrative chain. These organs can do other things, can have other purposes, and it is the prerogative of every individual to acknowledge and explore this wide realm of capability.”

Source and source.

Hitlerjugend

Published
by
Friedrich Braun
on April 11, 2008
in Germany, National Bolshevism, National Socialism and The Third Reich
. 0 Comments

A very nice YouTube channel by German Artur Axmann here.

Age: 30

I have been fascinated by the Third Reich since I was 12 years. From the first I read of the concept, and saw the images, I wanted to be there. I was born 70 years too late. When I was young, I was forced to hide my interests, I was told that I would come to harm and be shunned if I expressed myself. It hurt me much to hide my ideals, and that is unfair for anyone, especially a youth. I will not hide my interests again.

I am not a neo-Nazi, I am not an activist - my views are not accepted, voicing my opinions will cause trouble. Selective freedom of speech limits what I can voice in person. I call myself a ‘retro-Nazi’, I am oldfashioned. I also consider myself a socialist/SA Nazi rather than a corrupted latter-day Nazi [I don't know what that means but it vaguely sounds like National Bolshevik nonsense...*sigh*-- FB]. The aesthetic, order, and many social values of this period appeal to me as nothing else, nothing of today.

As well Wehrmacht was the best military in history, with the bravest and strongest soldiers, who deserve respect and admiration. Those who demonize the German soldiers are liars and idiots. These brave Soldaten faced enormous odds, fighting against almost the entire planet, and they fought harder than anyone. They fought for Germany, for Europe, for the west. I will always cherish and appreciate their sacrifice, they are true heroes. They will never be forgotten and will always be worthy of love and admiration. Die besten Soldaten der Welt.

This movement may have become corrupt, and with the world against it, failed, but the principles remain sound. Society needs to evolve past the plutocrats and theocrats of today. I believe modern religion exists to keep the poor from killing the rich, and it is used as a political tool. I believe humanity should evolve past religion and deference to the plutocratic elite, and I believe the Third Reich would have moved past traditional religion had it survived. Through my ideals, I think socialism is the most sustainable economic system. Pure capitalism and communism both create poverty and failure for masses. Nationalism is needed for a nation and a society to survive. These are not evil ideals. This movement was not rightist, it was progressive and revolutionary with highest technology. It was not about killing. Some bad people being involved should not damn it forever.

I am as well not offended when one calls me a “Nazi”, I see this as compliment. I see being the term “Nazi” as having a certain physical and psychological ideal that is not negative. The term makes images of the positive side of the movement, and I wish to be associated with these. The ideals of this movement - self-discipline, pride, comradeship, bravery, loyalty, honor, are all pure. I wish I could hold myself to these ideals more, and the world would be better if everyone did the same. Europe needs these ideals!

This ideal appears to be the last stand of the western world. I am not optimistic for the future. Europe appears to be dying, and it gets worse every day with the invaders on our streets. The socalled allies will regret what they killed. What they killed was better than them. The death of the Reich and the American looting and murder which enabled the communist domination and brutalization of half of Europe created events that could destroy Europe. The downfall of the “allies” will eventually take place. The British and French empires are already dead, communism has been revealed to be a joke, and the Americans too are declining. One must look back at 1945 and ask, was it really worth it? Who really won the war? It is not who the victors claim.

The guilt coming from the US and certain of religious-based entities funded with their dollars must cease. Given the land unjustly lost and the looting and thievery that took place in Germany after the war (not to mention the millions of German civilians and innocent POWs murdered AFTER the war, enabled by American greed - this is history socalled “allies” will never admit), and all of the later reparations and endless amounts of repentance, has not the time come for the endless shame given to Germany to stop? When will it be enough? When will the “allies” admit the atrocities they committed? The western allies directly enabled the communist nightmare to flourish across the planet - when will they be forced to accountability? When will overmonied American interests stop with their whining and propaganda? When will the false German government (BRd) finally discard this false guilt and permit German pride to live again? The true Germany is not BRd!

Germany needs to rise again and discard the lies and false guilt forced by the socalled allied victors. Deutschland Erwache. Deutschland über alles.

In land of the Monkey God, a primate menaces [monkey-worshippers moving next door to you, White man?]

