1946: Cruel Execution of Nazi Leaders in Nuremberg | History.info 1946: Cruel Execution of Nazi Leaders in Nuremberg Photo Credit To Story Highlights historical event: The executioner was John C. Woods, a sergeant in the U.S. Army, who is sometimes accused of having done a poor job. The rope was allegedly too short and the trapdoors too narrow, so that some of the hanged men suffered bloody wounds when they were dropped. Keitel's death was allegedly the longest – it supposedly took as long as 28 minutes. On this day the Nazi leaders were sentenced to death at the famous Nuremberg Trials. Of the 22 defendants, 12 were sentenced to death. However, Martin Bormann (Hitler’s personal secretary) was tried in absentia, while Luftwaffe commander Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering committed suicide before he was executed.

Those sentenced to death included: Wilhelm Keitel – Field marshal and chief of the Wehrmacht Supreme Command (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) Ernst Kaltenbrunner – SS-Obergruppenführer and chief of the Reich Main Security Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt) Joachim von Ribbentrop – Hitler’s Foreign Minister Alfred Jodl – Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command Arthur Seyss-Inquart – Imperial Commissioner for the occupied Netherlands (Reichskommissar) Hans Frank – Governor-General of a part of occupied Poland Wilhelm Frick – Hitler’s Minister of Interior Alfred Rosenberg – Minister for the occupied territories in the East Fritz Sauckel – Organizer of forced labor Julius Streicher – Publisher of the Nazi paper “Der Stürmer” The execution of the aforementioned 10 was performed in the Nuremberg Prison. The method was hanging. It is interesting that the “long drop” method wasn’t used, even though it is less painful (it snaps the person’s neck almost instantly thus causing instant death). Instead, the “standard drop” method was used, where the condemned drops only 1.2 to 1.8 meters.

The hanged Nazi leaders allegedly took a long time to die, some of them more than 25 minutes. Ribbentrop and Sauckel supposedly died after 14 minutes of agony, while Keitel’s death was the most painful – he took as long as 28 minutes to die. The executioner was John C. Woods, a sergeant in the U.S. Army, who is sometimes accused of having done a poor job. The rope was allegedly too short and the trapdoors too narrow, so that some of the hanged men suffered bloody wounds when they were dropped. However, Woods allegedly bragged about how he had done a good job, having executed all ten of them in 103 minutes. Facebook Comments Nuremberg trials begin This Day | History 31 On this day in 1945, 24 high-ranking Nazis go on trial before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany, for atrocities committed during World War II.The Nuremberg Trials were conducted by an international tribunal made up of judges from the United States, the Soviet Union, France, and Great Britain.

It was the first trial of its kind in history, and the defendants faced charges ranging from crimes against peace, to crimes of war, to crimes against humanity. Lord Justice Geoffrey Lawrence, the British member, presided over the proceedings, which lasted 10 months and consisted of 216 court sessions.On 1 October 1946, 12 architects of Nazi policy were sentenced to death. Seven others were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 years to life imprisonment, and three were acquitted. Of the original 24 defendants, one, Robert Ley, committed suicide on 25 October 1945 (before he was brought to trial), and another, Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach, was deemed mentally and physically incompetent to stand trial. Martin Bormann, Personal Secretary to Hitler, was not present at the trial.

Among those condemned to death by hanging were Joachim von Ribbentrop, Nazi minister of foreign affairs; Hermann Goering, leader of the Gestapo and the Luftwaffe; Alfred Jodl, head of the German armed forces staff; and Wilhelm Frick, Minister of the Interior.On 16 October, 10 of the architects of Nazi policy were hanged. Goering, who at sentencing was called the "leading war aggressor and creator of the oppressive programme against the Jews," committed suicide by poison on the eve of his scheduled execution. Nazi Party leader Martin Bormann was condemned to death in absentia (but is now believed to have died in May 1945). Trials of lesser German and Axis war criminals continued in Germany into the 1950s and resulted in the conviction of 5,025 other defendants and the execution of 806.The Nuremberg trials attracted academic controversy as it was seen by some as ‘victor’s justice’. Nonetheless, Nuremberg confirmed many incontrovertible principles of human rights, and a clearer idea emerged of what constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity that could not be derogated from even during times of war.

The trials also famously spawned the ‘Nuremberg defence’, wherein a defendant claims that he is absolved from blame because he was simply following orders issued by a superior. The court ruled that such a defence was not morally admissible. now playing The dead aren't always excused from trial The dead aren't always excused from trial JIM HEINTZ Share View photos FILE - This Wednesday Sept. 3, 2008 file photo shows the statue of Oliver Cromwell during a ceremony to mark the 350th anniversary of his death as Lord Protector of England in 1658, outside the Palace of Westminster, in central London. As a towering figure in 17th-century England, Cromwell attracted wide enmity _ signing the death warrant for King Charles I, taking harsh measures against Catholics and demonstrating brutal military brilliance. The resentment was such that although he never faced trial dead or alive, he did suffer a posthumous "execution." In 1661, after royalists returned to power, Cromwell's corpse was exhumed and decapitated, and his head was displayed on a pole for years.

(AP Photo/Lefteris Pitarakis, Pool, File) More MOSCOW (AP) — The tax-evasion conviction of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky more than three years after his death in a Russian prison was the first under a 2011 Russian law allowing posthumous trials, but not the first time the dead have been put on trial. The Russian law allows such trials under the principle that a dead defendant's relatives should have the opportunity to seek to clear the departed's name — an echo of the Soviet practice of "rehabilitating" those executed for political crimes or who died in labor camps. Cases in other countries have had different pretexts. Here's a look at other posthumous trials and actions. POPE FORMOSUS This was a grisly case in which the accused pope's corpse was put on the stand in the so-called Cadaver Synod of 897. The Catholic cleric had long been involved in internecine church disputes and jockeying for power. One of his predecessors, John VII, accused him of conspiring with others to take the papacy and of trying to become bishop of Bulgaria even though he already held another bishopric.

Formosus eventually was elected pope in 891 and served until his death in 896, but the previous quarrels had festered. His successor revived the charges and ordered that Formosus' corpse be exhumed and brought to the papal court for judgment. Formosus was found guilty of perjury and violating canon law; some accounts say three fingers of his right hand, which were used in consecration, were cut off. Two subsequent popes annulled the Cadaver Synod, but Pope Sergius III reaffirmed the conviction. JOAN OF ARC The teenage French peasant girl who claimed divine guidance and led the French army to victories in the Hundred Years War was tried for heresy and burned at the stake in 1431. But a quarter-century later, Pope Callixtus III ordered a new trial after requests by Joan's mother and a French official. The proceedings described her as a martyr and said she was falsely convicted. She was canonized as a saint in 1920.

