Spies and lies in the farcical hunt for the phantom Martin Bormann
British spies spent more than a decade checking supposed sightings of Martin Bormann in what became a comical and pointless hunt for Adolf Hitler’s right-hand man, according to secret intelligence files released today.
Various towns in Switzerland, a Franciscan monastery in Italy and even a mountainside in Brazil were among the places where he was allegedly spotted. One man who approached the British Embassy in Paris in 1947 even claimed that Hitler was alive and living with monks in Tibet.
The whereabouts of Bormann, the Führer’s private secretary, was one of the biggest mysteries after the Second World War. MI5 believed that he died trying to escape the Reich Chancellery in Berlin after Hitler committed suicide in April 1945, but no remains were found until 1972, fuelling the speculation that he had survived.
The senior Nazi, who was also head of the Party Chancellery, was sentenced to death in absentia at the Nuremberg trials in 1946.
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Various towns in Switzerland, a Franciscan monastery in Italy and even a mountainside in Brazil were among the places where he was allegedly spotted. One man who approached the British Embassy in Paris in 1947 even claimed that Hitler was alive and living with monks in Tibet.
The whereabouts of Bormann, the Führer’s private secretary, was one of the biggest mysteries after the Second World War. MI5 believed that he died trying to escape the Reich Chancellery in Berlin after Hitler committed suicide in April 1945, but no remains were found until 1972, fuelling the speculation that he had survived.
The senior Nazi, who was also head of the Party Chancellery, was sentenced to death in absentia at the Nuremberg trials in 1946.