Published
by
Friedrich Braun
on November 13, 2007
in Kooks, National Bolshevism and Religion
. 0 Comments

But culling monkeys has never been an option as many Hindus worship the monkey god Hanuman, seen as a symbol of strength, perseverance and devotion. And when Delhi tried to shift them out of the city, neighboring states complained.

Strasser and National Bolshevism [2]

Published
by
Friedrich Braun
on August 29, 2007
in Books , Germany, History , National Bolshevism, National Socialism , Political analysis , The Greatest Man in History, The Jewish Question and The Third Reich
. 43 Comments

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The Elections of 1928 and the Electoral Failure of Strasserism

The Strasserite approach was not only a failure in attracting workers to the NSDAP (on average, only 7 percent of the party members were workers by 1928) but unsuccessful as an electoral strategy. In a series of local and provincial elections which the party fought on a “socialist” or Strasserite platform, the result were profoundly disappointing, and by 1928, after three years of electioneering, the NSDAP was independently represented in only four state parliaments: it had one seat in Prussia, six in Bavaria, and two each in Saxony and Thuringia. The same Strasserite strategy was stubbornly persevered, however, and the party looked on the Reichstag election in May 1928 as its first really important test.

The result of the election was a severe disappointment for the NSDAP and a personal blow to Strasser. By capturing only 2.6 percent of the vote (809,771) and twelve seats, the urban, socialist strategy had been dealt a fatal blow. The appeal to industrial workers floundered ignominiously. These results intimated that the way forward for a party of the Right was not among the proletarian masses, but among the unhappiest segment of the electorate, the Protestant Mittelstand. For the NSDAP to become that party a dramatic reorientation would be necessary in its organization, propaganda and ideological emphasis. Otherwise, it faced the prospect of remaining totally insignificant as an electoral force. The lesson was not lost on Adolf Hitler, nor on Gregor Strasser as he viewed the ruins of a strategy which had been initiated and sustained by him. For both the NSDAP and Strasser a profound crisis had emerged which required immediate and drastic resolution.

Reorientiation, 1928-30

Between the summer of 1928 and the beginning of the 1930s the NSDAP was well on the way to becoming a party of the Protestant small-town and rural-based Mittelstand, located for the most part in northern, central, and eastern Germany. The shock and disappointment occasioned by the Reichstag elections resulted in high-level discussions inside the party regarding an ideological realignment or reorientation. Emphasis was put on the NSDAP’s position as the only remaining viable representative of a racist and anti-Marxist political option, and the 300,000 Germans who had voted for the other völkisch parties at the election were identified as a primary future target of the NSDAP. This would mean a conscious swing to the right for the party because these völkisch supporters were drawn overwhelmingly from the middle-classes. Leading party spokesmen like Alfred Rosenberg and Wilhelm Frick called for a new alignment with the conservative Right and its organizations now that Strasser’s industrial-urban strategy failed to attract more than a handful of blue-collar workers.

Strasser came to realize the futility of the basically petty-bourgeois NSDAP trying to develop into a mass movement with the support mainly of the industrial proletariat. This new ideological turning meant identifying the NSDAP with politics, attitudes, priorities that were dear to the hearts and minds of the Mittelstand. The themes that were to receive priority henceforth were nationalism in the broadest sense, anti-Marxism, racism, anti-Semitism, militarism, law and order, and pan-German imperialism with particular stress on the injustice of the Treaty of Versailles and the Dawes Plan in so far as they were deleterious to the national interest.

The Resignation Crisis, 1932-3

During the last months of 1932 the NSDAP was faced by a major dilemma over political tactics: Adolf Hitler was a gambler by nature and took an “all or nothing” attitude, while Gregor Strasser was enthusiastically calling for a broad coalition with other political parties. In particular, Strasser wanted to follow the coalition plans put forth by Kurt von Schleicher and others.

The considerable setback sustained by the NSDAP at the election came as no surprise to Strasser, who had in early October predicted a loss of at least forty seats. Strasser was convinced that the loss was due to Hitler’s inflexibility and unwillingness to enter a coalition government. While Hitler maintained that it was Strasser’s radical socialist views (if never clearly defined) that alienated middle-class voters, the backbone of the party, at the election.