OLIVER CROMWELL As a towering figure in 17th-century England, Cromwell attracted wide enmity — signing the death warrant for King Charles I, taking harsh measures against Catholics and demonstrating brutal military brilliance. The resentment was such that although he never faced trial dead or alive, he did suffer a posthumous "execution." In 1661, after royalists returned to power, Cromwell's corpse was exhumed and decapitated, and his head was displayed on a pole for years. MARTIN BORMANN Bormann, the personal secretary to Adolf Hitler, was tried in absentia at the Nuremberg tribunal and sentenced to death — which in the end proved to be superfluous. At the time of the 1946 trial, the whereabouts of the powerful Nazi official were unknown — and for decades after the war he was considered one of the most-wanted Nazi war criminals. In 1972, during construction work in downtown Berlin, bones were unearthed that were identified as having belonged to Bormann through dental records.

The location fit with an account that Bormann had committed suicide to avoid falling into enemy hands as he attempted to flee Berlin in the final days of the war in May 1945. But rumors persisted that Bormann had found his way to South America until DNA tests done in 1998 conclusively proved that the remains in Berlin were those of Bormann. Reblog h2g2 - The Leaders of the Nazi Party - Edited Entry The Leaders of the Nazi Party Content from the guide to life, the universe and everything The Leaders of the Nazi Party Created We shall go down in history as the greatest statesmen of all time, or as the greatest criminals. – Last words of Dr Paul Josef Goebbels When people hear the word 'Nazi', they immediately think of a man considered to be one of the most evil men in the history: Adolf Hitler. However, some historians 1 have now found evidence suggesting Hitler was little more than a lazy 'Bohemian Corporal' 2 who simply steered the party with ill-defined plans, and no firm goals.

With a leader whose expertise lay in speeches and inspiring his people, the running of the party fell to a group of men trying to out-do each other to please the Führer. These were the true power behind the Nazi Regime and each of them deserves to be remembered as the criminals that they were. Göring (1893-1946) Economics Minister, Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe Hermann Göring was seen by all as the second most powerful Nazi in the Third Reich, behind only the Führer himself in terms of standing and influence. Born in 1893 to a wealthy Bavarian family, Göring first came to the attention of the world as a decorated fighter pilot in the Great War of 1914-18. Like many young men disillusioned with Germany's capitulation in World War One , he joined the fledgling Nazi Party in 1922, and was wounded in their abortive Putsch 3 in the city of Munich in 1923. His rise to power afterwards was meteoric.

In 1928 he was elected to the Reichstag 4 as one of the three original Nazi ministers, before becoming its presiding officer in 1932. As Minister without Portfolio, Prussian Minister and Interior Minister, Göring not only used his breeding to ally the landed elite to the Nazi cause, but organised the first of the horrific 'terrors' which would define Nazi Rule. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Göring was instrumental in the removal of political opposition such as the Communists to 'work camps' such as Dachau. Then, in 1934 he organised the 'Night of the Long Knives' which destroyed the power-hungry SA 5 . Göring's power reached its zenith in 1939 when he was named as Hitler's successor, but after his Luftwaffe failed to win the Battle of Britain , and then failed to stop heavy bombing of German cities by the Allies, he fell from grace. At the Nuremburg trials in 1946, Göring was found guilty of all the charges put before him and was sentenced to death. However he took cyanide the day before his execution and cheated the hangman.

His body was later burnt in one of the ovens at Dachau. Hess (1894-1987) Deputy Führer Rudolph Hess served as Hitler's personal secretary, and his life and that of the Führer became closely intertwined. They served together in the same regiment during the First World War, and whilst Hitler would go on to try his hand first with the Communist party, and then with the Nazis, Hess joined the Freikorps 6 . Hess and Hitler were reunited shortly before the Munich Putsch, and were imprisoned together afterwards where the sycophantic Hess helped Hitler to write his book Mein Kampf, and is often credited with developing the concept of Lebensraum 7 . In 1925 Hess was appointed secretary of a re-organised Nazi Party and then in 1933 became Deputy Führer, and third in line to the Nazi Leadership. However, as Germany went to war in 1939, he became eclipsed by the more intelligent and ruthless Martin Bormann.

In a last-ditch attempt to regain Hitler's favour, Hess flew to Scotland on 10 May, 1941, to try and broker a peace between Germany and Britain, as he could see no conflict between German expansion in the East, and British Imperial interests. Unsurprisingly he was captured and imprisoned. At Nuremburg Hess maintained that Hitler was Germany's 'greatest son' and earned himself life imprisonment in Spandau Prison where he was the only inmate for 21 years. In 1987, the last surviving Nazi leader hung himself with a heater cable. Goebbels (1897-1945) Reich Propaganda Minister, President of the Reich Chamber of Culture, Director of Reich Propaganda Central Office of NSDAP, General Plenipotentiary for the Mobilisation of Total War The personality cult which deified the Führer was the work of one man: Dr Paul Josef Goebbels. Born to poor working class parents in Germany's Rhineland region, Goebbels was crippled in his leg by polio, leaving him embittered with the world at large and dangerously cynical.

As his disability left him unable to fight in the war, Goebbels was the best educated of all the Nazi leaders becoming a doctor of philology 8 in 1921, before joining the NSDAP (National Socialist German Worker's Party). Under the influence of Gregor Strasser, Goebbels clashed with the 'bourgeois' Hitler and demanded he be expelled from the party, before changing sides and being rewarded by being made the Gauleiter of Berlin. After founding the Nazi newspaper Der Angriff, Goebbels became the head of Propaganda as the Nazis gained seats in the Reichstag. After being elected to the German parliament, Goebbels started work on his most ambitious project; creating a 'cult of the Führer' and establishing one single public opinion: his. Goebbels was a rabid anti-semite and would often make public speeches aimed at rousing the 'Aryan race' into acts of violence against Germany's population of Jews.

In November 1938, acting on the perceived wishes of Hitler, Goebbels penned the order for the opening chapter in what would eventually become the Holocaust: an organised night of violence against Jews which became to be known as Kristallnacht 9 due to the shattered glass from windows of Jewish homes, synagogues and shops littering the streets of Germany. An obvious hypocrite, Goebbels was criticised by many within the party, who referred to him as 'the little mouse doctor', specifically with his chief rival for Hitler's eye, Herman Göring. His decadent lifestyle was in stark contrast to his speeches on the importance of the family and the simple life, and this brought him into conflict with Hitler when he publicly had an affair with the Slavic actress Lida Baarova. After the total mobilisation of the German people failed to stop the inexorable advance of the Red Army reaching Berlin, Goebbels persuaded Hitler to end his life rather than fall into Russian hands before poisoning his children, shooting his wife and finally committing suicide as the Soviet forces reached the Reich Chancellery.

Bormann (1900-1945) Chief of Staff to Rudolph Hess, Secretary to Adolf Hitler Martin Bormann was the most able administrator in the Nazi regime. In the confusion of overlapping offices and contradictory orders from above he was able to take control of the party whilst Hitler controlled the war. Bormann was a school dropout and the son of a civil servant who fought in the closing battles of World War One before joining the Freikorps and then the Nazis. As Gauleiter of Thuringia he caught Hess's eye before replacing him as Hitler's secretary after Hess's ill advised mission to Britain. By controlling the Führer's appointments, Bormann gained tremendous power, which he used to indulge Hitler's more fanatical side by attacking the church and pushing forward the Holocaust. As the Nazi hierarchy either surrendered or committed suicide in the face of the advancing enemy, Bormann disappeared. After being sentenced to death in absentia at Nuremburg, Bormann's final fate remained a mystery until 1973 when bones later confirmed to be his were discovered in the German capital.

