The “Secretary of the Devil”, “brown grace”, the man who was constantly behind the throne of the Führer, who was his second “I”, his shadow is Martin Bormann.
History knows this “evil genius” as one of the most significant Nazi leaders, as the most mysterious and least public person, who deliberately avoided publicity and despised awards, ranks and public recognition.
Youth
The son of Theodore Bormann - an ordinary postal employee - was born on June 17, 1900. At the age of 18, he was drafted into the army, then participated in the First World War. Apparently, Martin Bormann did not like military affairs, as he served as an ordinary orderly: he served coffee, carried suitcases with other people's property, and cleaned his boots. Although he boasted that he was ordinary in the artillery regiment, which allegedly has documentary evidence. Being a lover of rural life and nurturing the dream of becoming a competent farmer, after demobilization he graduated from agricultural specialists' courses, having managed to join the anti-Semitic organization during the training period.
After graduation, Martin got a job as an inspector in the estate of von Troyenfels, who led the local ultra-right organization, where he fully showed his abilities as an office clerk. Having a high salary, Bormann secretly bargained for stolen goods from the estate and was once caught "hot" by a school teacher, Walter Kadov. Teachers Bormann Martin and his friend were killed, for which they were in the dock. For unknown reasons, the crime was recognized as unintentional, and Bormann was sentenced to imprisonment for 11 months, after serving which, he returned to his old duty station as a hero who was punished for justice.
Bormann's prison experience
Thieves, speculative activity again fascinated him, which did not stop Bormann from expressing himself in politics. Even before the conviction, he joined the DNPP - one of the most influential parties in Germany, and in 1922 was a member of the G. Rossbach militants brigade. Having come to the conclusion that he was crowded here, because he didn’t go beyond drunken gatherings with tearful abuse of the government, seriously interested in the ideas of Nazism, Bormann went home, where he joined Frontbann, an illegal military organization of SA attack aircraft.
In 1927, Bormann joined the NSDAP, became an assistant to Gauleiter Fritz Sauckel, and later the head of the insurance department and the head of the economic department. In 1929, married with Gerda Bukh - daughter of the chief judge of the Nazi party.
Witnesses at the wedding were Rudolf Hess and Adolf Hitler. Bormans became the parents of ten children, nine of whom survived. The first child in honor of the godparent was given the name Adolf.
Martin Bormann as a family man
The relationship between the spouses was perplexing in party circles - as soon as Martin whistled, Gerda was at his feet. She was in no way humiliated by her puppy loyalty. She supported her husband in everything, even in relations with other women, the legal spouse prompted and gave advice. Apparently, therefore, the relationship between the spouses was very strong.
Up the career ladder
At the end of 1929, on the instructions of the Fuhrer, Bormann Martin created and himself headed the National Socialist Automobile Corps. A successful debut was noticed, and in the early 30s Bormann worked closely with Heinrich Himmler, successfully using the accumulated experience of recent speculation. For fruitful and hard work he was taken by the financier in the Imperial leadership. It was here that, when solving monetary issues of a national scale, Bormann showed diplomatic abilities that contributed to the support of the fascist movement from respectable German manufacturers.
In Berchtesgaden, Bormann rebuilt Hitler's house - Berghof (even registered to Bormann), and then was his manager, entrusting the solution of all financial issues to himself. The posts of Reichsleiter, SS General, Chief of Staff Rudolf Hess, personal assistant to the Fuhrer - Bormann easily overcame all these steps in order to become personally necessary for Hitler. He was entrusted with the organization of party congresses, as well as such delicate work as conducting "purges" in the apparatus of the NSDAP. For complete safety, Bormann, who had a grudge against the "old fighters", joined the SS, thanks to which he practically became the head of the NSDAP personnel policy. This allowed him to control the fate of the Nazis at his discretion. Sending objectionable to the front, resignation, slander, absurd accusation or approaching oneself - the life and career of subordinates were now in his hands.
Bormann's attitude to Christianity
Bormann was so negative about Christianity that, in addition to the fierce persecution of the Church, he officially left it. In 1937, he imposed a ban on the entry into the NSDAP of people with a clerical rank, and in 1938 issued an order stating that the national-socialist worldview should be taken for true faith. Even everyone’s beloved Christmas caused unpleasant associations between Bormann and his wife (an ardent supporter of her husband’s views) and strengthened the belief that not one of their children would fall under the corrupting influence of the Christian faith.
