Visiting Martin Bormann’s WW2 Headquarters!

Martin Borman was one of the more sinister members of Hitler’s inner circle, but an immensely powerful member nonetheless. His role as Hitler’s gatekeeper by 1945, the man everyone had to go through to gain access to the ailing furer, was the height of his power, particularly those last weeks in battered Berlin in the bunker beneath the Reich Chancellory Garden. In many respects, Borman was actually running things, often drafting orders on blank sheets of paper that Hitler had pre-signed. a bull-necked spider at the

heart of the Nazi web connected to the rest of the collapsing Third Reich by telephone and teleprinter. Genuinely feared and roundly disliked, but gaining more powerful as Hitler became weaker and more reliant on the brown eminence as his enemies called him. Recently, whilst filming in Berlin, I stumbled upon an interesting survivor of the 1945 battle. Martin Borman’s headquarters, a stones throw from the Reich Chancery and the Furer Bunker and still perfectly intact today. Borman was an early Nazi party member, a

former World War I artilleryman who postwar worked as an estate manager and was later jailed for a year for his part in the murder of a local school teacher. His accomplice in that murder was Rudolph Husse, later the infamous commonant of Achvitz. Borman got his start in the NSDAP working for its in-house insurance service until in July 1933, a few months after Hitler became chancellor, Borman was appointed chief of staff to Rudolph Hess, the deputy furer. East Hitler Hitler Hitler Hitler. In this position, Borman entered

Hitler’s inner circle and soon made himself completely invaluable to the furer, providing Hitler with briefings and dealing with all manners of things, both state and private. He excelled in flattering Hitler and was responsible for creating Orazaldsburg, Hitler’s private gazed community above Beck’s garden in the Bavarian Alps, where Hitler maintained his private house, the Burgof. When Hess did a bunk to Scotland in May 1941, Borman was promoted to Hess’s former duties except that of Deputy

Furer, which was given to Reich’s marshal Herman Guring, and Borman became head of a new organization called the party chancellory. This was an extremely powerful position in effect giving him administrative control over the entire Nazi party apparatus throughout Germany and also indicative of Hitler’s divide and rule style of leadership for Borman’s office was in fact in direct competition with the Reich Chancellery which was headed by Dr. Hans Lamas and also the Furer’s Chancellery, a

private chancellory of Hitlers that handled different matters from the other two, but sometimes with some overlap or conflicts between the three chancellaries over legislation or policy matters. Philip Bouah was chief of the Furus Chancellery. However, Borman’s power would soon eclipse that of Lamurs and Bouah for the simple reason that he was more personally useful to Hitler. From his lavish building projects on Hitler’s behalf to his running of Hitler’s personal finances and also generating

more cash for Hitler, Hitler always went through Borman when issuing orders to both his ministers and his party officials. And in 1943, Orman was also appointed Hitler’s official private secretary, which confirmed a position he had been holding unofficially since the mid 1930s. Immediately below Borman were his two powerful deputies. The first was state secretary gear klopper who would take part in the van conference and drew up the plan for the implementation of the final solution against the Jews

and SS Gupenfura Helmouth Friedri’s and where did Borman’s power officially reside in the government quarter of Berlin here at number 54 Wilhelmstrasa. Vilhelm Strasa was once a fine street of beautiful palaces and government buildings dating back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But a combination of Allied bombing, street fighting in the Battle of Berlin, and postwar Soviet and East German demolitions have left their mark. Almost all of the pre-war structures are gone, replaced with hideous postwar East

