Mess's Successor

Adolf Hitler appointed a successor to Rudolf Hess as second in the Nazi line of succession, following porcine Hermann Goring. The world had heard little of the appointee, Martin Bormann, but he was soundly qualified for the job.

Short, crop-haired, 42-year-old Martin Bormann was a schoolboy bully in Halberstadt near the Harz Mountains. After World War I he studied agriculture in Mecklenburg, where he joined a murderous anti-Republican gang whose pastime was beating workmen as they left their beer halls. This connection led him into the German Workers Party, predecessor of the Nazis.

In 1923 Bormann was arrested for taking part in Hitler's attempted Munich Putsch, got a year in jail. Later he proved himself a nimble manipulator of Party funds, was treasurer of Hitler's 1932 Hilf-skasse racket, whereby money supposedly collected for injured Storm Troopers was turned over to Nazi leaders. Bormann enjoyed Party finance; in 1936 he bought a Mercedes-Benz deluxe for 38,000 marks. He rose to be Hess's administrative right hand, also got close to Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler.

During the weeks just before Hess's flight to Britain, Bormann began to replace him ceremonially. He marched in Hess's place directly behind Hitler during the Fuehrer's birthday celebration in April 1941. Since Hess's flight. Bormann has seen Hitler regularly, even on the Russian front.

In addition to his financial services to Nazidom, Bormann has made ideological contributions in the field of religion. Recently he told Party leaders: "Trying to produce order at the Vatican is a fault into which we Germans have unfortunately often fallen. . . . From the standpoint of the Reich it would have been most desirable if there had been, not one Pope, but at least two or, if possible, many more. They would have fought one another. The people must be wrested from the churches and their priests. Their influence must be permanently broken in the same way as the harmful influences of astrologers, soothsayers and similar swindlers. Our National Socialist world picture stands far above the teachings of Christianity."

Adolf Hitler has given Martin Bormann greater powers than any Party official ever had before. He can (theoretically) veto any law, must countersign all official appointments. He will often exercise these powers clad in one of his two dozen pairs of riding breeches. He cannot ride a horse.

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