Martin Bormann
Martin Ludwig Bormann[2] (17 June 1900 – 2 May 1945) was a German Nazi Party official and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, private secretary to Adolf Hitler, and a war criminal. After the war, he was convicted and sentenced to death-in-absentia for crimes against humanity. Bormann gained immense power by using his position as Hitler's private secretary to control the flow of information and access to Hitler. He used his position to create an extensive bureaucracy and involve himself as much as possible in the decision making.
Martin Bormann
Adolf Hitler (as Führer)
Office abolished
Himself (as Private Secretary to the Führer)
Office abolished
Rudolf Hess (as Deputy Führer)
Office abolished
Member of the "Committee of Three"
Reichsminister without portfolio
Member of the Greater German Reichstag
Reichsleiter of the
Nazi Party
Manager of the Adolf Hitler Fund of German Trade and Industry
2 May 1945 (aged 44)
Berlin, Nazi Germany
10, including Martin Adolf Bormann
Walter Buch (father-in-law)
Albert Bormann (brother)
Brown Eminence
1918–1919
1927–1945
55th Field Artillery Regiment
278,267 (SS)
Deceased before arraignment
Bormann joined a paramilitary Freikorps organisation in 1922 while working as manager of a large estate. He served nearly a year in prison as an accomplice to his friend Rudolf Höss (later commandant of Auschwitz concentration camp) in the murder of Walther Kadow. Bormann joined the Nazi Party in 1927 and the Schutzstaffel (SS) in 1937. He initially worked in the party's insurance service, and transferred in July 1933 to the office of Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess, where he served as chief of staff.
Bormann gained acceptance into Hitler's inner circle and accompanied him everywhere, providing briefings and summaries of events and requests. He was appointed as Hitler's personal secretary on 12 April 1943.[3] After Hess's solo flight to Britain on 10 May 1941 to seek peace negotiations with the British government, Bormann assumed Hess's former duties, with the title of Head of the Parteikanzlei (Party Chancellery). He had final approval over civil service appointments, reviewed and approved legislation, and by 1943 had de facto control over all domestic matters. Bormann was one of the leading proponents of the ongoing persecution of the Christian churches and favoured harsh treatment of Jews and Slavs in the areas conquered by Germany during World War II.
Bormann returned with Hitler to the Führerbunker in Berlin on 16 January 1945 as the Red Army approached the city. After Hitler committed suicide, Bormann and others attempted to flee Berlin on 2 May to avoid capture by the Soviets. Bormann probably committed suicide on a bridge near Lehrter station. His body was buried nearby on 8 May 1945, but was not found and confirmed as Bormann's until 1973; the identification was reaffirmed in 1998 by DNA tests. The missing Bormann was tried in absentia by the International Military Tribunal in the Nuremberg trials of 1945 and 1946. He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to death by hanging.
Early life and education[edit]
Born in Wegeleben (now in Saxony-Anhalt) in the Kingdom of Prussia in the German Empire, Bormann was the son of Theodor Bormann (1862–1903), a post office employee, and his second wife, Antonie Bernhardine Mennong. The family was Lutheran. He had two half-siblings (Else and Walter Bormann) from his father's earlier marriage to Louise Grobler, who died in 1898. Antonie Bormann gave birth to three sons, one of whom died in infancy. Martin and Albert (1902–89) survived to adulthood. Theodor died when Bormann was three, and his mother soon remarried.[4]
Bormann's studies at an agricultural trade high school were interrupted when he joined the 55th Field Artillery Regiment as a gunner in June 1918, in the final months of World War I. He never saw action, but served garrison duty until February 1919. After working a short time in a cattle feed mill, Bormann became estate manager of a large farm in Mecklenburg.[5][6] Shortly after starting work at the estate, Bormann joined an antisemitic landowners association.[7] While hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic meant that money was worthless, foodstuffs stored on farms and estates became ever more valuable. Many estates, including Bormann's, had Freikorps units stationed on site to guard the crops from pillaging.[8] Bormann joined the Freikorps organisation headed by Gerhard Roßbach in 1922, acting as section leader and treasurer.[9]
On 17 March 1924 Bormann was sentenced to a year in Elisabethstrasse Prison as an accomplice to his friend Rudolf Höss in the murder of Walther Kadow.[10][11] The perpetrators believed Kadow had tipped off the French occupation authorities in the Ruhr District that fellow Freikorps member Albert Leo Schlageter was carrying out sabotage operations against French industries. Schlageter was arrested and was executed on 26 May 1923. On the night of 31 May, Höss, Bormann and several others took Kadow into a meadow out of town, where he was beaten and had his throat cut.[12] After one of the perpetrators confessed, police dug up the body and laid charges in July.[13] Bormann was released from prison in February 1925.[10][a] He joined the Frontbann, a short-lived Nazi Party paramilitary organisation created to replace the Sturmabteilung (SA; storm detachment or assault division), which had been banned in the aftermath of the failed Munich Putsch. Bormann returned to his job at Mecklenburg and remained there until May 1926, when he moved in with his mother in Oberweimar.[15]
On 2 September 1929, Bormann married 19-year-old Gerda Buch (23 October 1909 – 23 March 1946),[130] whose father, Major Walter Buch, served as a chairman of the Untersuchung und Schlichtungs-Ausschuss (USCHLA; Investigation and Settlement Committee), which was responsible for settling disputes within the party. Hitler was a frequent visitor to the Buch house, and it was here that Bormann met him. Hess and Hitler served as witnesses at his wedding.[131][132] Bormann also had a series of mistresses, including Manja Behrens, an actress.[133]
Martin and Gerda Bormann had ten children:
Gerda Bormann and the children fled Obersalzberg for Italy on 25 April 1945 after an Allied air attack. She died of cancer on 23 March 1946, in Merano, Italy.[130][140] Bormann's nine remaining children survived the war and were cared for in foster homes.[136][141] The eldest son Martin was ordained a Roman Catholic priest and worked in Africa as a missionary. He later left the priesthood and married.[142]