Josef Strauss

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(b. Munich, 6 Sept. 1915; d. 3 Oct. 1988) German; Minister-President of Bavaria 1978 – 88, leader of the CSU 1961 – 88 Strauss was one of the most colourful, respected, and feared of the post-war generation of German politicians. In the 1980 election he was the CDU/CSU candidate for German Chancellor. The party's vote fell from 48.6 per cent in 1976 to 44.5 per cent. Only in his native Bavaria did he improve their vote. His campaign was marked with violent and abusive rhetoric by him and against him.

The son of a Catholic butcher, Strauss achieved the best grammar school matriculation exam (Abitur) in the whole of Bavaria in 1935. He studied the classics as well as economics and qualified as a grammar schoolteacher. However, the war intervened and, like Schmidt, he served as a lieutenant of anti-aircraft artillery. In 1945 he was a founder member of the (Bavarian) Christian Social Union (CSU). He rose rapidly and by 1948 was in charge of the party machine. In 1961 he was elected chairman of the CSU and retained this position until his death.

Strauss was elected to the Bundestag in 1949, and Adenauer appointed him Minister for Special Tasks in 1953. His title changed in 1955 to Minister for Atomic Policy, in which capacity he achieved agreement that West Germany could build nuclear reactors for peaceful purposes. In 1956 he took over the (virtually new) Defence Ministry, playing an important role in building up the not very popular Bundeswehr. He had long been on bad terms with the influential weekly Der Spiegel and he initiated a police raid on the paper on alleged security grounds. This greatly shocked public opinion and he was dismissed in 1962. He bounced back in 1966 as Finance Minister in the Kiesinger — Brandt grand coalition. He clashed with Professor (of economics) Karl Schiller (SPD), Minister for Economic Affairs, but the two left the economy better than they found it in 1969.

In opposition, Strauss accused the leaders of the sister CDU of being too soft on the government. He threatened to set up the CSU throughout the Federal Republic, bullying his colleagues to propose him as their Chancellor candidate. After that failure Strauss fought on from Munich. He had been elected Minister-President of Bavaria in 1978 and he attempted to pursue an independent foreign policy, visiting Chile, South Africa, East Berlin, and Moscow. He had a personal relationship with the East German leader Honecker, securing a massive loan for East Germany. He also attempted to influence the Bonn government through the Bundesrat, the upper chamber of the German parliament. Since 1989 rumours have circulated that he co-operated with the East German secret police, the Stasi. As yet no conclusive evidence has been made public to confirm them.

The West German politician Franz Josef Strauss (1915-1988) was a founder of the Christian Social Union and its standard bearer for four decades. He was minister president of Bavaria beginning in 1978.

Franz Josef Strauss was born on September 6, 1915, in the Bavarian capital of Munich. A butcher's son, raised a strict Catholic, he proved to be a brilliant student until he was drafted September 1, 1939. He served two years on the eastern front, became an artillery officer, and ended World War II in American captivity.

In 1945 Strauss was active in founding the Christian Social Union (CSU), the quasi-independent Bavarian sister party to the larger Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by Konrad Adenauer, West German chancellor from 1949 to 1963. Strauss quickly gained attention for his slashing speeches as a CSU parliamentary deputy. Short, stout, and earthy, the energetic Strauss seemingly personified the conservative majority of Bavaria. He was chairman and undisputed leader of the CSU beginning in 1961 and served as minister president of Bavaria beginning in 1978. This controversial and colorful right-wing politician's great frustration, however, was his inability to duplicate on the national level the power and authority he achieved in his regional base of Bavaria.

In 1953 Strauss entered the Adenauer cabinet and was soon dubbed "the elbow minister" for his ability to push himself to the top. After a brief stint as minister of nuclear power he became minister of defense in 1956. The Federal Republic had just instituted conscription, and when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) decided in 1957 to authorize the use of tactical nuclear arms, Strauss squashed the call for a "nuclear free" Central Europe. He forced parliament to vote in favor of nuclear arms. He also argued that West Germany must obtain nuclear weapons to remain on equal footing with her NATO allies. When the Kennedy administration resisted this goal, insisting on U.S. control, Strauss sought cooperation with General de Gaulle's France to build a Europe of states willing to share nuclear weapons. As a "German Gaullist," Strauss was viewed with suspicion by the supporters of Adenauer's heir apparent, Ludwig Erhard, who favored a pro-American, "Atlantic" posture. The liberal press also started writing in ominous tones that Strauss might become a hawkish foreign minister, or even Adenauer's ultimate successor.

Strauss helped bring upon himself the great crisis of his career in the "Spiegel Affair" of 1962. Der Spiegel, a weekly news magazine, published an article criticizing the West German army's lack of preparedness and Strauss' steward-ship of it. Two weeks later, police seized the magazine's office and arrested the publisher and other journalists, claiming they had leaked defense secrets. Strauss tried to minimize his own role before parliament, only to have it become known that he had personally authorized the arrest of the article's author, an arrest which was legally questionable since it took place outside the country. Demonstrations against the defense minister rocked a hitherto docile public, and Adenauer's small coalition partner, the Free Democratic party, forced Strauss' resignation from the cabinet. Bavarians stood by their beleaguered leader, however, and voted an increased mandate to the CSU.

