Franz Josef Strauß

Franz Josef Strauß  link Powerbase (Politician, deep politician)
Born	1915-09-06 Munich
Died	3 October 1988 Regensburg
Nationality	German
Alma mater	University of Munich
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Children	Max Josef Franz Georg Strauß, Monika Hohlmeier
Spouse	Marianne Zwicknagl
Interests	Lockheed/Bribery scandals,anti-communism
Party	CSU
A deep politician and politician, a known attendee of Le Cercle, accused in connection with the Lockheed bribery scandals.

Franz Josef Strauß (pronounced 'Strauss') was a West German politician and deep politician. He noted in his memoirs that he had been a friend of Le Cercle’s Antoine Pinay since the two first met in 1953.

Deep state connections

Franz Josef Strauß is known to have attended Le Cercle, though his name does not appear on any of the known guest lists. It is conjectured that he may be "Schmidthuber", guest #8 on the list of German attendees of 1983 meeting of Le Cercle in Bonn, since Strauß was "Minister of State of Bavaria" at the time.

Lockheed bribery scandals

Former Lockheed lobbyist Ernest Hauser told Senate investigators that Minister of Defence Strauß and his party had received at least $10 million for West Germany's purchase of 900 F-104G Starfighters in 1961, which later became part of the Lockheed bribery scandals. The party and its leader denied the allegations, and Strauß filed a slander suit against Hauser. As the allegations were not corroborated, the issue was dropped.

Spiegel scandal

Strauß was forced to step down as defence minister in 1962 in the wake of the Spiegel scandal. Rudolf Augstein, owner and editor-in-chief of Der Spiegel magazine, had been arrested on Strauß' request and was held for 103 days. Strauß later admitted that he had lied to the parliament and was forced to resign, complaining that he was treated like a "Jew who had dared appear at a Nazi party convention".

Activities

Franz Josef Strauß co-founded Airbus.

Exposure

Strauß' enmity with Der Spiegel apparently continued as the magazine was one of very few to break the commercially-controlled media silence surrounding Le Cercle. In the early 1980s the magazine named him as a regular attendant of the Cercle and gave further details of the (then almost unknown) group.

Israeli Nuclear Weapons Development

On April 14, 2015, Veterans Today published a story suggesting that Franz Josef Strauß was implicated in a decision to 'lend' two billion marks for the "development of the Negev" (i.e. the Dinona nuclear weapons factory complex).