By December 1932, Strasser’s alienation from Hitler had reached a critical juncture, and was accentuated during the first week of that month when Goering replaced him as Hitler’s nominee for the post of Prussian Minister of the Interior. By that time Strasser himself believed the gap between Hitler and him was “unbridgeable.”

Many contemporaries had noted Strasser’s personal ambition in his character. For example, Hans Frank goes on to state that Strasser was ultimately a “victim of his own ambition.” In any case, by December 1932, convinced as he was of NSDAP’s imminent decline, Strasser took seriously Schleicher’s offer of a governmental participation. But first and foremost, the prospect of a cabinet office appealed to his ambition and personal vanity. Indeed, Strasser informed Schleicher of his willingness to act independently of Hitler. At a top-level party meeting in Weimar on 30 November, Hitler did reaffirm his negative attitude to the idea of a Schleicher cabinet.

Despite warnings from Franz von Papen, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht and Otto Braun that his quest to split the NSDAP had no hope of success, Schleicher was undeterred and went ahead with a formal offer to Strasser of the Vice-Chancellorship and the Minister-Presidency of Prussia at a secret meeting in Berlin on 3 December.

At a specially convened meeting of party leaders in Berlin’s Kaiserhof Hotel on 5 December, Hitler forbade Strasser from having any further talks with the old intriguer on behalf of the party. In point of fact, Strasser now had to decide whether he had the necessary support in the movement to lead a successful palace revolution. This raises once again the important debate about whether a Strasserite faction, “Strasser Wing” or “Nazi Left”, under his leadership, actually existed. It has been argued already that there was no such entity in the NSDAP in an organizational, ideological or personal sense. An analysis of the situation in the NSDAP in late 1932 provides final and conclusive evidence in support of this argument. Even in December 1932, he was still widely but unjustifiably regarded as the leader of what was in effect a non-existent entity, a “socialist” wing of the NSDAP. Moreover, the general public and the vast majority of party members could hardly have perceived how fundamentally Strasser’s ideological attitudes had been changing as he became less and less a “socialist” and more of what might be termed a populist social or neo-conservative.

As to the role of the proletarian SA, although it was showing unmistakable signs of deep unrest at the end of 1932, including outright revolt in some areas like Franconia, the main cause was traditional SA – NSDAP antagonism and local personal rivalries. Hence, any serious SA support for Strasser is extremely doubtful, even in industrial areas such as the Ruhr. The SA had always been loath to become involved in intra-party disputes, and, furthermore, there was the long-standing personal and political enmity between Strasser and Roehm. In December 1932, therefore, the SA remained a factor of support for Hitler.

During those days, Strasser’s principal source of support lay inside the NSDAP Reichstag faction where by some estimates as many as one-third of the deputies may have inclined to his positions. Nonetheless, it would be wrong to believe that this source constituted a Strasserite faction within the National Socialist movement. These elements were too varied and diverse, ranging from self-styled, insincere “socialists” to wooly-minded and uninfluential intellectuals and theorists, to be described as anything other than a loose assortment of support. Furthermore, they can in no way be seen as constituting a “Nazi Left”. This term is even more devoid of meaning than it was already in the mid-1920s. There was neither a “Nazi Left” nor a “Strasser Wing” to come to his aid at this time of personal and political crisis because they simply did not exist. Consequently, although the extremely serious and unstable position of the NSDAP in December 1932 is not to be underestimated, the unorganized and incohesive nature of Strasser’s friends and sympathizers removed any real possibility of his being able to split the party had he so desired. On the mundane practical level, the Führer’s control of the party’s press and propaganda network, the SA and SS, and the solid backing of leading and powerful figures such as Goebbels, Goering and Roehm militated decisively against a successful Strasser initiative.

The Führer, who by this time had become fully informed of Strasser’s traitorous double-dealings behind his back with Schleicher, was totally unbroken in his determination to pursue his quest for chancellorship and nothing else. A break of some kind between the tow men became inevitable.

Based on a careful scrutiny of what lay before him, especially his and Hitler’s power situation within the NSDAP, Strasser became disappointed by the failure of his friends in the party to openly give him the support that they had pledged in private. Emphasizing the personal nature of his decision, Strasser withdrew to his room at Hotel Exzelsior in Berlin where he wrote out his letter of resignation that was delivered to Hitler at his hotel at noon on 8 December 1932.

