The Vengeance of Rome

While rejecting the Russian model, Doctor Strasser was a convinced and serious socialist, a German nationalist to the marrow. He was horrified by Hitler’s willingness to seek the financiers’ aid rather than seize power through revolution. Matters came to a head in 1930, and Strasser left to form the Black Front. The party was relatively small, its leader scarcely a threat to anyone, but Göring, Goebbels, Heydrich and Himmler still pursued Strasser relentlessly, attempting to ruin and intimidate him. Regretfully, Gregor Strasser had failed to help in any serious way.

‘I know I should give it all up. Write some popular books about pygmies and peasant attitudes, but I can’t. I’m an embarrassment. While I allowed myself to be guided by Hitler, I was a hero, he said. Then I began to see flaws in his arguments. I am regarded as an enemy by Big Business as well as by Bolshevik Jewry. Gregor’s instincts are to build bridges between all factions. He’s an optimist! He’s a more typical, good-natured, easygoing Bavarian than I am. He believes everyone unconsciously wants to get along together. I have warned him not to trust Hitler. Hitler uses people and then discards them. Hitler will ruin him. What else can I say or do?’

I had every respect for Otto Strasser even if I did not share his left-wing views. He knew I believed socialism to be a disease which attacks the soul, an infection carried on the air by word of mouth. He eventually came to accept that when he returned to Germany after the Second War. Finding shelter with the Canadians, Doctor Strasser was one of the few true National Socialists to survive the Second World War.

He wrote me a letter a few years ago. Posted from Munich. ‘They have restored my citizenship,’ he told me. Hitler knew the meaning of denying German citizenship to a nationalist like Otto Strasser. But this still did not make me comfortable with his socialism, though we were certainly in complete agreement on the Jewish Question.

He demonstrated the difference between us, say, and Hitler. What so few people now understand. There is a considerable difference between a rational interpretation of a problem and a visceral reaction against an entire people. Both Doctor Strasser and myself agreed on the rational approach. The easiest way to rid oneself of Jewish influence was to make it difficult for Jews to disguise themselves.

By this, of course, we did not mean a return to the ludicrous medieval approach of making Jews wear some kind of yellow badge. We saw no reason to permit Jews or Catholics full nationality while both paid homage to foreign leadership. Attacking their dignity and self-respect was cruel. We simply wanted to change their political status, requiring an oath that they were loyal to Germany first and that their interests were German interests. A tax structure could be introduced which made it more attractive to be a true German and accept the responsibilities as well as the benefits of full citizenship, which should not be denied to any decently qualified person, no matter what their racial origin. Until then you would be treated as a respected guest worker in the country, always welcome while you pulled your weight. After a period of qualification, you would swear loyalty to Germany as new immigrants in America must swear loyalty to the United States, forsaking all others. Indeed, all schoolchildren in America are required to take the oath of loyalty every morning. He suspected other countries would soon see the sense of it.

Doctor Strasser did not, like me, feel a strong call of blood. I had no animosity towards Jews. I simply knew Jews would be happier in a homeland better suited to their natures. Their vibrant, volatile blood yearned for a Mediterranean climate. Those exotic hearts came to full flower in the bazaar and the oasis, where gold has an almost supernatural value. Those abstract, intellectual minds could sit and argue to their hearts’ content. Artists could plan their canvases and plays. No action would ever be required of them. They would be home. They would be happy. They could study and talk as all Jews would rather do while the waters of Palestine were theirs to drink and the fruits of Israel theirs to eat. They deserved a homeland.

Isn’t it what we all desire most? In the thirties I became a convinced Zionist and remain one to this day. I am deeply philo-Semitic. I do share with many Jews, however, the conviction that intermarriage is a mistake.

Otto Strasser believed Hitler’s approach to the problem was psychological rather than political, which Strasser thought made Hitler unfit to lead. Germany had almost been destroyed by its sentimental liberalism, attempting to eat its cream cake and share it. The opposite side of that coin was conservative bigotry and blustering militarism. We had to look at realities and offer the people a genuine alternative to Soviet tyranny and Big Business manipulation. Strasser’s Third Way would steer a prudent course between the two, taking the best from both systems. He spoke bitterly of his Kampfverlag, which once dominated Nazi publishing in Prussia. First Gregor had sold his third to Hitler, for some mysterious favour, then Hinkel, the other partner, had sold his third share to Hitler, lured by the offer of a Reichstag seat. The other third, Otto’s, was of course valueless. He was a revolutionary. He had no desire to be elected. He knew the compromises one had to make. As a result Hitler had begun a smear campaign against him, calling him a ‘parlour-Bolshevik’ and worse.