However, from 1923 till 1927 he attended the Regional Academy for Arts and Culture at Breslau (at the time in Germany) where he studied under Oskar Moll and Otto Mueller.
Strempel was not arrested, but in the middle of 1933 he decided to join the thousands of German communist party members who emigrated to Paris, where he had already lived for two years in 1929-1931 while studying at the École des Beaux-Arts.
His best known work from 1945/46 is the triptych "Night over Germany" ("Nacht über Deutschland"), which somehow rises above the immediate present, serving as a more general testimony to the phase in history through which the artist was living.
The picture sets out the trauma of National Socialism in obscured complex images which the viewer can still identify, but in a way with which the artist could only get to grips if he understood not merely the bare realities but also the underlying spiritual condition of the people.
[6] By 1946 it was becoming increasingly apparent that political division between the Soviet occupation zone and those parts of Germany occupied by the western allies was to be permanent, as a plan unfolded for the creation of a separate stand-alone state, the German Democratic Republic.
Strempel found himself strongly criticised by people contending that his artistic style could not sufficiently convey the image of humanity being advanced by the country's political leadership.
His giant wall painting at the Berlin Friedrichstraße station entitled "Trümmer weg – baut auf" ("Clear the rubble: rebuild") recalled the condition of the city in the years directly following the war, and had never been wholly uncontroversial.
While he was trying to establish his civic status there was little energy left over for continuing his career as an artist, but he was able to secure his physical survival with jobs that included designing carpets and fabrics.