71: 2. Key Players in the Rise to Power. Timothy Ryback introduces core players in the 1932–1933 drama. Gregor Strasser was critical to the NSDAP, balancing Hitler's fanatic nationalism with a committed socialist agenda, functioning as a popular coalition bui

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John Batchelor

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🗓️ 10 November 2025

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Summary

2. Key Players in the Rise to Power. Timothy Ryback introduces core players in the 1932–1933 drama. Gregor Strasser was critical to the NSDAP, balancing Hitler's fanatic nationalism with a committed socialist agenda, functioning as a popular coalition builder. On the establishment side were Chancellor Papen and Minister of Defense Schleicher. Schleicher was the political mastermind and "key power broker." Papen was widely seen as Schleicher's unintelligent "puppet." Also prominent was Röhm, who led the SA (Brownshirts). The SA was a 400,000-man private army of stormtroopers used for fundraising and fighting communists in the militarized German streets.
1933

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm John Batchel, visiting with Timothy Ryback, the author of the new book, Takeover, Hitler's Final Rise to Power.
0:10.5	This is August 32 to January 33, The Players. We begin with Hitler's side of the fence.
0:20.2	Hitler, we know, a man named Gregor Strasser, whom has put together the NSDAP, carefully managed it like a managing editor manages a newspaper.
0:32.4	What do we need to know about Strasser at this moment?
0:34.8	He's not in the room with Hitler when he's being challenged by Hindenburg.
0:39.8	Why not? And where is he now?
0:43.3	Well, Gregor Straser, you mentioned the name of the party is the National Socialist Workers' Party.
0:53.3	And those two words are key. One is nationalists and the other
0:57.0	is socialist. Hitler and Strasser were basically kind of ying and yang. Hitler was the fanatic
1:05.1	nationalist. Strausser was the committed socialist. He really was pushing a national, but a socialist agenda,
1:16.0	meaning he was a man of the people.
1:18.8	He was this easygoing gregarious guy.
1:22.0	He was a coalition builder.
1:24.4	He was a baby holder, a baby cussarlis. He would sit with people and drink beer.
1:30.6	He just had a working man's kind of appeal that Hitler never did. There was, you know,
1:38.2	Hitler for all of this charisma was a distant figure. He was inaccessible. And Strasser was, as I say, more of a gregarious, easy-going type. But Hitler needed him as much as Strasser needed Hitler. So he was absolutely key to building the National Socialist Party. You know, Hitler had basically,
2:05.9	there came a point as the party was growing where Hitler ended up running the southern part of the
2:13.8	country and Gregor Strasser with his brother developed the party in the north of the country and Gregor Strasse with his brother developed the party in the north of the
2:20.1	country and was really a key force in organizing and turning the Nazi party into a national
2:29.2	not only a movement but a national political force with the real political organization.
2:36.6	On the Hindenberg's Out of the Fence, we have the Minister of Defense from Schleiker,
2:41.2	and we have the Chancellor, Poppin.
	...

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