Himmler (1900-1945) Head of German Police, Reichsführer SS, Interior Minister, Reich Commissioner for Strengthening of German Nationhood, Commander of the Reserve Army Heinrich Himmler was described by the historian Noakes as 'a bizarre combination of naive crank, pedantic schoolmaster and coldly efficient bureaucrat' and it was this skill in bureaucracy which allowed him to rise in power as head of the SS 10 . The son of a teacher, Himmler came of age only as the Great War ended in 1918 and as such never saw any action. Bitter at the defeat he was powerless to affect, he joined the Nazi party after failing to be successful as a poultry farmer. As he steadily rose in power, first becoming Chief of German police before taking control of the regular and secret police, the Waffen-SS 11 and the reserve army. Himmler's mental state was questionable, and he suffered many psychiatric illnesses caused by overwork and mental trauma.

Himmler was obsessed with the Aryan race, and it was he who penned the 'Final Solution to the Jewish Problem.' Under his orders, millions of European Jews met their deaths in the concentration camps of Poland, or were worked to death labouring on the 'Vengeance Weapon' projects and arms for the Wehrmacht. Himmler also set up the Lebensborn clinics, designed to breed the Aryan race by allowing off-duty SS troops to impregnate any 'pure' woman at the clinic. As the Allies and Soviets closed in on Berlin, Himmler attempted to negotiate an armistice and preserve the Nazi state. All this accomplished however was his dismissal by Hitler, once his benefactor, for treachery and defeatism. Although Himmler was captured by advancing Allied forces, a cyanide capsule meant that one of the greatest criminals in the history of mankind would never be tried for his crimes. Dönitz (1891-1980) Admiral of the German Navy, second Führer of the Third Reich Karl Dönitz served in the German Navy as a U-boat commander during World War One.

As such, when Hitler came to power in the 1930s it fell to the experienced Naval Officer to rebuild Germany's fleet of U-Boats which had been prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles, before becoming Commander-in-Chief of the U-Boat fleet in 1936. Throughout WWII, Dönitz organised the U-boat campaign against Britain, sinking millions of tonnes of Allied shipping in an attempt to starve the British Isles. In 1943, Dönitz replaced Admiral Erich Räder as Commander-in-Chief of the Kriegsmarine and became overall commander of Germany's navy both on the surface of the waves and below them. After the attempt on Hitler's life in July 1944, he swore a personal oath of loyalty to the Führer and promised that the navy would protect him to the last. On 2 May, 1945, two days after Hitler's suicide in Berlin, Dönitz was named as his successor and formed a government in the town of Kiel. This government lasted less than a week as it was dissolved by the Allies after Dönitz's unconditional surrender of Germany was accepted on what would become known as VE Day.

At Nuremberg, Dönitz was found guilty of war crimes on the high seas and sentenced to ten years imprisonment. His memoirs were published shortly after his release, and he remained an unrepentant Nazi until his death. Speer (1905-1981) Architect, Minister for Armaments and War Production Albert Speer joined the fledgeling Nazi party in 1931, and became a close friend of Adolf Hitler, who was said to admire the handsome young architect, and saw his designs as expressions of the principles of National Socialism. As such, it fell to Speer to design some of the most famous of the Nazi landmarks, such as the magnificent stadiums at Nuremberg 12 where the party's massive torchlight rallies were held. He impressed the Nazi leader so much that after Fritz Todt died in a plane crash in 1942, Speer was chosen to replace him as the minister in charge of armaments production. After the Wannsee Conference on the 'Jewish Problem' Speer was instructed to work out the logistics for the 'Final Solution' making him a key player in the Holocaust.

Speer was also known to make use of Jewish and Slavic slave labour in the construction of his buildings. The young minister, described by Hitler as the 'best of them all' was one of the first to see the war was not proceeding well, and confided in Goebbels that the war effort was doomed as early as November 1944. He later angered Hitler himself by refusing to carry out 'Scorched Earth' tactics against the oncoming armies of the Western Allies and the Soviet Union. At the Nuremberg trials, Speer was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment at Spandau Prison for War Crimes, despite his repentance. In 1966 Speer was (along with Hitler Youth leader Baldur von Schirach) one of the last people to be released from Spandau Prison, leaving only Rudolf Hess incarcerated. Speer then took up residence in the Allgäu region of Western Bavaria and wrote a number of books on the Nazi Party. Whilst visiting London to be interviewed by the BBC, Speer died from a cerebral haemorrhage in September 1981, 42 years after the Nazi invasion of Poland triggered the Second World War.

1 Such as the eminent historian Ian Kershaw in his 1985 book The Hitler Myth. 2 Rarely rising until two or three pm, even at the height of World War Two. 3 A German word used to describe an attempt to take power by force. 4 German parliament. 5 Precursors to the SS, and Nazi 'footsoldiers'. 6 As Germany's army was limited after WW1, militia regiments, or Freikorps were raised to bolster her military strength. 7 'Living Space' for the Aryan people in the East at the expense of the 'inferior' Slavic people. 8 The science of language. 9 The night of broken glass. 10 Schutz Staffel - the German secret police. 11 Military arm of the SS. 12 Made famous in the director Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda film, Triumph of the Will. Nazi Martin Bormann - From The Nazi Germany Archives Martin Bormann Martin Bormann. Martin Bormann (June 17, 1900-May 2, 1945?) was a prominent Nazi official.

He became head of the Party Chancellery (Parteikanzlei) and private secretary to German Fï¿½hrer Adolf Hitler. He gained Hitler's trust and derived immense power within the Third Reich by controlling access to the Fï¿½hrer. Early life and family Bormann, born in Wegeleben (near Halberstadt) in the German Empire, was the son of post office employee Theodor Bormann (1862-1903) and his second wife, Antonie Bernhardine Mennong. He had two half-siblings (Else and Walter Bormann) from his father's first marriage to Louise Grobler, who had died in 1898. Later that year, Theodor Bormann married Antonie. She gave birth to three sons, one of whom died in infancy. Martin and Albert (born 1902) survived to adulthood. Bormann dropped out of school to work on a farm in Mecklenburg.

After serving briefly with an artillery regiment at the end of World War I - which never saw combat - Bormann became an estate manager in Mecklenburg, which brought him into contact with the Freikorps residing on the estate. He became involved in their activities, mostly assassinations and the intimidation of trade union organisers. In March 1924, he was sentenced to a year in prison as an accomplice to his friend Rudolf Hï¿½ss in the murder of Walther Kadow, who may have betrayed Albert Leo Schlageter to the French during the occupation of the Ruhr District. On September 2, 1929, Bormann married 19-year-old Gerda Buch, whose father, Major Walter Buch, served as a chairman of the Nazi Party Court. Bormann had recently met Hitler, who agreed to serve as a witness at their wedding. Over the years, Gerda Bormann gave birth to ten children; one daughter died shortly after birth.

