329. Opening the Party Congress.
This interesting postcard dating from the mid 1930s depicts the members of the Nazi ‘Old Guard’ attending the opening of the Annual Party Congress in Nuremberg.
From left to right they are: Dr Wilhelm Frick, Reich Minister of the Interior. Dr Paul Joseph Goebbels, Reich Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Dr Hanns Kerrl, Prussian Minister of Justice and Reich Minister without Portfolio. Franz Xavier Schwarz, Treasurer of the NSDAP. Viktor Lutze, Chief of Staff of the SA. Adolf Hitler, Führer. Rudolf Hess, Deputy Führer. Julius Streicher, owner of Der Stürmer (The Stormer/The Attacker), an illustrated anti-Semitic newspaper and Gauleiter (District leader) of Franconia. Behind Hess stands Lieutnant Wilhelm Brückner of the SA, adjutant to Hitler. Behind Streicher stands Julius Schaub, adjutant to Hitler. Finally, and on the extreme right, stands the man who has been described as ‘the power behind the throne’, Reichsleiter (Reich Leader) Martin Bormann.
Martin Ludwig Bormann was born in Halberstadt, Lower Saxony, on 17 June 1900. His father, Theodore (1862-1903) a former sergeant in a cavalry regiment and later postal worker died when Martin was barely four years old. Martin Bormann was drafted towards the end of the First World War and served as a gunner with Field Artillery Regiment 55; he saw little, if any action. After the First World War Bormann worked as an inspector in agriculture and eventually joined the Freikorps (Free Corps).
The Freikorps were paramilitary units made up of former army officers, demobilized soldiers, adventurers, nationalists, and the unemployed. These right-wing groups blamed the Social Democrats and the Jews for Germany’s ills. Their main objective was to eliminate anyone whom they believed might be considered a ‘traitor to the Fatherland’. The German Army, also believing in the ‘stab in the back’ theory secretly supported the Freikorps.
Martin Bormann, as a member of the Rossback Freikorps unit operating in Mecklenburg, was implicated in the murder of one Walther Kadow. Kadow had allegedly betrayed a Freikorps officer, Albert Leo Schlageter. Tried on charges of espionage and sabotage, Schlageter had been executed by the French near Düsseldorf on 26 May 1923. Bormann, for his part, was subsequently found guilty of complicity in the murder of Kadow and served one year in prison in Leipzig. Following his release, Bormann came into contact with the NSDAP and began working in the Party’s press section in Thuringia. In 1928 Bormann was promoted to work for the Chief of Staff of the SA. Bormann was a good organizer and soon acquired an excellent understanding of the workings of the Party.
In 1929 Martin Bormann married Gerda Bach, the daughter of the President of the Party court. The fact that Adolf Hitler acted as a witness at the ceremony confirms Bormann’s ascendancy as a rising star in the Party hierarchy. The couple would have ten children; Adolf Martin (14.04.1930), twins Ilse and Ehrengard (09.07.31) Ehrengard died in infancy, Irmgard (25.07.33), Rudolf Gerhard (31.08.34), Heinrich Hugo (13.06.36), Eva Ute (04.08.38), Gerda (23.10.40), Fred Hartmut (04.03.42) and Volker (18.09.43). The Nazi Party achieved power in Germany in January 1933; soon after Martin Bormann was promoted to the position of Chief of Staff to Deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess. Bormann, the intriguer, the manipulator, was slowly but steadily working his way into Hitler’s inner circle. While Bormann had a number of extra-marital affairs, his wife Gerda, knowing of his infidelities, complained little. The film star Manja Behrens was Bormann’s mistress for a considerable time. On the subject of Manja Behrens, Gerda Bormann wrote; ‘See to it that one year she has a child and the next year I have a child, so that you will always have a wife who is serviceable.’ Nonetheless, it is said that Bormann remained in love with Gerda throughout. Gerda Bormann died of cancer in March 1946; she is buried in Merano, Italy. All nine Bormann children survived the Second World War.
It was Bormann who oversaw the acquisition of land and property on the Obersalzberg above Berchtesgaden when it was decided to create the Führersperrgebiet (Restricted Area of the Führer). This led to the creation of a fenced-in area of approximately 800 hectares (2,000 acres). Ambitious, and ruthless in his methods, Martin Bormann was hated by the local population. Indeed even his own colleagues, those in the higher echelons of the Nazi Party, neither liked nor trusted him. Martin Bormann planned and oversaw the destruction of the long-established community of Obersalzberg. By the end of 1937 the vast majority of the homes and farms on the Obersalzberg were in Bormann’s hands, whether by voluntary sale or compulsory purchase. Bormann was a man of enormous energy and could survive on a mere three or four hours sleep a night. Indeed it was Bormann who conceived the idea of building the Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle’s Nest) as a gift from the Party to Hitler on the occasion of the Führer’s 50th birthday. Bormann’s moment came with the flight of Rudolf Hess to Britain on 10 May 1941. While it is generally accepted that Hitler was fully aware of Hess’s plans, it had been agreed that if Hess were unsuccessful in his attempt to negotiate peace with Britain, the Deputy Führer had acted alone.
Martin Bormann was promoted head of the newly created Parteikanzlei (Party Chancellery) that same day. Bormann became so powerful that he eventually controlled virtually all access to Hitler. Even high-ranking officers could not gain an audience with Hitler without first going through Bormann. Martin Bormann did everything possible to secure his position within Hitler’s inner circle. In the end, even Hitler came to realize that he had come to rely too much on Bormann. In the last days in Berlin in 1945, Hitler confided to Eva Braun that he had seen through Bormann, and, that had things been different, he would have replaced Bormann.
It is said that Bormann was so confident of his position that he would send out ‘Führer Orders’, orders in the name of the Führer, in the knowledge that no-one would be prepared to question their origin. Adolf Hitler married Eva Braun in the bunker of the Berlin Reich Chancellery on 29 April 1945. This time Bormann acted as witness for Hitler. The Führer committed suicide the next day, Monday 30 April 1945, at about 3.30 in the afternoon. Soon after, Bormann made his bid for freedom. Travelling in civilian clothes with a small group Bormann left the bunker. For many years it was believed that Bormann had escaped. Indeed there were numerous reported sightings of Bormann in countries in South America during the years after the Second World War. However in 1972, groundwork close to the Lehrter station in Berlin uncovered two skeletons. One of these was quite quickly identified as that of Dr Ludwig Stumpfegger, one of Hitler’s physicians. As for the other, it took almost two years searching through dental records before these remains were finally identified as those of Martin Bormann. Shards of glass found lodged in Bormann’s jaw led to the conclusion that he had committed suicide by means of a cyanide capsule. Bormann’s decision to attempt an escape from an encircled Berlin was unlikely to succeed, but the decision to end his life was probably one forced upon him as he observed large numbers of advancing Soviet troops moving through the city. Bormann’s final decision was based on a determination not to be taken alive.