After suffering from severe frostbite on the Eastern Front in early 1943, he served as an Offizier für wehrgeistige Führung, responsible for the education of the troops, at the antiaircraft artillery school in Altenstadt Air Base, near Schongau.

[3] After the war, in 1945, he was appointed deputy Landrat (chief executive and representative of the district) of Schongau by the American military government and was involved in founding the local party organization of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU).

Strauss stated in a letter to HIAG in March 1957: "I think you know how I personally think about the front line units of the Waffen-SS.

"[5] Former Lockheed lobbyist Ernest Hauser [de] admitted to investigators during a U.S. Senate hearing that Minister of Defence Strauss and his party had received at least $10 million in remuneration for arranging West Germany's purchase of 900 F-104G Starfighters in 1961, which later became part of the Lockheed bribery scandals.

[citation needed] Strauss was forced to step down as defence minister in 1962 in the wake of the Spiegel affair.

Rudolf Augstein, owner and editor-in-chief of the influential Der Spiegel magazine, published German defense information that Strauss's department alleged was top secret.

In cooperation with the SPD minister for economy, Karl Schiller, he developed a groundbreaking economic stability policy; the two ministers, quite unlike in physical appearance and political background, were popularly dubbed Plisch und Plum [de], after two dogs in a 19th-century cartoon by Wilhelm Busch.

After Helmut Kohl's first run for chancellor in 1976 failed, Strauss cancelled the alliance between the CDU and CSU parties in the Bundestag, a decision which he only reversed months later when the CDU threatened to extend their party to Bavaria (where the CSU holds a political monopoly for the conservatives).

But many, if not most, observers at the time believed that the CDU had concluded that Helmut Schmidt's SPD was likely unbeatable in 1980, and felt that they had nothing to lose in running Strauss.

This move, in violation of longtime CSU/CDU policy to allow the East German economy to collapse naturally, was widely criticised even during Strauss's lifetime.

[14] The ecclesiastical resistance in particular, which met primarily at the Franziskus-Marterl, was a nuisance for Strauss and he explained that anyone who confuses people, whoever causes them to feel insecure, excited and afraid for no reason, is doing the work of the devil.

[15][16] Strauss visited communist Albania on 21 August 1984, while Enver Hoxha, the ruler from the end of World War II until his death in 1985, was still in power.

This fuelled speculation that Strauss might be preparing the way for diplomatic links between Albania and West Germany and, indeed, relations were established in 1987.

[17] In 2017, Strauss was honored with the Albanian National Flag Order,[18] while a city square holds his name in Tirana.

According to British diplomat Richard Hiscocks:Strauss is without doubt one of the most remarkable personalities that has yet emerged in Germany since the war and, from a democratic point of view, the most dangerous….

he has great ambition and combines with it the advantages of considerable intellectual gifts, an exceptional memory, immense resilience and capacity for work, and the ability to make quick decisions....On the other hand, these positive qualities are offset by equally pronounced defects.

Above all he is lacking in self-control and knowledge of men, and has the habit of picking weak and sycophantic companions....His quick decisions therefore have often been the wrong ones.