German buildings or their modern glass replacements. Funnily enough, the largest pre-war structure to survive on Vilham Strasa today is Guring’s Air Ministry building, a huge 1930s edifice that somehow managed to survive both the Allied bombs and the street fighting with the Soviets and also East German wrecking balls and is today the Federal Ministry of Finance. The other large Nazi era building to survive near the street at Vilham Platz 8 to9 and Ma Strasa 45 to 53 is Dr. Ysef Gerbel’s old propaganda ministry. The

extension he made to the original 18th century building which was knocked down after the war still stands today and currently houses the federal ministry of health and social security. More on these buildings in future videos. Borman’s old headquarters was originally built in 1903 and served as the liaison building between the office of the German emperor to the government housing the privy civil cabinet as part of the Prussian ministry of state. In 1922 to32 it was the offices of the Prussian minister President Otto Brown

then briefly the office of the Prussian council of state. Once Hitler came to power, the building housed Ukim von Ribbonrop and the NSDAP liaison office under Rudolph Hess until in 1941 Borman succeeded and the new office of the party chancellory was created for him. Von Ribentrop having moved out to the foreign ministry building also on Vilhelm Strasa but no longer in existence. This building was Borman’s headquarters throughout World War II, though he tended to be physically absent most of

the time as he stayed extremely close to Hitler at his military headquarters or his private home. Borman also maintained an alpine villa adjacent to Hitler’s house at Orbisadsburg. His deputies however were often present in Berlin at this building and Borman would return with Hitler to Berlin on the 16th of January 1945 from the Furer’s last military headquarters in the west the Adler host in western Germany from where Hitler had managed his Arden offensive against the Americans in the winter of

1944 to 45. Hitler moved back to his apartment inside the old Reich Chancellery while Borman maintained an apartment at his Vilhelmstrasa HQ. Hitler began sleeping in the furer bunker beneath the new Reich Chancellory from February 1945 onwards due to British and US bombing raids on Berlin, but continued to work in his Reich Chancellory offices by day and to take his meals above ground. But then in mid-March 1945, Hitler retired completely into his bunker, only leaving a handful of times before his death on

the 30th of April. Borman maintained a small office inside the lower bunker adjacent to Hitler’s room, maintaining his extremely close proximity to the Fura until the very end, though he also returned periodically to his own headquarters across the street at 54 Vamstrasa, which had its own bunker in the cellers. He was able to maintain his powerful position via the communications network throughout the rest of the crumbling Reich until the end of Hitler’s life and for a day or so afterwards.

Due to the Soviet threat to Berlin, Borman organized the evacuation of government ministries south to Bavaria, including members of the party chancellory. A relay of planes flew personnel and documents south in an operation cenamed Seralio and was largely successful. Borman having failed along with other members of Hitler’s staff to persuade the Furer to also fly south to Orbizburg remained in the bunker with only two staff members from his office. His agitant SSandatan Fura Villham and his secretary Elsa Krueger

Borman took part in the breakout from the bunker on the 1st of 2nd of May 1945 disappearing into history. If you want to know what became of him, I’d recommend my series investigating his strange disappearance, his possible post-war life and death in South America, and the rather murky West German plot to pretend that he died in Berlin in May 1945. I link it in the end screen along with my investigation of Elsa Krueger, his secretary, who mysteriously ended up living in England postwar, married to

the British intelligence corps officer that had interrogated her in 1945. As for Borman’s two trusted deputies, Klopp likewise fled Berlin and in 1946 was arrested by the US Counter intelligence corps in Munich. A war crimes case was brought against him but collapsed due to lack of evidence and he later died in West Germany in 1987 at the age of 81. Borman’s other powerful deputy Friedri’s disappeared entirely in February 1945 and was never seen again. He was declared legally dead in August 1951.

Borman’s headquarters was captured by the Soviets in early May 1945. Like so many of the buildings lining Wilhelmstrasa, its elegant facade was riddled with bullet and shrapnel damage from the battle for Berlin. In some of the holes, Soviet bullets still remain embedded in the bricks. The building was very badly damaged. The first and second floors were largely destroyed by fire. The right side wing was partially destroyed and part of the building’s roof was gone. Immediately after the war, however, it was decided

by the Soviet authorities to repair the building instead of tearing it down, which was the fate for most of the edififices along Wilhamstrasa. In the 1950s, it was used as student accommodation for Humbult University. Until in 1970, the East German government took over control and following German unification in 1990, it was turned into the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture, which it remains today. The last of these 19th century Wilhelmstrasa edififices to survive. Many thanks for watching. Please

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