The children of Martin and Gerda Bormann were: Adolf Martin Bormann (born April 14, 1930; called Krï¿½nzi; named after his godfather Hitler) Ilse Bormann (born July 9, 1931; twin sister Ehrengard died after the birth; named after her godmother Ilse Hess) Irmgard Bormann (born July 25, 1933) Rudolf Gerhard Bormann (born August 31, 1934; named after his godfather Rudolf Hess) Heinrich Hugo Bormann (born June 13, 1936; named after his godfather Heinrich Himmler) Eva Ute Bormann (born August 4, 1938) Gerda Bormann (born October 23, 1940) Fred Hartmut Bormann (born March 4, 1942) Volker Bormann (born September 18, 1943) Gerda Bormann suffered from cancer in her later years, and died of mercury poisoning on March 23,

 1946, in Merano, {{Italy]].

All of Bormann's children survived the war. Most were cared for anonymously in foster homes. His oldest son Martin was Hitler's godson. He was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1953, but left the priesthood in the late 1960s. He married an ex-nun in 1971 and became a teacher of theology. Rise through the Nazi party A good overview of Bormann's career in the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) can be found in Trevor-Roper's "Last Days of Hitler". In 1925, after his release from prison, Bormann joined the NSDAP in Thuringia. He became the party's regional press officer and business manager in 1928. Reich Leader and Head of the Party Chancellery In October 1933, Bormann became a Reich Leader (Reichsleiter) of the NSDAP, and in November, a member of the Reichstag. From July 1933 until 1941, Bormann served as the personal secretary for Rudolf Hess. Bormann commissioned the building of the Kehlsteinhaus.

The Kehlsteinhaus was formally presented to Hitler in 1939, after 13 months of expensive construction. In May 1941, the flight of Hess to Britain cleared the way for Bormann to become Head of the Party Chancellery (Parteikanzlei) that same month. Bormann proved to be a master of intricate political infighting. He developed and administered the Adolf Hitler Endowment Fund of German Industry, a huge fund of voluntary contributions made by successful entrepreneurs. Bormann re-allocated these funds as gifts to almost all of the party leadership. Bormann took charge of all Hitler's paperwork, appointments, and personal finances. Hitler came to have complete trust in Bormann and the view of reality he presented. During a meeting, Hitler was said to have screamed, "To win this war, I need Bormann!". Many historians have suggested Bormann held so much power that, in some respects, he became Germany's "secret leader" during the war.

A collection of transcripts edited by Bormann during the war appeared in print in 1951 as Hitler's Table Talk 1941-1944, mostly a re-telling of Hitler's wartime dinner conversations. The accuracy of the Table Talk is highly disputed, as it directly contradicts many of Hitler's publicly held positions, particularly in regards to religious adherence. The Table Talk is the only original source to claim that Hitler was an atheist. While Hitler's true religious feelings are unknown, Bormann was one of the few vocal atheists in the Nazi leadership. Bormann's bureaucratic power and effective reach broadened considerably by 1942. Faced with the imminent demise of the Third Reich, he systematically went about the organising of German corporate flight capital, and set up off-shore holding companies and business interests in close coordination with the same Ruhr industrialists and German bankers who facilitated Hitler's explosive rise to power 10 years before.

(See Ratlines) At the Nuremberg trials, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the Reich Commissioner for The Netherlands, testified that he had called Bormann to confirm an order to deport the Dutch Jews to Auschwitz, and further testified that Bormann passed along Hitler's orders for the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust. A telephone conversation between Bormann and Heinrich Himmler was overheard by telephone operators during which Himmler reported to Bormann about the extermination of the Jews in Poland. Himmler was sharply rebuked for using the word "exterminated" rather than the codeword "resettled," and Bormann ordered the apologetic Himmler never again to report on this by phone but through SS couriers. Berlin Bormann, his adjutant, SS-Standartenfï¿½hrer Wilhelm Zander, and his secretary, Else Krï¿½ger, were with German dictator Adolf Hitler in the Fï¿½hrer's shelter (Fï¿½hrerbunker) during the Battle for Berlin.

The Fï¿½hrerbunker was located under the Reich Chancellery (Reichskanzlei) in the center of Berlin. On 28 April, Borman wired the following mesage to German Admiral Karl Dï¿½nitz: "Situation very serious . . . Those ordered to rescue the Fï¿½hrer are keeping silent . . . Disloyalty seems to gain the upper hand everywhere . . . Reichskanzlei a heap of rubble." At 04:00 on 29 April 1945, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Joseph Goebbels, Hans Krebs, and Bormann witnessed and signed Hitler's last will and testament. Hitler dictated this document to his personal private secretary, Traudl Junge. Borman was Head of the Party Chancellery (Parteikanzlei) and was also the private secretary to Hitler. Shortly before the signing the last will and testament, Hitler married Eva Braun in a civil ceremony. As the Soviet forces continued to fight their way into the center of Berlin. Hitler and Braun then committed suicide during the afternoon of the 30 April. Braun committed suicide by taking cyanide and Hitler by shooting himself.

Per instructions, their bodies were taken to the garden and burned. In accordance with Hitler's last will and testament, Joseph Goebbels, the Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, became the new "Head of Government" and Chancellor of Germany (Reichskanzler). At 03:15 on 1 May, Reichskanzler Goebbels and Bormann sent a radio message to Dï¿½nitz informing him of Hitler's death. Per Hitler's last wishes, Dï¿½nitz was appointed as the new "President of Germany" (Reichsprï¿½sident). Goebbels committed suicide later that same day. On 2 May, the Battle of Berlin ended when General of the Artillery Helmuth Weidling, the commander of the Berlin Defence Area, unconditionally surrendered the city to General Vasily Chuikov, the commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army. It is generally agreed that, by this day, Bormann had left the Fï¿½hrerbunker. It has been claimed that he left with Ludwig Stumpfegger and Artur Axmann as part of a group attempting to break out of the city.

Death, rumours, remains, and disputes There is some evidence that Bormann died in the closing days of the war, but his fate has been the source of much speculation since that time. Axmann's account of Bormann's death As World War II came to a close, Bormann held out with Hitler in the Fï¿½hrerbunker in Berlin. On 30 April 1945, just before committing suicide, Hitler urged Bormann to save himself. On 1 May, Bormann left the Fï¿½hrerbunker with SS doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger and Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann as part of a group attempting to break out of the Soviet encirclement. They emerged from an underground subway tunnel and quickly became disoriented among the ruins and ongoing battle. They walked for a time with some German tanks, but all three were temporarily stunned by an exploding anti-tank shell. Leaving the tanks and the rest of their group, they walked along railroad tracks to Lehrter station where Axmann decided to go alone in the opposite direction of his two companions.

