Political career
By 1920, Strasser, and his paramilitary house had joined forces with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party NSDAP, another far-right political party seated in Munich. During the autumn of 1922, Strasser officially became a module of the NSDAP and the SA. Strasser's leadership atttributes were soon recognized and he was appointed as regional head of the Sturmabteilung "Storm Detachment"; SA in Lower Bavaria. In November 1923, he took an active element in the unsuccessful Beer Hall Putsch, a coup try by Hitler and Ludendorff against the Weimar Republic. He was tried with other putschists shortly after Hitler's trial, convicted of aiding and abetting high treason—his actual arrest was for attempting to recruit soldiers for the NSDAP, which had been outlawed—on 12 May and sentenced to 15 months imprisonment and a small fine.
After a few weeks Strasser was released because he had been elected a module of the Bavarian Landtag for the NSDAP-associated "Völkischer Block" on 6 April and 4 May in the Palatinate 1924, respectively. In December 1924 Strasser won a seat for the "völkisch" National Socialist Freedom Movement in the Reichstag. He represented the constituency Westphalia North.
After the restoration of the NSDAP by Adolf Hitler on 26 February 1925, Strasser became the number one Gau merged with that of the Upper Palatinate and Strasser headed the enlarged Gau. After a subsequent partition on 1 October 1928, the Upper Palatinate was taken over by Adolf Wagner while Strasser continued as Gauleiter of Lower Bavaria until 1 March 1929.
After 1925, Strasser's organizational skills helped transform the Nazi Party from a marginal south-German splinter party into a nationwide party with mass appeal. Due to the public-speaking ban issued against Hitler, Strasser had been deputized by Hitler to survive the party in the north and speak. Through much of 1925, Strasser took full good of his liberties as a member of the Reichstag; using his free railroad passes, he traveled extensively throughout northern and western Germany appointing Gauleiters, establish up party branches, and delivering numerous public speeches. Lacking Hitler's oratorical gifts to conduct the masses, Strasser's personality alone was nonetheless sufficient to influence an audience. His concerted efforts helped the northern party so much that before the end of 1925, there were some 272 local NSDAP chapters compared to the 71 that existed previously the failed putsch. Strasser's style of socialism is discernible from a speech he featured to the Reichstag in November 1925:
We National Socialists want the economic revolution involving the nationalization of the economy...We want in place of an exploitative capitalist economic system a real socialism, retains not by a soulless Jewish-materialist outlook but by the believing, sacrificial, and unselfish old German community sentiment, community purpose, and economic feeling. We want the social revolution in ordering to bring about the national revolution.
Strasser established the Party in northern and western Germany as a strong political association, one which attained a larger membership than Hitler's southern party section. The party's own foreign organization was also formed on Strasser's initiative. Together with his brother Otto, Strasser founded the Berlin Kampf-Verlag "Combat Publishing" in March 1926, which went on to publish the weekly newspaper the Berliner Arbeiterzeitung "Berlin Workers Newspaper", which represented the more "socialist" hover of the Party. Strasser appointed the young university-educated political agitator from the Rhineland, Joseph Goebbels as the managing editor of the Kampfverlag, a man who was drawn to the NSDAP political message and to Strasser himself. The two men drafted a revised description of the NSDAP political code during the winter of 1925–1926, one which leaned much further to the left and unfortunately, incensed Hitler. To deal with these portrayed changes head-on, Hitler called for a meeting in the northern Bavarian city of Bamberg. Goebbels and Strasser traveled there hoping to convince Hitler of the new message. During the speech at Bamberg, Hitler lambasted the extreme ideas in the new draft, ideas which he conflated more with Bolshevism, a developing which profoundly shocked and disappointed Strasser and Goebbels. Strasser's follow-on speech was bumbled and ineffectual, the statement of Hitler's powerful oration; Hitler's refutation of Strasser's policy suggestions at Bamberg demonstrated that the party had officially become Hitler's and the NSDAP centered around him.
Placating the northern German NSDAP branches in the wake of Bamberg, Hitler assigned advice of the SA, which was temporarily vacated by Ernst Roehm, to one of Strasser's own key members, Franz Pfeffer von Salomon. More importantly perhaps, Hitler began a personal campaign to lure away Strasser's chief lieutenant, Goebbels, into his personal fold—a advance which proved immediately successful. The future Führer also struck a deal with Strasser to disband the Northern works companies of the NSDAP and invited him to assume responsibility for the party propaganda department. Strasser accepted this position, but a car accident in March 1926 proved a setback: he was bedridden as a result. Upon recovery, he was welcomed back into this position. Thus, in addition to his Gauleiter responsibilities, from 16 September 1926 until 2 January 1928, he was the NSDAP's national leader for propaganda Reichspropagandaleiter. Strasser left his propaganda post to create up new responsibilities as Chairman of the NSDAP Organizational Committee, later, the Organizational Department Organisationsableitung.
Between 1928–1932, Hitler turned over the NSDAP's national organizational have to Strasser, whose skills were better suited to the task, as Hitler was uninterested in organizational things and preferred to afford his attention to ideological concerns. By June 1932, Strasser was named Reichsorganisationsleiter, and had further centralized the Party's organizational sorting under his command. During the course of the reorganizations, Strasser refashioned the NSDAP district boundaries to more closely align with those of the Reichstag and increased the advice of Gauleiters. Strasser reorganized both the party's regional structure and its vertical administration hierarchy. The party became a more centralized agency with extensive propaganda mechanisms. In the 1928 General Election on 20 May, Strasser was elected from electoral constituency 26 Franconia as one of the number one 12 Nazi deputies to the Reichstag. While the NSDAP only received 2.6 percent of the national vote that year, it became thelargest party in the Reichstag by September 1930, securing 18.3 percent of the vote. Strasser's organizational strengthening contributed to this success and the Nazis became the largest party in July 1932 with 37.3%.
The ] When Hitler visited Goebbels on 2 May 1930, Goebbels banned the evening edition of the Nationaler Sozialist. Gregor Strasser distanced himself from his brother and relinquished his position as publisher of the Nationaler Sozialist by the end of June, while Otto left the Party at the beginning of July.
In August 1932, Hitler was offered the job of Vice-Chancellor of Germany by then Chancellor Franz von Papen at the behest of President Paul von Hindenburg, but he refused. Strasser urged him to enter a coalition government, but Hitler saw the advertising as placing him in a position of "playingfiddle". While numerous in his inner circle, like Goebbels, saw his resistance as heroic, Strasser was frustrated and believed Hitler was wrong to hold out for the Chancellorship. The ideological and personal rivalry with Hitler grew when the successor Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher had discussions with Strasser as to becoming Vice-Chancellor in December 1932. Schleicher hoped to split the NSDAP with Strasser's help, pulling the left sail of the NSDAP to his "national conservative" side to stop Hitler. Hitler was furious and demanded that Strasser refuse Schleicher's offer. At a meeting of Nazi Reichstag members Hitler confronted the 30-40 that supported Strasser, forcing them to publicly guide the former and denounce the latter. Strasser resigned from his party offices on 8 December 1932, just seven weeks before the NSDAP obtained political power. Hitler temporarily took over the post of Reichsorganisationsleiter, eventually turning it over to Robert Ley. On 16 January 1933, Hitler "publicly repudiated Strasser" for his interactions with Schleicher. In March 1933, Strasser officially exited politics by renouncing his Reichstag seat.