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Martin Bormann

June 17, 1900 – May 2, 1945

German Nazi Party official who headed the Party Chancellery and served as Adolf Hitler's private secretary, using his control of access to Hitler to gain great power. He died fleeing Berlin in May 1945 and was sentenced to death in absentia at Nuremberg.

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Biography

Martin Bormann was born in Wegeleben in 1900. He served as an artillery gunner on garrison duty at the end of the First World War, then managed a large estate in Mecklenburg and joined a Freikorps group. In 1924 he was sentenced to a year in prison as an accomplice of his friend Rudolf Höss in the murder of the schoolteacher Walther Kadow.

He joined the Nazi Party in 1927 and from 1928 ran its insurance and relief fund. In July 1933 he became chief of staff to Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess, and he also held the rank of Reichsleiter and a Reichstag seat. After Hess flew to Britain in May 1941, Bormann took over his duties as head of the Party Chancellery, controlling party appointments and reviewing legislation, and from April 1943 he was also Hitler's personal secretary. Through his control of access to Hitler he became one of the most powerful men in the regime, pushing for harsh treatment of Jews and Slavs and against the churches.

Bormann stayed with Hitler in the Führerbunker in 1945 and became Party Minister on Hitler's death. He died, probably by suicide, while trying to escape Berlin on 2 May 1945. The Nuremberg tribunal, uncertain of his fate, tried him in absentia and sentenced him to death; his remains were found in 1972 and confirmed by DNA tests in 1998.