The now famous letter does not refer to Strasser’s extensive dealings with non-NSDAP political groups and personalities during the previous few years which lay at the heart of his conflict with Hitler, nor does he indicate the somewhat different, more moderate, more “socialist” interpretation of National Socialism he had come to accept. Indeed, notably absent from Strasser’s thoughts on the crisis was any emphasis on “socialism” as a motive for his decision. In December 1932 the crisis was not about a last stand by the party’s “socialists” against Hitler’s pro-business and nationalist course, and it is misleading to interpret is as representing the final victory of reactionary, anti-Semitic Munich wing over the “socialist” wing. “ In December 1932 there was no “Nazi Left” or “left wing” for Strasser, or anyone else, to lead. Additionally, the numbers seceding or resigning for the NSDAP in sympathy with Strasser were insignificant.

The Strasser crisis, paradoxically, made an indispensable contribution to solving the NSDAP’s strategic impasse; for, having set out to prevent Hitler from coming to power, Strasser’s actions and involvement with Schleicher merely succeeded in accelerating the chain of events that led to Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor.

Epilogue

The attempt by some elements of the leadership of the SA at a putsch in 1934 resulted in the infamous Night of the Long Knives and the Roehm Purge in June 1934, resulting in the death of a number of SA leaders and other enemies of the NSDAP leadership. Strasser succumbed on 30 June to the machinations of Goering and Himmler, above all, who seized the opportunity to settle scores with their common enemy.

In his address to the Reichstag on 13 July about the Roehm Purge, Hitler’s only reference to Strasser came when he curtly remarked that he had been “pulled into” a conspiracy by others against the state. A week or so previously, Hitler had during a ministerial meeting accused Strasser of having been directly involved in a Streicher-Roehm plot. Whether Hitler directly ordered Strasser’s murder or not is unknown. However, during the war the Führer denounced Strasser as a “great traitor” who “had met his just punishment”.

Strasser and National Bolshevism [1]

Published
by
Friedrich Braun
on August 28, 2007
in History , Jewish Diaspora , National Bolshevism, National Socialism , Political analysis , The Greatest Man in History, The Jewish Question and The Third Reich
. 11 Comments

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The Early Years

I have decided to start my series of essays on National Bolshevism with a discussion of Gregor Strasser, allegedly one of the leading lights of something called National Bolshevism. The following thoughts on Gregor Strasser and National Socialism are in large measure inspired by Peter D. Stachura’s definitive biography: Gregor Strasser and the Rise of Nazism.

Gregor Strasser was born on 31 May 1892 in the small Upper Bavarian town of Geisenfeld near Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm, the eldest of a staunchly Catholic family of four sons and a daughter. The Strassers were of old peasant stock but Gregor’s father broke with the family tradition by entering the civil service of the Bavarian royal house, the Wittelsbach. Gregor’s mother, Pauline (née Strobel), originated from a middle-class civil service family in Dinkelsbühl (Franconia). In sum, Strasser, like Adolf Hitler, had a solid lower-middle class/middle class background.

Gregor Strasser grew up wanting to be a doctor, but his family’s modest financial circumstances didn’t allow him to pursue such lengthy studies; hence, Strasser chose instead to become a chemist. He started his apprenticeship in the small town of Frontenhausen in 1910 at the age of 18. In 1914 the outbreak of war disrupted his studies, for he volunteered for army service along with his two brothers, Paul and Otto.

Strasser joined the First Bavarian Foot Artillery Regiment on August 18, 1914 and during the next four years his saw substantial service at the front. By all accounts he was a brave and popular soldier, who was awarded several high decorations. Rising from the rank of corporal in May 1915 to junior officer four months later, and then lieutenant of the Reserve in January 1916, Strasser suffered fairly serious wounds which continued to trouble him right into his political career.

In later political life Strasser repeatedly looked back to his “Fronterlebnis” years as the best of his life, emphasizing their importance in shaping his political beliefs. They reinforced his already present nationalism and social awareness. He felt the comradeship of the trenches could be translated into a true socialist community in civilian life, in which class differences and privilege no longer mattered and in which the principle of achievement (“Leistungsprinzip”) determined an individual’s status.

