German Leaders Of The Nazi Era/Bormann

Part One/C "Martin Bormann"

One of the interesting things about Martin Bormann is, most Germans of that era didn't know who he was, yet he had a close personal and working relationship with Hitler, which brought him a great amount of power, and made him one of the most powerful Nazi leaders. It wasn't until after World War Two that Bormann's power and influence came to be understood, as he had worked behind the scenes. To my knowledge, he never made a major speech to the German public, addressing only groups of Nazi officials from time to time. Without a free press, his comments and position remained out of public notice, although he is seen in many photographs and films, and always not far from Hitler, but almost always in the background. During much of the war, Bormann controlled access to Hitler, and virtually everyone had to go through him to be able to get in to see Hitler,* and this alone gave him power. He had accommodations at Hitler's various headquarters throughout the war. Also during the war, Bormann issued orders and instructions to Nazi Gauleiters, who then implemented these policies.**

In the final days of the war Bormann remained with Hitler in his Berlin bunker. As I noted in the article about Hermann Göring,*** Bormann helped convince Hitler that Göring was betraying Hitler and that he was guilty of treason ("Landesverrat"), because Göring had properly sent a message asking about his status as Hitler's successor. After Hitler's suicide, Bormann and most of the people in the bunker tried to make their way through Russian lines to the Americans or British, or to the "government" designated by Hitler to succeed him, which was located in northern Germany, near Denmark. This episode is what has given Bormann much press coverage ever since. One of the survivors of the breakout attempt, who said he was with Bormann's group, said he saw Bormann's body in the streets of Berlin; the assumption being that he was killed by Soviet fire (remember, the war was not over, and there was still much fighting in Berlin),**** but "supposedly" no body resembling Bormann was found in that area; however, once the fighting stopped, in a matter of about a day or so after Bormann allegedly died, bodies had to be buried quickly and haphazardly to avoid disease and there was no time to properly identify remains, of which there were many. With Bormann's "status" unknown, the judicial system set up by the victors to try Nazi leaders for various possible crimes decided to try Bormann in absentia; that is, in his absence (he was found guilty and condemned to death). Bormann became the world's most wanted Nazi. Without a body to prove Bormann's death, all sorts of conspiracy theories abounded, most of them having Bormann living in South America and planning a "Fourth Reich" in place of Hitler's defeated Third Reich.***** Over time, there were unsuccessful diggings in the area where Bormann allegedly died, to see if his body could be found. Then in the early 1970s, remains were found near the same location. Dental and medical records showed one to be Bormann; the other being an SS doctor who was with Bormann as they tried to escape Berlin, and they both showed broken glass in the mouth from poison capsules, indicating that the two had indeed committed suicide. The then West German government declared Bormann legally dead, but not everyone agreed. About 25 years later, the remains were DNA tested and confirmed to be Bormann's; although controversy continued over the findings, but this is beyond the scope of this article.

One other very interesting thing about Bormann is, after the war, some thought he had been a Soviet agent in Hitler's midst. This notion gained credence due to the accusation of such by a former Wehrmacht intelligence officer, Reinhard Gehlen, who later became head of the (then)West German intelligence organization. During the war and thereafter, many German military officials wondered how the Allies anticipated so many German military moves during the war. Gehlen and others came to the conclusion that there had to be an agent (spy) close to Hitler, who then passed along information, presumably to the Soviets, who then shared it with the Allies. Bormann was like "Hitler's shadow;" thus making him a prime suspect. The thing was, in those times, the British had not yet disclosed that they had broken the German code, which then gave them access to any information sent by coded message by the Germans. During the war, the British were anxious that the Germans might find out the British were reading their messages and then go to a new system, thus depriving the British of such valuable information; so they had to deliver such information to their allies on a limited, priority basis, to keep the Germans from getting too suspicious. They also devised ways to deceive the Germans into believing they had obtained information in other ways, thus diverting attention from the broken German code, but the Germans were suspicious, and prior to the German offensive which came to be known as "the Battle of the Bulge," the Germans maintained radio silence about the coming attack. Anyhow, to my knowledge, no evidence has ever been turned up in German or Russian archives confirming Bormann as a Soviet agent. There's no question the Cold War made people nervous and made imaginations go into overdrive, and when Bormann's body was found in the early 1970s, some theorized the Russians had captured Bormann, who then later died, or that they had had the remains all along, and then reburied them in Berlin.

Next, Rudolf Hess.....

* Bormann became Hitler's deputy in May of 1941, when Rudolf Hess, Hitler's then deputy, flew solo to Scotland in an attempt to make peace between Germany and Britain. I'll cover Hess in the next article. Stay tuned....

** The Nazis reorganized the German government according to how the Nazi Party itself was structured, in a system of "Gaue" (this is the plural, one is "Gau," rhymes with "how") an old Germanic term for "district" (the Nazis loved the past, and not the recent past, but way, way back), and the head of a "Gau" was a "Gauleiter" (district leader; "leiter" and English "leader" are close relatives), and each Gau was divided into smaller districts, each headed by a Kreisleiter. Bormann had tremendous control over these party officials, who were charged with carrying out domestic policies.

*** For the article see: http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2011/09/german-leaders-of-nazi-era.html

**** There were other reports that Bormann had been killed when a German tank, providing cover for Bormann and others, was hit by Soviet fire and exploded. Other reports indicated Bormann committed suicide to avoid Soviet capture. You have to remember, in the "confusion" of war (see note), people were trying to save their own lives, not taking notes about events going on around them. Note: The word "war" comes from an Old English word that meant "confusion." It also seems that first part of the Dutch and Low German words for "war" (oorlog/orlog) trace back to the same Old Germanic base.

***** I can remember in the 1960s, Bormann was regularly mentioned on television as if he were still alive, even on "Laugh In," a very popular comedy in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

WORD HISTORY:
Gray (grey)-This is still another word the origins of which are difficult to pin down, so I'll stick to the more agreed upon Germanic history of the word, as there do not appear to be any languages outside of Germanic with a form of the word, unless borrowed from one of the Germanic languages, and the word could well be an Old Germanic invention. Old Germanic had "grewjaz" or "graewas," presumably which meant "gray;" that is, "the color between black and white." This gave Old English "graeg/grei" (depending upon dialect), which then later became "grei," before the modern versions. The spelling "gray" is more American English, and "grey" is used in Britain, but with some usage in the U.S. The other Germanic languages have: German has "grau," ^ Low German Saxon has "grau" and "gries," some Low German dialects have "greiw," Dutch has "grauw," Icelandic has "grár," Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish all have "grå," Frisian has both "grau" and "griis."

^ German also has the adjective "greis" (pronounced as if "grise," and rhymes with "guys"), which means "old," and also the nouns "Greis" ("old man") and "Greisin," ("old woman"), all come from forms from Low Germanic dialects.