When he encountered a Red Army patrol, Axmann doubled back and later insisted he had seen the bodies of Bormann and Stumpfegger near the railroad switching yard with moonlight clearly illuminating their faces. He assumed they had been shot in the back. Tried at Nuremberg in absentia During the chaotic closing days of the war, there were contradictory reports as to Bormann's whereabouts. For example, Jakob Glas, Bormann's long-time chauffeur, insisted he saw Bormann in Munich weeks after 1 May 1945. The bodies were not found, and a global search followed including extensive efforts in South America. With no evidence sufficient to confirm Bormann's death, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg tried Bormann in absentia in October 1946 and sentenced him to death. His court-appointed defence attorney used the unusual and unsuccessful defence that the court could not convict Bormann because he was already dead. In 1965, a retired postal worker named Albert Krumnow stated that he had personally buried the bodies of Bormann and Stumpfegger.

Two decades of unconfirmed sightings Unconfirmed sightings of Bormann were reported globally for two decades, particularly in Europe, Paraguay, and elsewhere in South America. Some rumours claimed that Bormann had plastic surgery while on the run. At a 1967 press conference, Simon Wiesenthal asserted there was strong evidence that Bormann was alive and well in South America. Writer Ladislas Farago's widely-known 1974 book Aftermath: Martin Bormann and the Fourth Reich argued that Bormann had survived the war and lived in Argentina. Farago's evidence, which drew heavily on official governmental documents, was compelling enough to persuade Dr. Robert M. W. Kempner (a lawyer at the Nuremberg Trials) to briefly re-open an active investigation in 1972, but Farago's claims were generally rejected by historians and critics. Allegations that Bormann and his organization survived the war figure prominently in the work of David Emory.

Axmann's account gains support Axmann and Krumnow's accounts were bolstered in late 1972 when construction workers uncovered human remains near the Lehrter Bahnhof in West Berlin just 12 meters from the spot where Krumnow claimed he had buried them. Dental records - reconstructed from memory in 1945 by Dr. Hugo Blaschke - identified the skeleton as Bormann's, and damage to the collarbone was consistent with injuries Bormann's sons reported he had sustained in a riding accident in 1939. Fragments of glass in the jawbones of both skeletons indicated that Bormann and Stumpfegger had committed suicide by biting cyanide capsules in order to avoid capture. Soon after, in a press conference held by the West German government, Bormann was declared dead, a statement condemned by London's Daily Express as a whitewash perpetrated by the Brandt government.

West German diplomatic functionaries were given the official instruction: "If anyone is arrested on suspicion that he is Bormann we will be dealing with an innocent man." In 1998, a test identified the skull as that of Bormann, using DNA from an unnamed 83-year-old relative. Continuing controversy Some controversy continued, however. For example, Hugh Thomas' 1995 book Doppelgangers claimed there were forensic inconsistencies suggesting Bormann died later than 1945. According to this work and the very controversial The Nazi Hydra in America: Wall Street and the Rise of the Fourth Reich by Glen Yeadon, there were not only significant forensic inconsistencies with Bormann's having died in 1945, but there were also a very many credible sightings of Bormann in South America well in to the 1960's.

The forensic inconsistencies included the following: 1) A certain type of volcanic red clay that was found caked on much of the skull, which suggested that the skull had been dug up and moved since that type of soil doesn't exist in the ground in Berlin, but is instead largely found in Paraguay (which is where several of the Bormann sightings were reported to have occurred). 2) Record of dental work. Although Bormann's dental records dating back to 1945 matched dental work done on that skull, there was also other, more recently performed dental work that didn't show up on the 1945 dental records, but appeared to exist in addition to all of the other dental work that matched exactly the 1945 records. 3) The position and condition of the teeth in the skull indicated that the skull belonged to someone of a more advanced age then Bormann's almost 45 years at the time of his supposed 1945 death. Some cover-up theories have suggested that after the war Bormann had lived elsewhere and that the skull was planted back at the site after his death - and even doctored with the glass shards in a cover-up attempt.

Such explanations also suggest that he was buried elsewhere with no casket and later exhumed as part of some elaborate plan to make the decayed skull look appropriate for rediscovery in Berlin. These cover-up explanation provide as a motive that Bormann would want to have gone into hiding and cover-up his supposed Soviet spying activities. Soviet spy or agent In his 2000 book, Hitler's Traitor: Martin Bormann and the Defeat of the Reich, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Louis Kilzer makes the case that Bormann was the elusive Soviet spy "Werther." According to Reinhard Gehlen's 1972 autobiography, The Service, Bormann was a Soviet agent throughout World War II. References in popular culture Legendary softcore film director Russ Meyer used character actor Henry Rowland in four of his films to portray Bormann including Beyond the Valley of the Dolls where Bormann is stabbed to death by a transsexual while dressed in full Nazi regalia. Supervixens (1975) and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979) feature Boorman as a gas station owner and small town Lothario respectively and in UP!

(1978) where only his voice is heard coming from a mental institution where he is locked up with a recently castrated Adolf Schwartz aka Hitler. Bormann's photo is shown in the 1971 film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory and is identified as a man in South America who is the winner of the last golden ticket, a ticket that is later determined to be a forgery. In the Mel Brooks movie To Be Or Not To Be Brooks, playing Adolf Hitler, refers to Bormann singing "So I said to Martin Boorman, I said, hey Marty, why don't we throw a little nazi party?". In the Philip K. Dick science fiction novel The Man in the High Castle, Bormann is the current leader of Germany. In Don Rosa's comics series The Pertwillaby Papers (first published in 1970s, published in book form 2001, by Gazette Bok, Oslo), Bormann was in charge of hiding the art treasures the Nazis had stolen from around the Europe; he is eventually found, frozen to death, on the North Pole.

In the Soviet miniseries Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973), Bormann is portrayed to play a key role in Nazi's purported separate peace talks with Western leaders, and concealing the 'party gold' after the defeat of the Nazis. In Torgny Lindgren's Hash (Pï¿½lsan) (2002) (), Bormann escapes to Sweden and attempts to integrate into the local environment of a small village. He engages school teacher Lars in the quest of finding the world's best "hash" (the translator's attempt at finding a word for Swedish "pï¿½lsa", a real and non-drug-related dish). In Kinshasa, Zaire, while covering the 1975 Rumble in the Jungle between Mohammad Ali and George Foreman for Rolling Stone magazine, Hunter S.

Thompson had the hotel bellhop page "Martin Bormann." When Thompson left Zaire, he took with him a pair of elephant tusks that he had paid for with a traveller's check signed "Martin Bormann." In Takao Saito's manga series Golgo 13, the Israeli government hires Golgo 13 to rescue a Mossad agent and eliminate Neo-Nazis operating in Argentina under the leadership of Nazi war criminal Martin Bormann. Blue ï¿½yster Cult recorded a track called Boorman the chauffer, which appears on the re-release of the 1974 Secret Treaties album. Monty Python recorded a one-off show for German TV in 1972 called Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus, which included several sketches about the Olympic Games. One of these sketches includes a sprinter in a starting line-up who is described as "Bormann of Brazil." This sketch subsequently reappeared in the 1982 concert movie Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl.