The war convinced him of the rottenness of the Wilhelmine Reich. He criticized its failure to evolve “a united concept of the state”, its perpetuation of social and class tensions, and its inability to integrate the workers into society. However, the November Revolution and its aftermath disgusted him to an even greater extent. Strasser was one of the many ex-servicemen who felt acutely alienated from the new, post-W.W. I Germany.

Following the completion of his studies, Gregor Strasser became politically active in Bavaria. By mid-1920 he was leader of the Landshut branch of the völkisch Verband nationgesinnter Soldaten (VnS), an ex-servicemen’s group that had been set up immediately after the Kapp Putsch in early spring 1920. However, by the autumn of the same year the VnS was disappointing Strasser’s hopes and he joined the Einwohnerwehr (EW), or civil militia, which had as its purpose the maintaining of law and order. Ostensibly apolitical, the EW soon became a conservative-nationalist and anti-socialist counter-revolutionary movement. During that same year another momentous event in Strasser’s life occurred, at the age of 28, Strasser married on 15 April 1920 his girlfriend of some years’ standing, Else Vollmuth, in the Catholic church in Traumstein.

The post-war period in Germany saw the birth of a plethora of extremist political movements, one of them was the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP). The NSDAP played an inconspicuous part in German life during its very early years. Membership, which stood at a mere 1,100 in June 1920, slowly increased, but it was not until Hitler took over as leader in July 1921 and began to display his impressive organizational and propagandistic skills that the NSDAP was really put on the map as a political force of considerable magnitude. Additionally, the chaos and decline of the NSDAP following Hitler’s incarceration for his role in the unsuccessful Putsch highlighted his indispensability for the movement’s coherence.

It remains a mystery to this day when Gregor Strasser joined the NSDAP or the Sturmabteilung (SA). Various dates have been given but lack supporting evidence. Strasser himself was surprising evasive on occasion about the subject. The most reliable information points towards autumn 1922, which is much later than previous accounts of his career have suggested.

The “Socialist” Years, 1925-8

The period stretching from the refoundation of the NSDAP in early 1925 to the Reichstag elections of May 1928, when crucially important changes took place in the party’s character, organization, propaganda and social bases of support, constitutes a distinctive phase in the history of National Socialism and in development of Strasser’s personal Weltanschauung. Hitler’s dilemma at that point in time was exacerbated by a certain dichotomy between the party’s northern section that was committed to a nebulous form of “socialism” and to attracting blue-collar industrial workers, and the southern end of the party, based in Munich, which pursued an essentially Hitlerian national-racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Marxist course. Hitler’s problem in 1925-6 was to reach an accommodation between these two viewpoints, but this necessitated facing up to his northern supporters, whose leading spokesman was Strasser.

Although at pains to emphasize that for “National Socialists…the struggle against Marxism in its every form is a sacred task” and that there had to be no suspicion that “we sympathize with the Marxist Soviet Republic and its Jewish leadership”, Strasser believed at this time that Russia and Germany, as oppressed nations, had broadly similar interests and should unite in a common struggle against the capitalist West in the grip of Jewish finance. However, Hitler’s strongly anti-Bolshevik animus and his concept of eastward expansion (Lebensraum), which was clearly expressed in Mein Kampf, put a dampener on Strasser’s seemingly pro-Russian ideas. Following the Bamberg Conference of February 1926 and the publication later that year of the second volume of Mein Kampf, Strasser changed his views on foreign policy and accepted Hitler’s argument for a German alliance with England and Italy.

In the realm of economic theory, Strasser’s concept of “German socialism” was laden with emotion rather than reason, and appeared to mean little more than a utopian desire for a return to the Middle Ages with their corporative crafts and guilds. He tried to explain the difference between his socialism and Marxist socialism in this way:

What distinguishes us from…Jewish-led Marxism is not only a fervent national outlook, but something deeper: the rejection of the materialistic world view…We hate from the bottom of our souls the levelling, comprehensively idiotic Marxist ideology! Socialism does not mean the domination of the masses, the levelling of achievement and reward, but rather socialism is the deeply felt Prussian German idea of ‘service to all’.

