Germany_Tomorrow

by Otto Strasser

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Genres: Politics

240 pages, Paperback

First published August 8, 2015

About the author

German nationalist and socialist, active in Germany before the national-socialist seizing of power.

Strasser was involved in the NSDAP until the radical socialist elements were purged. After that he founded the black front.

During the night of the long knives, Otto's brother was murdered and he himself was forced intro exile.

After living in Switzerland, Canada and the Bermuda islands. Otto returned to Germany in the fifties and founde the German Social Party, but it wasn't very succesful.

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Electoral monarchy and guild socialism.
Strasser goes into great detail sketching this system where ownership is divided between management, workers, and the public in great enterprises or otherwise trade guilds and each class respectively elects vocational chambers which in turn proportionally elect chambers of estates as legislative bodies up to the national level. The president is elected for life by a great council consisting of state ministers, presidents of the provinces, and the presidium of the national chamber of estates. Presidents of provinces are appointed by the Reich president subject to approval of the provincial chamber so the Reich president always has a majority in the great council. This federal electoral monarchy reminds me in some ways of Germany’s predecessor the Holy Roman Empire albeit with republican syndicalist elements as opposed to the Prussian model. Today the People’s Republic of China is probably the most similar at a large scale. This kind of system is what in theory the various socialist/people’s republics could have developed into.

Strasser’s philosophy is of the organic view of society unlike fascism in which the state creates the nation or Nazism where race determines the nation. This is a more horizontal view of state authority than a civic one but more parochial. Philosophically this may bring to mind Hegel although Hegel intended his ideal state to be a sort of end of history rather than one for the German people. Strasser advocates a system of autarky, economic self-sufficiency, over imperialism. This “Germanic” system more like a common law is intended to replace Roman and Christian inspired law which were intended to be universal law codes of one empire or one church. Racialism is a colonial and scientific improvisation.

One wonders if the Strasser brothers had been able to seize power from Hitler, maybe work with the socialist and center parties and not invade the USSR how different history would have been. Otto’s brother Gregor was purged in the night of the long knives after retiring from politics and Otto went into exile. Otto was actually offered to live in East Germany but chose to return to West Germany where his ideas didn’t get much traction.

“as early as 1928 in a party periodical, I protested editorially against antisemitism of the Streicher brand, voicing the war-cry, 'Antisemitism is dead. Long live the idea of the People!

“This advocacy of the idea of the People logically implied the disavowal of any valuation of peoples or nations as good or bad, as better or worse, since they all have equal rights, equal needs, and equal duties, in accordance with the will of the Creator, who gave each of them its own kind, its own nature, and its own tasks. This profound respect for organic life, and the fact that it is necessary for us and incumbent on us to recognize and maintain human dignity, imply that it will be an unconditional part of the social and political organization of New Germany to maintain the equal rights of all human beings.

“Yet this fundamental principle of equality must not be considered to invalidate the organic law that the peoples and nations are fundamentally different, with the result that they urgently need differences in their social and political institutions — a fact which every government is bound to take into account.

“IN accordance with the organic conception that all institutions must be judged by the extent to which they favour organic life, we regard the State, not as something that stands above the community at large, but as nothing else than the organizational form of the people the form that will ensure the fullest possible development of the organism known as the 'German people. The State is not an end in itself, but something whose aim is (or should be) so to deal with the organism of the 'people (or 'nation') that it may most effectively utilize all the energies that will enable the community to maintain itself as against other communities In the world.

“It follows from this that the State is always determined by the peculiarities of the people. No people can take over intact the State-forms of another. When the form of the State is adapted to the peculiarities of the people of one country, our organic outlook makes it plain that this form of State cannot be perfectly adapted to the peculiarities of any other people.”

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Germany Tomorrow is a book written by Otto Strasser, a German political activist and writer. The book was published in 1930 and reflects Strasser's vision for a new, more progressive and democratic Germany. In Germany Tomorrow, Strasser discusses the challenges facing Germany in the aftermath of World War I and the economic crisis of the late 1920s, and proposes a number of reforms to address these challenges. These reforms included the establishment of a planned economy, the expansion of social welfare programs, and the promotion of democratic values and civil liberties. Strasser also argued for the need to build a new, more united and peaceful Europe, and called for the establishment of a federation of European states. Germany Tomorrow was widely read and had a significant influence on political thought in Germany and beyond.

GPT

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

The political manifesto of Otto Strasser