Bormann, played by actor James Jeter, is shown as the bass player on the Sex Pistols' 1979 song The Biggest Blow (A Punk Prayer) in both the movie The Great Rock and Roll Swindle and on the single's picture sleeve. The single was recorded in Brazil with Ronnie Biggs on lead vocals, which presumably tied in with many post-war reports of Bormann's whereabouts in South America. In 1987, Manchester group The Fall released a single with the song "Haf Found Bormann" as the B-side. Martin Bormann was impersonated twice in the episode "The Legend" of the 1966 TV show Mission Impossible. First by a mannequin being used by a Nazi to resurrect Nazism in Germany and then by Martin Landau in the character of "Master of Disguise" Rollin Hand to discredit the Nazi."The Legend". Martin Landau. Mission: Impossible. CBS. February 11, 1967. No. 20, season 1. 50 minutes in.

In the 2005 Rebellion Developments game Sniper Elite, the player is tasked to kill Bormann to prevent him from surrendering himself to Soviet agents. Thomas Thieme portrayed Bormann in the 2004 German movie Der Untergang about the last days of Hitler's life. Jack Higgins wrote three novels in which Martin Bormann is featured: The Valhalla Exchange (1976), Thunder Point (1993), and The Bormann Testament (2006). Martin Bormann is featured in the Colin Forbes novel "The Leader and the Damned" as a Russian spy In a 'Timequake' story from the British science fiction comic Starlord, Bormann murders and then assumes the identity of a soldier who has traveled back in time to Berlin in 1945 to study the city under siege. Bormann successfully infiltrates the organisation of Time Control and changes the outcome of WWII, placing himself as the Reich's new Fï¿½hrer. In the anime series Blood+, he is seen only once in episode 12 as one of Diva's chevaliers. It was believed he was killed later on.

Print Version Martin Bormann - Wikispooks Martin Bormann 30 April 1945 - 2 May 1945 Contents 5 References Official narrative The official narrative has it that Martin Bormann died whilst trying to escape the encirclement of Berlin by the Red Army on 30 April 1945. It rests largely on the testimony of Arthur Axeman , leader of the Hitler Youth and one of his companions on the break out attempt. He later claimed that he found Bormann's body after they went in separate directions and he was forced to double-back by a Red Army patrol. Soviet Lt. General Konstantin Telegin recalls his men bringing him Bormann's diary. There were persistent reports of sightings from Munich to various South American locations over subsequent decades.

In 1998 genetic tests on a skull by the German authorities apparently confirmed it was that of Martin Bormann.[ citation needed ] John Ainsworth Davis' suggestion that Bormann survived In 1997 former wartime COPP commando John Ainsworth-Davis , under the pen-name Christopher Creighton, published Op JB, his account of a supposed allied raid into Berlin to snatch Bormann. [1] The alleged top secret MI6 operation was carried out, he says, with the knowledge and approval of only King George VI , Winston Churchill , Ian Fleming , Lord Louis Mountbatten and Desmond Morton . The book contains facsimiles of typed letters from Winston Churchill and Ian Fleming supporting Ainsworth-Davis' story. John says a 'double' of Bormann was taken with them on the raid who'd had dental surgery so that he would match the real Bormann.

In an interview with Buenos Aires based British journalist Laurence De Mello Ainsworth-Davis says, "We took Bormann out, and the other chap was blown to pieces." [2] Nuremberg trial in absentia That the official narrative that Martin Bormann died in Berlin at the end of the war took some time to become established can be gauged from the fact that in October 1946 the Nuremberg trials sentenced Bormann to death in absentia. [3] Sightings Since 1945, there were persistent sightings of Bormann. [3] Nuremberg Prosecutor Nuremberg Prosecutor Brigadier General Telford Taylor was also the author of a series of important books on the war and its aftermath. By Blaine Taylor On March 23, 1991, at a reunion of the postwar Nuremberg International Military Tribunal staffers in Washington, I had occasion to meet the former American prosecutor, Brigadier General Telford Taylor. On May 23, 1998, the general died in New York at age 90 after suffering a series of strokes.

The many plots to assassinate the madman responsible for the death of millions... Get your copy of Warfare History Network’s FREE Special Report, Killing Adolf Hitler “A Man of Integrity” In his New York Times obituary, Taylor’s friend Jonathan Bush, a professor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, recalled, “He’ll be remembered as a chief Nuremberg prosecutor, but also more as a giant of American liberalism and a man of integrity.” At the close of World War II, Taylor was a U.S. Army officer promoted to brigadier general as a top assistant prosecutor at the International Military Tribunal, when the four member nations, the United States, France, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union, put 21 Nazi leaders on trial at Nuremberg’s Palace of Justice. Starting on November 21, 1945, the tribunal included the missing Martin Bormann, Adolf Hitler’s personal secretary, who was tried in absentia along with the others, all for war crimes and crimes against humanity. After 10 months of courtroom activity, 19 were convicted, two were acquitted, and a dozen of those convicted were sentenced to death by hanging.

Seven other defendants received varying prison terms as sentences. Reich Marshal Hermann Göring, the ranking officer of either side in the war, committed suicide in his maximum security cell just hours before his scheduled hanging. After the initial trial, a dozen subsequent trials took place and at these General Taylor became chief prosecutor for the U.S. team against 200 more top Nazis, and he won 150 convictions on the charges against them. In 1947, the general stated, “The crimes of these men were not committed in rage, nor under the stress of sudden temptation. One does not build a stupendous war machine in a fit of passion, nor an Auschwitz slave factory during a passing spasm of brutality.” This scene of the secretarial pool of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg reflects the massive amount of paper generated by the proceedings during which numerous formerly high ranging Nazis were convicted of war crimes. Several were sentenced to death and hanged in October 1946.

“The Laws of War are not a One Way Street” The trials proceeded despite differing Allied opinions on procedures, the absence of legal precedents, and the question of whether it was right for the victors in the war to try the losers —something that, indeed, the Nazis themselves never did of their defeated foes. It was the very same argument that had also been raised after the end of World War I, when the victorious Allies demanded the extradition of the former Kaiser Wilhelm II of Imperial Germany and the top defeated German generals, among them Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg and Quartermaster General Erich Ludendorff. Both the governments of the Netherlands, where the former German emperor was living in political sanctuary, and the Weimar Republic of Germany refused these extradition demands. In 1945, the situation was different as armies from both East and West had overrun the defeated Third Reich. Thus, the accused war criminals were already in Allied hands and ready to be tried for their prewar and wartime deeds. After all four years of trials were concluded, Taylor asserted that they had been a success, but he suggested that any future war crimes trial must look at the actions of the winners as well as those of the losers.

That has yet to happen in the intervening 60 plus years; nor is it likely to. “The laws of war are not a one way street,” Taylor asserted, a view he repeated as a law professor with his book Nuremberg and Vietnam in 1970. From this conflict emerged the trial of American Army Lieutenant William Calley and Captain Ernest Medina for crimes committed against South Vietnamese civilians at the village of My Lai in then South Vietnam. Of his book in 1995, The Nation, a well-known weekly journal, stated, “The human rights movement owes much of its legal foundation to the work of Gen. Telford Taylor… Nuremberg gave legitimacy to the concept that the world had something to say about how governments treat their own citizens. In 1950, the United Nations codified Nuremberg’s most important statements into the seven Nuremberg Principles, which have since been adopted by the legal systems of almost every other nation.” Post-War Life During the 1950s, General Taylor, back in civilian life, spoke out against U.S. Senator Joseph R.