Unfortunately, life decreed otherwise - Martin Bormann's children became Roman Catholics, and Adolf Martin, the eldest son, became a priest.
The Führer’s irreplaceable personal assistant
In 1944, Bormann, who became absolutely necessary for Hitler and took part in every decision being discussed, took up the vacant vacancy of the party that had lost confidence in Rudolf Hess. His appointment could be foreseen, but it was not welcomed by the environment of the Fuhrer. Bormann was not loved for secret fraud, he was not familiar with the public, and his industriousness aroused suspicion. As Hitler's personal secretary, he headed the Party Chancellery, concentrating in his hands all the levers of party power - a huge and comparable only to the power of Stalin at the end of Lenin's life. The effective operation of the huge bureaucratic mechanism was determined by such factors as:
- the titanic disability and energy of Martin Bormann;
- its indispensability for the Fuhrer;
- constant vigilance;
- constant interference in affairs;
- total control over personnel shifts;
- relentless demands of discipline.
In the role of the Fuhrer secretary, Bormann Martin was perfect - he guessed the wishes of his patron, faithfully, unobtrusively and meekly carried out all the orders of his leader, to whom he was betrayed absolutely sincerely.
The clarity, comprehensibility and brevity of reports with skillful selection of facts, skillfully combined with threads of intrigue and deceit, almost always caused the Fuhrer to take the decisions required by Bormann. While Martin Bormann enjoyed the favor of Hitler, no one even tried to throw him from the place obtained by such painstaking labor.
Borman versus the political elite
And Bormann Martin himself tried by any means to keep competitors at a distance, always maintaining and correctly using the leading position. He achieved the fall of the authority of Goebbels, Himmler, Ribbentrop, Goering and other tops of the Reich. However, the triumph of the “king of the party,” as his enemies called him, was not long. The course of the war turned into an inexorably impending catastrophe. On August 10, 1944, on the initiative of Bormann, representatives of heavy and military industries were assembled in Strasbourg. At the training camp, the possibility of exporting “party gold” outside the country was discussed to save funds for the resumption of the Nazi movement when better times arrived.
Last days in sight
Shortly before his death, in late April 1945, Hitler appointed Bormann to the newly introduced post - Reich Minister for Party Affairs.
After the failed negotiations with Zhukov about the armistice, Goebbels suicide, Bormann decided to escape by any means, breaking free from surrounded Berlin. Since then no one has seen him alive. All that was left was to guess where Martin Bormann disappeared. He could have died, but the corpse was never found; could have escaped, but then sooner or later some news would have appeared about him. Due to the absence of a corpse in 1946, Bormann was convicted in absentia by the Nuremberg Tribunal and sentenced to death.
Three lives of Martin Bormann
According to one version, Martin Borman, grabbing the "gold of the party", fled to South America, where he became a major landowner.
The second version suggests that Martin Bormann is a Soviet intelligence agent who was recruited in 1939. April 29, 1945, making sure of the death of Hitler, he surrendered to the Soviet troops and secretly lived on the territory of the USSR. In 1972, he died and was buried in Lefortovo, in an old cemetery. No evidence confirms this version.
The biography of Bormann Martin, according to the third version, the most believable, puts an end to his life path on May 2, 1945. Apparently, the path that Bormann had chosen to escape from Berlin was closed. Realizing the impossibility of salvation, he saw through an ampoule of potassium cyanide. In 1972, in Berlin, when laying tram rails, human bones were found, presumably recognized as the remains of Bormann. In 1998, DNA analysis, which was agreed by Martin Bormann Jr., finally confirmed this. Martin Bormann's ashes were scattered over the neutral waters of the Baltic Sea.
In the wake of Bormann
In an attempt to exhaustively learn about life, about the details of the disappearance and further fate of the "right hand" of the Fuhrer, many documentaries were shot. From a number of many works we can distinguish:
- “Undisclosed secrets. Where and when did Martin Bormann die. ” The documentary puts forward several versions of the development of his future fate. There is even speculation that Bormann was abducted by British intelligence.
- “Martin Borman. In search of a golden nation. ” In this work, the director's team tries to trace the path of the “elusive Nazi” in order to test any, even the most implausible versions of his disappearance.
- “Martin Borman. Secretary of the devil. " This is a Russian work. Here they are trying to truthfully show the viewer who Martin Bormann was, whose biography ends with an ellipsis.