Driven from national office and hounded by an often vindictive press, Strauss studied economics at the University of Innsbruck. He then staged an impressive political comeback. He was instrumental in toppling the Erhard government of 1963-1966 and helped fashion the "Great Coalition" of 1966-1969. The coalition was headed by a new CDU chancellor, Kurt Georg Kiesinger, and the Social Democratic vice-chancellor and foreign minister, Willy Brandt. Strauss became minister of finance and surprised his critics by working harmoniously with the Social Democratic minister of economics to tackle the economic recession.

When the coalition broke apart and the CDU/CSU was forced into opposition for the first time after the Social Democrat (SPD) victory in the election of 1969, Strauss became the leading critic of Willy Brandt's conciliatory foreign policy towards Eastern Europe. Strauss maintained the traditional West German rejection of the 1945 settlement, arguing that Brandt was bargaining claims away for uncertain promises. But public opinion was tiring of Cold War intransigence, with even Strauss' CDU ally moving towards acceptance of the treaties with the East. Although Strauss was able to keep the CDU from accepting the treaties, he could prevent neither their passage nor the reelection of the Brandt government in 1972.

The tensions within the CDU/CSU opposition became ever more strained in the 1970s. The maverick Strauss tried to become a dominating voice, but also threatened to make the CSU a national splinter party of the right. Divided, the CDU/CSU opposition was defeated in the 1976 national election by a Social Democratic/Free Democratic alliance led by Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Strauss finally became the CDU/CSU chancellor candidate in 1980. This electoral confrontation between Strauss and Schmidt was billed as the "clash of giants," but no clear issues emerged. The campaign turned out to be a national referendum on Strauss. The liberal-social democratic coalition united against him with the emotional slogan "Stop Strauss!" In victory, however, the Social Democratic/Free Democratic alliance would quickly disintegrate, and Schmidt was out of office by 1983.

Although the 1980 election was supposed to be Strauss' "last hurrah," he remained a formidable figure in West German politics for several years thereafter.

In 1983-84, Strauss served in the largely honorary post of president of the Bundesrat, in the upper house of the federal parliament. He lost his wife in a fatal car accident shortly thereafter. He died in Regensburg, Bavaria on October 3, 1988.

Further Reading

There is no biography in English of Strauss. Michael Balfour's West Germany (2nd ed., 1982) provides an informative sketch. See also Ronald F. Blum, German Politics and the Spiegel Affair (1968). In 1985, a commemorative Festschrift honoring Strauss's 70th birthday was published, with a preface by Ronald Reagan and contributions by Margaret Thatcher and Helmut Schmidt, among others.

• Period: Modern (1910-1949)
• Born: August 20, 1827 in Vienna, Austria
• Died: July 22, 1870 in Vienna, Austria
• Genres: Orchestral Music

Biography

Josef Strauss was born into one of the most famous of Viennese musical families. His father, Johann Strauss (1804-1849), was a violinist in the popular Josef Lanner dance orchestra when he married Maria Anna Streim, and then formed his own orchestra and overtook Lanner in popularity. Johann Sr. was opposed to his children going into music professionally, but he saw to it that the boys became proficient pianists. Although Johann Sr. intended him for the army, Josef studied poetry, art, and engineering. He enrolled in the Vienna Polytechnic for civil engineering and architecture degrees.

Maria Anna suggested that Josef take a position in Johann Jr.'s orchestra, but he turned down the idea, joking that he was too ugly for a career on stage. Furthermore, he was subject to fainting spells and intense headaches. Instead, he made his living as an engineer and designer. Among other things he invented a type of mechanical street-sweeper (which the city of Vienna adopted) and published two mathematical books.

In 1853, Josef conducted the orchestra for a while after Johann Jr. collapsed from overwork. He had an unexpected success and even composed a waltz set, which he hopefully called First and Last Waltzes. After this, too, surprised everyone by becoming highly popular, he wrote another, which he called First Waltz after the Last. When Johann was able to return to work in September, he found that Josef was willing to step in as an assistant at a moment's notice. The brothers were able to do this easily, since they contracted for and advertised that the orchestra would be conducted by "J. Strauss."

By 1856 was Josef ready to join the Strauss organization full-time. He took violin lessons from Franz Amon, Johann Sr.'s old teacher. Josef and Johann pretty much shared the leadership of the orchestra and its business from then until 1862, when they were joined by younger brother Eduard. In 1857 Josef married his childhood sweetheart, Karoline Pruckmayr. He spent all his spare time writing poetry, painting, and composing music, getting little sleep and continually smoking cigars. His waltzes are particularly intriguing. It is obvious that he had a poetic outlook not shared by his more down-to-earth brother. The Viennese loved his chronically pale, romantic appearance. Many of his waltzes have the greatest musical value of any the Strauss family output. He showed the influence of composers from Schubert and Chopin to Liszt and Wagner. Some of his most popular waltzes are Love and Life, Voices of the Times, Music of the Spheres, and Village Swallows from Austria. It is also known that Josef generously allowed Johann to claim as his own some waltzes actually written by Josef. He wrote a serious composition, a tone poem with orchestra called Ode to the Night. It received great critical acclaim, but has been lost.

In 1863 Johann was appointed Imperial and Royal Hofballmusikdirektor, which required him to largely absent himself from the family orchestra. This left Josef to take some of the orchestra's touring assignments, which he hated. He accepted an obligation to take the orchestra to Warsaw in April. There, in June, he suffered a blackout and fell from the podium. He asked to be taken to his home in Vienna, where he died within the month. ~ Joseph Stevenson, All Music Guide

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