McCarthy’s (R–Wisconsin) anti-communist activities and defended some of those targeted by McCarthy. He also worked to help Jews who were imprisoned in the Soviet Union. Dealing with the Soviets had been a thorny issue during the International Military Tribunal of 1945-1946, when the defense of Hitler’s foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, accused the Soviets, as signatories to Josef Stalin’s pact with the Nazis of 1939, of having thus participated in the rape of Poland, no less than the Nazis who were in the dock of the accused. The former general was also a professor emeritus at New York’s Columbia University School of Law and a visiting professor at both Harvard and Yale law schools and was associated with Cardozo Bet Tzedek Legal Services in New York.

Taylor’s books included the following works: Sword and Swastika: Generals and Nazis in the Third Reich (1952), The March of Conquest: The German Victories in Western Europe, 1940 (1958), The Breaking Wave: The Second World War in the Summer of 1940 (1967), and The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials (1992). There was also Grand Inquest: The Story of Congressional Investigations. Long after General Taylor’s role at Nuremberg is forgotten, his work as a jurist may well be eclipsed by his efforts as a scribe on the war itself. The Sword and Swastika In Sword and Swastika, General Taylor wrote, “This is the story of the combination and clash of old and new forces in Germany at a recent and critical juncture. Old and honored were the German officer class and the hard military tradition that it embodied. New and irreverent was the revolutionary surge of lethal energy that swept Germany in the early thirties, carrying Hitler and the Nazis to power. The combination of these forces was the cornerstone of the Third Reich and its resurgent might.

The clash between them was the struggle for supreme power in Germany, and for control of the glittering military machine. “The interplay of these two drives—collaboration and conflict—was the warp and woof of the Third Reich’s prewar years…. “The protagonists in this apocalyptic drama were strangely matched, the one archaic and the other atavistic. On one side, the stark, tight-lipped galaxy of professional warriors, most of whom would have been more at home in the entourage of the 19th Century German emperors: von Bock, von Rundstedt, von Kleist, von Reichenau—the names throb in our ears like the beats of a heavy war drum. “On the other side, an incredible aggregation of demagogues, adventurers, misfits, and thugs; a veritable witches’ brew of genius and villainy: Hitler, Göring, Himmler, and Goebbels—we have no trouble recalling their features years after their deaths.

Whatever their faults, they were not lacking individuality.” General Taylor further noted, “Hitler and the officer corps each found in the other a dangerous, but necessary, vehicle for the attainment of goals which both shared; that mutual suspicions and irritations were submerged in a common design; that Hitler concealed but never neglected his purpose to bend the military to his will; that the power and traditional prestige of the generals survived Hitler’s subjection of all other groups in Germany which might have opposed him; that the officer corps thus emerged, involuntarily, as the last hope of those who sought to restore liberty and preserve peace; and finally, that the hope was betrayed, and Germany’s nightmare became Europe’s fate.” A gaunt Hermann Göring, former chief of the Nazi Luftwaffe, takes the witness stand during the Nuremberg trials. The March of Conquest In The March of Conquest, Taylor wrote, “At some time during the late spring of 1940, every American awoke not only to the fact of French defeat, but a chilling realization that Nazi Germany might well win the war! It was the end of an American era.

In 1814, 4,000 British regulars had captured and burned the national capital, but in 1940 few Americans and fewer British knew that such a thing had ever happened. A century and a quarter had elapsed since the times when the United States was seriously endangered by foreign military power. “National security was something that Americans took for granted, even after the brief involvement in World War I. Britain and France were friendly powers; one had the largest navy and the other ‘the finest army’ in the world. The United States ‘had never lost a war,’ and there seemed to be small chance that it would soon —perhaps ever—have to fight another. “Then these blue horizons were darkened by the ugly cloud of Nazism … Sober statesmen predicted a long and terrible war, but American faith in French military prowess was deep-rooted, and who wanted it shaken? The Maginot Line shielded the United States as well as France. “The Wehrmacht/Armed Forces struck, and in four weeks’ time, the French were crushed. Churchill was indomitable, but Britain was in dire straits.

Suddenly the entire structure of American military security, which had endured since the turn of the century, had collapsed. The agent of its destruction was the Wehrmacht. “A year and a half of uneasy peace remained, while the United States was riven by the isolationist-interventionist debate, but the die was already cast. America could no longer find security in the power of friendly European nations, and a large but antiquated Pacific fleet for insurance against the Japanese. To be sure, the German legions were on the other side of the Atlantic, but what would be America’s fate in a world dominated by a Nazi empire? “France had fallen, Britain must be shored up, but for the United States, security could be regained only by the development of her own vast resources and speedy conversion of the potential to the actual. America must become and remain a great military power. So it has been ever since that spring of 1940, and so it will be as long as can be foreseen today. Few indeed must be the Americans whose lives were not deeply affected by these events ….” The Breaking Wave In The Breaking Wave, written 15 years after the first volume of his trilogy was published, Taylor covered the Battle of Britain.

“The Second World War—for most of its survivors— has remained the most intense experience of their lives, and the source of their most vivid recollections …The war was truly global, and far too extended for a single field of vision. “There had been a time when things were simpler. After the fall of France, only three nations were at war, and of these Italy was not yet seriously committed in combat. “The summer of 1940 was one of war between Germany and Britain, and at the time, there were many who would not have staked a thruppance on Britain’s prospects for national survival, to say nothing of ultimate victory … The English Channel became the hinge of fate for Western democracy. Alone and against desperate odds, Britain fought through under a leader who spoke winged words, and it is both just and poetic that the summer of 1940 is remembered as her finest hour.… “For the Germans, seemingly poised on the brink of triumph, the strategic problems were both crucial and complex.

Choked with territorial conquest and militarily impregnable, it was even questionable whether the Reich should continue to seek a solution vi et armis [by arms] … “Never again was the Third Reich as close to victory as it was in the summer of 1940. That is why the German effort and its failure were, in a strategic sense, the war’s turning point, and must be accounted a crucial episode in the modern history of mankind.” The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials In 1992, the general-attorney came full circle with the publication of his final book, The Anatomy of the Nuremberg Trials. He wrote, “In the spring of 1945, I was a reserve colonel in the intelligence branch of the United States Army. My duties had to do with information derived from the deciphering of enemy messages, the product of which in recent years has become known as ‘Ultra’ and ‘Magic’… “Robert H.

Jackson, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, had been appointed by President Truman to represent the United States as chief prosecutor at a projected international trial of ‘war criminals.’… I had graduated from Harvard Law School in 1932, and during the next 10 years, had held a succession of Federal government legal positions. In 1939-40, I had served briefly as a Special Assistant to the Attorney General (Jackson).” Prior to Harvard Law School, Taylor had graduated from Williams College, and during the war he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. In 1979, his book Munich: The Price of Peace was awarded the National Book Critics Award for best nonfiction work. His career as a writer closed as it began, on Nuremberg, however; and, surprisingly, he recanted his previous view that Nazi Jew-baiter Julius Streicher, Gauleiter (regional leader) of Nuremberg and Franconia and editor of the anti-Semitic newspaper Der Sturmer (The Stormer) should have been both convicted and hanged.

