Martin Bormann. The brown eminence - what happened to him?

Discussion in 'The Third Reich' started by elser, Feb 4, 2014.

  1. elser

    elser Member

    Did Martin bormann shoot himself in the ruins of berlin?

    Did Ian Fleming and a team of commandos get him out of the capital into the hands of british as the book suggests… or is the book a fabrication

    Is that really bormann’s skull that was found so many years later in berlin… that matched with dental records… it must be ?
     
  2. phylo_roadking

    phylo_roadking Very Senior Member

    Book??? You don't mean Op-JB, do you???
     
    elser likes this.
  3. elser

    elser Member

    Yes is it fake.
     
  4. Mark Hone

    Mark Hone Senior Member

    The book is pretty clearly complete nonsense from start to finish, although it took in some otherwise sensible people at the time. There is a chapter on 'OP-JB's author in Nigel West's interesting 1999 book 'Counterfeit Spies'. According to West the author concocted a far-fetched story of his wartime and later Cold War exploits as a spy and assassin which are also the basis of other books, even though in real life he was only a teenager during the war. The books contain tell-tale Historical mistakes: one set in 1956 during the 'Commander Crabb' affair mentions the Berlin Wall five years before it was actually built. West's book shows that there appears to have been a whole sub-genre of fake World War II espionage memoirs, of which 'OP-JB' was probably the last.
     
    elser likes this.
  5. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    Elser,

    There are several accounts of Bormann's demise.

    I believe the most credible Version is that he escaped from the Bunker with the last Group, making their way towards what is today the New Hauptbahnhof (Berlin Main Railway Station.)

    The Group were apparently spotted and most killed and it is this Location that Bormann was believed to have been killed.

    Regards
    Tom
     
    elser likes this.
  6. elser

    elser Member

    Thank you. I did think the book was fake, which is why i bought it up here instead of reading the thing. I agree smudger.
     
  7. Wills

    Wills Very Senior Member

  8. elser

    elser Member

    According to one report, bormann left the bunker with a small group trying to get out the city, including hitlers pilot and someone named axmann, at a bridge they crossed with a tank which was destroyed and threw bormann to the ground, but they crossed the bridge and at some railway tracks, axmann left them but turned back after running into a soviet patrol and says he saw bormann lying dead by a railway switching station, the moonlight clearly illuminating his face.
     
  9. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    elser likes this.
  10. elser

    elser Member

    Thanks Smudger, that was more detailed than what i read. Yes i think we can safely say that bormann never saw 1946.
     
  11. belasar

    belasar Junior Member

    Over on w2f.com I reviewed The Hunt for Martin Bormann by Charles Whiting, AKA Leo Kessler.

    He tries to make a mystery about it but it does seem to come down to Bormann and Stumpfegger being killed either riding on or crouching behind a tank near the Weidendamn Bridge that was struck by a Soviet shell. About 20 years later new construction near the site turned up two skeletons with glass shards in the jaws, implying the taking of poison. DNA tests done in the late 1990's confirmed Bormann's remains.

    Below is my review for those interested.
     
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  12. elser

    elser Member

    thats interesting, so they never made it past the bridge despite over reports saying they did and onto the railway switching station where they was killed,i guess its not much of a mystery
     
  13. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    I cannot remember reading about glass shards in the jaws, but it does fit in with someone badly wounded and not wishing to be captured alive.

    What with his record, coupled with what he had on his conscience, I believe that the last thing he wanted was to be captured by the Soviets.

    Regards
    Tom
     
  14. belasar

    belasar Junior Member

    Considering they were found twenty years later the "glass" might have been nothing more than general debris found in what would have been a compacted hasty grave. But then again no one checked on them after the tank was struck, so poison to prevent capture is reasonable as well.
     
  15. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    Very few personnel involved in the Breakout actually made it to the west, actually I dont think any of them did. Whilst his supposed whereabouts were the genesis of a number of books in the 70's, its now well known that Bormann never got out of Berlin. I think that the group he was in (No. 5 if I remember correctly) got off to a bad start and came under fire from the start from Soviets who had been alerted buy the previous group's departure. If you were to stand any chance of breaking out of the Bunker, the lead group was the one to be in, and that never reached safety either.
     
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  16. James S

    James S Very Senior Member

    Dead in Berlin and his body found and id'ed. cremated and ashes disposed off.
     
  17. Sheldrake

    Sheldrake All over the place....

    John Hughes Wilson gave an after dinner speech in which he put the case, supported by an article in the RUSI Journal by a 1990s Russian attache, that Bormann might have been a Soviet spy.
     
  18. L J

    L J Senior Member

    Gehlen said the same, but,he had the excuse of being gaga./an other excuse was that he wanted to sell more copies of his memoirs .
     
  19. Harry Ree

    Harry Ree Very Senior Member

  20. ltdan

    ltdan Nietenzähler

    Official results of the molecular genetic analysis:
    http://www.rechtsmedizin.med.uni-muenchen.de/service/downloads/2003_07_16_wissent_3.pdf
    Also see report from Dental analysis specialist Reidar Sognnaes:
    http://www.akfos.com/uploads/media/AKNL1999-02.pdf (P.22)
     

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