Another occurrence worth mentioning concerns the birth in the northern section of what appeared to some as a mechanism to counterbalance the ideological influence of the South, i.e. the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Nord und West Deutschen Gauleiter der NSDAP (AG) under Strasser’s leadership. The AG was not a fronde directed at Hitler as party leader; his position was never questioned. From Strasser’s perspective, on the other hand, the AG may have represented something more: he may have seen it as potential weapon against Hitler’s position in the party. If these were Strasser’s thoughts at the inauguration of the AG, they were soon dispelled once he saw that as an ideological or organizational unit it had little coherence and, therefore, offered no likelihood of serving as his power-base for a challenge to Hitler.

The Draft, which was drawn up under Strasser’s supervision, reflected the essence of his ideas as he had been expounding them during the early 1920s. As Peter D. Stachura notes:

The Draft did not differ fundamentally from the original party programme: it amounted to a relatively more precise and emphatic reaffirmation of the ‘socialist’ or, more accurately, the anti-capitalist parts of the 1920 statement. Prominent sections of the Draft upheld a brand of extreme racist-nationalism and pan-German imperialism to which no one in conservative Munich, let alone Hitler, could reasonably object….the Draft included a demand for the return of colonies – a peculiar aim of so-called ‘socialists’ – while the only new proposal in foreign affairs was for a United States of Europe and a custom union. Furthermore, the Draft’s anti-semitism, though not attaining the high standards set in Mein Kampf, was, by demanding the deportation of all Jews who had entered Germany since the beginning of the First World War, and the withdrawal of German citizenship from all Jews who remained, consistent with the NSDAP’s and völkisch movement’s general attitude towards the ‘Jewish problem’.

The Draft failed lamentably as a ‘socialist’ document. Its proposal on nationalization worker participation in industry, profit-sharing and co-ownership, and its agrarian reform ideas, involving the break-up of the largest estates into small peasant holdings, were tentative, woolly, and characteristic merely of the AG members’ roots in a utopian-romantic version of lower-middle-class anti-capitalism.

From an ideological viewpoint, the Draft cannot be taken seriously as indicative of the existence of a “socialist” or “left wing” current in the NSDAP during 1925-6. Additionally, the AG had no meaningful organizational or personal integrity: it was a shakily constructed body of various northern leaders who, as it transpired, had differing views on the theme that supposedly united them, ‘socialism’. In other words, the whole idea of a ‘Nazi Left’ in the NSDAP at this time has little meaning. There was never such an animal. The degree of unification in these respects that would justify the use of the term ‘Nazi Left’ as an identifiable entity within the party did not exist. The objective political role in the NSDAP of these ‘socialist’ was demagogic, tactical and propagandistic. The erroneously labeled “Nazi Left” and “Strasser wing” did not exist in concrete terms.

Strasserism

Strasser never expanded upon his “socialism” in a way that would make it in some way intelligible. As always, his “socialist” ideas remained extremely vague and eclectic. He frequently invoked the concept of a “national Socialism” yet did little to explain systematically what he meant by this term. Strasser’s forte was not theorizing, and so his vehement anti-capitalist and anti-bourgeois rhetoric was about the extent of his “socialism” during the 1920s. For him National Socialism offered a unique, idealistic kind of socialism designed to return to the working class dignity of labour and a place in the national community. However, based on his “Gedanken über Aufgaben der Zunkunft” (“Thoughts about the Tasks of the Future”), we can emphatically say that he dismissed as liberal-Marxist nonsense the concept of equality:

…we have realized that the idiotic belief in the equality of man is the deadly threat with which liberalism destroys people and nation, culture and morals, violating the primordial sources of our existence. [And further] we have to reject with fanatical zeal the frequent lie that people are ‘basically equal’…People are unequal, they are unequal from birth, become more unequal in life and are therefore to be valued unequally in life and…in their positions in society and in the state! But this inequality in turn has only one standard, can and must have only this one standard: the achievement of the individual for society, for the nation, for the state!!

When in 1927 Strasser became involved in a debate with Alfred Rosenberg whether the NSDAP should put more emphasis on nationalism or socialism, Strasser’s arguments in favour of socialism followed the familiar pattern of vacuous slogans and catch-phrases. In the end Rosenberg remained unconvinced and expressed his regret at both the superficial content and polemical style of Strasser’s response.

To be continued.