In the “politically correct” climate of the 1990s, the general concluded that Streicher and Nazi philosopher Alfred Rosenberg had both been unjustifiably convicted and hanged, largely because of the unpopularity of their political views, speeches, and writings. It was a remarkable about-face for a truly remarkable author and preeminent jurist to make but wholly in character with General Telford Taylor. Originally Published September 2010 Martin Bormann | Article about Martin Bormann by The Free Dictionary Martin Bormann | Article about Martin Bormann by The Free Dictionary Also found in: Dictionary , Wikipedia . Bormann, Martin (bôr`män), 1900–1945, German National Socialist (Nazi) leader. He met Adolf Hitler Hitler, Adolf , 1889–1945, founder and leader of National Socialism (Nazism), and German dictator, b. Braunau in Upper Austria. Early Life The son of Alois Hitler (1837–1903), an Austrian customs official, Adolf Hitler dropped out of high school, and ..... Click the link for more information.

in 1924 and soon became an important figure in the Nazi party hierarchy. He succeeded Rudolf Hess Hess, Rudolf, 1894–1987, German National Socialist leader, b. Alexandria, Egypt; son of a German merchant. In 1920 he became an ardent follower of Adolf Hitler and after the Munich "beer-hall putsch" (1923) shared Hitler's imprisonment. ..... Click the link for more information. in Hitler's inner circle in 1941 after Hess's flight to Scotland. In 1942 he became Hitler's personal secretary. After Hitler's suicide in 1945, Bormann disappeared and was assumed dead. He was tried in absentia at Nuremberg and sentenced to death. Rumors persisted, however, that Bormann had escaped to Argentina. In 1973, after identification of a skeleton unearthed in West Berlin, the West German government declared him dead, a suicide on May 2, 1945. Jewish Virtual Library Visiting the ill or hospitalized. BILU (1882) Student organization for aliya.

Name consists of initials of the words (1883) in verse in Isaiah II:5, House of Jacob, come, let us go up. Bin-Nun, Joshua The successor of Moses that conquered the land of Canaan and divided the conquered land among the Israelite tribes. His life and activities are described in the Biblical Book of Joshua. Binah Intuition, understanding, intelligence. A quality that women supposedly have in greater degree than men. Also, in kabbalistic thought, one of the Ten Sephirot. Binationalism The concept or support of a single joint Jewish/Arab state. Birkat Hamazon Grace after meals. Birkenau The death camp of Auschwitz II and III. Today, Auschwitz II is mostly destroyed; Auschwitz III is destroyed except for a few barracks. Black Madonna Popular shrine of great national and religious significance to Poland. It is located in the city of Czestochowa in the monastery of Jasna Gora (Bright Mountain). The Black Madonna is a painting on wood that depicts the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. Its origins are ancient and obscure.

Black September Military confrontation between Jordan and the Palestinian guerrillas in September 1970, which lead to the expulsion of the PLO from Jordan. Blasphemy (Greek, speak ill, defame). A general term for speaking against the deity or things associated with the deity. See sacrilege. Blood Libel An allegation, recurring during the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries, that Jews were killing Christian children to use their blood for the ritual of making unleavened bread (matzah). Bloody Monday An infamous pogrom. The German army entered Czestochowa, Poland on September 3, 1939. The next day, later called "Bloody Monday," a pogrom was organized in which a few hundred Jews were murdered. On December 25, 1939 a second pogrom took place and the Great Synagogue was set on fire. Blut und Boden (Ger., Blood and soil). Phrase used by Hitler to mean that all people of German blood have the right and duty to live on German soil (i.e. in the German Fatherland).

Bormann, Martin (1900-1945) Adolf Hitler's personal secretary. One of the most powerful men in the Third Reich since he controlled access to Hitler. Known as the Brown Eminence and the man in the shadows. Helped the Fourier with his personal finances. Hitler viewed him as an absolute devotee, but he had high ambitions and kept his rivals from having access to Hitler. Was in the bunker during Hitler's last days. Left the bunker on May 1, 1945, and is believed to have died shortly thereafter either by a Soviet shell or by suicide. He was sentenced to death in absentia by the Nuremberg tribunal. The West German government officially declared him dead in 1973. Bormann, Martin (June 17, 1900 - 1945?) Adolf Hitler's personal secretary. One of the most powerful men in the Third Reich since he controlled access to Hitler. Known as the Brown Eminence and the man in the shadows. Helped the F�hrer with his personal finances.

Hitler viewed him as an absolute devotee, but he had high ambitions and kept his rivals from having access to Hitler. Was in the bunker during Hitler's last days. Left the bunker on May 1, 1945, and is believed to have died shortly thereafter either by a Soviet shell or by suicide. He was sentenced to death in absentia by the Nuremberg tribunal. The West German government officially declared him dead in 1973. Bounty A reward, premium or subsidy, especially when offered or given by a government. A payment for the capture of an outlaw. The Gestapo offered a bounty to those who turned in Jews in hiding. Boycott (anti-Jewish) Organized activity in Nazi Germany directed against the Jews to exclude them from social. economic and political life. Breastplate Ornament traditionally hung around the "neck" of the Sefer Torah, reminiscent of the breastplate worn by the High Priest when he ministered at the Temple in Jerusalem. Brezhnev Plan Six point plan presented by Soviet President Brezhnev in September 1982. The plan called for unilateral withdrawal of Israel from all territory acquired in the Six Day War.

Brit (or Berit) Milah (1878-1965) Jewish philosopher and Zionist. Buchenwald One of the largest concentration camps on German soil. It was constructed in 1937 in Weimar, Germany. Originally a camp for political prisoners, 10,000 Jews were imprisoned there after Kristallnacht. Buenos Aires Bombing On July 18, 1994 a car bomb was detonated outside the office of the Jewish community of Buenos Aires, Argentina killing more than 90 people and injuring over 100. Although the culprits were never caught, the attack is widely believed to have been Iranian sponsored. Bund Jewish socialist party founded in Russia (1897), devoted to Yiddish, autonomism, secular Jewish nationalism, and sharply opposed to Zionism. Bunker Ghetto slang word for Jews' hiding places within the ghettos. Burgermeister German for mayor. Bus 300 Affair On April 12, 1984 four Palestinians hijacked a civilian bus along the Tel Aviv-Ashkelon route.

Although Israeli official accounts reported that all four terrorists were killed in a daring rescue operation, it was later revealed that two of them were actually taken prisoner by the Shabak (Israeli internal security agency) and killed later. The release of this information led to public uproar and the eventual resignation of Shabak chief Avraham Shalom.

Question: Who was Hitler's personal secretary who was sentenced to death in absentia at Nuremberg?
Answer: MARTIN BORMANN