Secret hunt for Hitler’s deputy
BRITISH agents were sent on a “silly season” chase for Hitler’s deputy Martin Bormann following false reports that he survived the war, secret papers reveal.
The Nazis’ second-in-command tried to flee Berlin as the war came to an end in May 1945.
Newly-released files show how intelligence chiefs were bombarded with alleged sightings of Bormann for years afterwards.
They were certain the Fuhrer’s right-hand man was dead, but could never dismiss the “reliable” eye-witness accounts.
Documents from the records at the National Archives in Kew show how one angry spy warned in a top secret memo that he had been “seen” everywhere from Switzerland to Brazil. The memo added that the next report could be “the silly season scoop: That he has been seen riding the Loch Ness monster”.
Bormann was caught up in an explosion which had struck a tank as he tried to cross a bridge out of the German capital after Hitler’s death.
Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann said that he had seen Bormann’s body. But it was never found.
Sir Percy Sillitoe, Director-General of MI5, said in a letter: “Bormann is almost certainly dead, but his decease has not prevented numerous rumours as to his whereabouts gaining currency.”