Martin Bormann's Son in Hiding 

By Peter David Orr

Martin Bormann Jr., born  April 14, 1930, in Grünwald near Munich, carried a heavy legacy as the eldest son of Martin Bormann, and godchild of Adolf Hitler. By 1945, at just 15, his name became a liability he had to shed to survive. This is the story of his journey through the chaos of the collapsing Reich, finding refuge on a remote alpine farm, and embracing a new faith.

In April 1945, Martin was a student at the Reich School Feldafing, Germany, an elite institute on Lake Starnberg.  The school's purpose was to mold future leaders. It operated under the patronage and guidance of the Party Chancellery of the NSDAP.  When the Western Front collapsed, the school's attempt to evacuate and reconvene at Steinach am Brenner (16 miles south of Innsbruck, Austria) never materialized. Nevertheless, Martin, Jr., still believed that the Third Reich would prevail. 

It was under these circumstances that on  April 15, 1945, Martin was contacted by phone at school by one of his father's closest associates, Helmut von Hummel. Hummel sent a car and driver to take him to Salzburg.  There, he'd stay with Gauleiter Gustav Scheel until his uncle Albert arrived to take him to Berchtesgaden. Albert Bormann was Martin Bormann's younger brother and the head of Hitler's Office of Personal Affairs at the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.  

In the earliest morning hours of 21 April 1945, Albert, and his wife, Erika, flew from Berlin to Salzburg.  Erika was due to give birth any day.  Albert, Erika and Martin, Jr., drove to Berchtesgaden later that morning.  On doctor's advice Erika remained at the Berchtesgadener Hof (a hotel) until she gave birth to a boy on 25 April 1945 (Dirk Gerland Bormann).  

On the 26th Julius Schaub and Helmut von Hummel arrived at Berchtesgaden in a Mercedes limo from Munich with suitcases filled with items Hitler had ordered them to retrieve from his Prinzregentenplatz 16 apartment - along  with untold millions in German Marks and foreign currency from a Munich bank safe deposit box.  

Hummel set about arranging  a hideout for the couple, newborn, and Martin, Jr., while Schaub drove up the hill to Hitler's Berghof. There, he  retrieved specific files and papers and burned others with the help of a young, as-yet-unidentified, SS guard. Hitler's mountain retreat had been hit during the massive British bombing raid of the morning of 25 April, but the damage was only slight compared to Bormann's and Goering's mansions, which were a smoldering ruin.  

Christa Schroeder (one of Hitler's private secretaries), Gretl Fegelein (Eva Braun's pregnant sister/Hermann Fegelein's wife), Herta Schneider (Eva Braun's best friend) and Eva Braun's parents (Fritz and Franziska Braun), were staying in Hitler's private air raid bunker, so before Julius Schaub departed, he gave three orders.  First, the Berghof was to be dynamited  and set ablaze by SS guards if it was in imminent danger of being captured by the swiftly-approaching Americans. Second, Hermann Fegelein's adjutant, Hannes Göhler, was ordered drive the above-mentioned people and their suitcases (including one filled with Eva Braun's personal items) to Fischhorn Castle, near Zell am See, Austria. Hannes Göhler's wife was part of this truck convoy, too, as was Albert Bormann, his wife and infant son, and Martin Bormann, Jr., of course. 

In the meantime, Hummel had learned from Göhler that Martin's mother and siblings had departed in a bus on the 24th to safe location in southwest Austrian. Göhler didn't know the precise location but knew it was code-named "Halali."

At the time of their departure from Berchtesgaden, Martin Jr. was suffering with a serious bout of food poisoning, which he picked up during his last days in school or when he was with Gauleiter Scheel in Salzburg. He was still very very weak when the truck caravan led by Hannes Göhler departed for Austria, shortly after midnight on  28 April 1945.

The entire Bormann clan had fake papers and IDs., supplied by Hummel and Scheel and an unnmamed Berchtesgaden town councilor (according to Walther Funk). Hummel had in the meanwhile learned that Martin Bormann's wife, Gerda, and the other eight Bormann children had arrived safely at the mountain farm in village of Wolkenstein in the South Tyrol. With the help of an SS driver and the family nanny, Gerda had procured a bus and was pretending to be a nurse for homeless children destined for a children's' home in Austria. Also in hiding in Wolkenstein were Marga and Gudrun Himmler.  Martin then understood the code name was a reference to his father's hunting lodge up in the mountains of Wolkenstein, St. Unehrlich, Austria.   (Today a charming hotel called "Garni Halali" is where the rustic mountain lodge used to be.)

On the way to  Zell am See, the Göhler caravan stopped at Weissbach bei Lofer to deposit Albert, Erika, their infant son, and Martin, Jr. They were greeted by Nikolaus Hohenwarter and taken by horse drawn cart to his "Querleitnhof" (mountain ridge farm). Herr Hohenwarter was a 60-year-old whose three sons had gone off to war and were missing.  

The Bormanns lived and worked there for the next two years.  Albert took on the name of Erika's first husband, Hermann Roth, and Martin Bormann, Jr., went by "Martin Bergmann". His cover story? He was an orphaned farmhand from South Tyrol.  

The Hohenwarters grew fond of their teenage guest. He was quiet, unassuming, respectful, and a hard worker.  At the end of the summer of '45, Albert Bormann decided to take his family back to Germany. They'd remain Herr and Frau Roth, of course. They pretended to be German refugees fleeing the Soviets. Yet, amazingly, they had plenty of money. Herr Roth bought a small farm in the district of Altötting, not far from Tüssling, Germany. For the next two years, 'Hermann' worked his small farm and sold his goods at the market in Mühldorf am Inn. "Martin Bergmann" chose to remain with the Hohenwarter family in Hinterthal, Austria.

As Martin Jr. told the story later in life, the long hours on the pastures and walking the seemingly endless, craggy mountain trials, gave him time to reflect. Winter evenings in the remote farm were lonely, with few distractions: old calendars, papers, and a Bible. The Hohenwarters were Catholic. He read the Bible from cover to cover and discussed it with them and the household help. He  had endless questions.  He also reflected upon his childhood in the Bormann household: He was baptized (as in infant) in the Lutheran church, Hitler is listed on the document as his godfather, but he recalled his parents being anti-Christian and anti-Church. When he was a small boy they attended church at Easter and Christmas. By the time he was a young teen the war was in full swing and the Bormanns never attended church.  (It's worth noting that Martin's sister, Irmgard, rejected this portrayal of her parents).

After his uncle Albert (and his wife and child) left the Hinterthal for Germany, Martin says he developed a simple faith, inspired by the Hohenwarters' example.  Part of this example, was regularly attending mass.

During the winter of 1946/47, Martin trudged through deep snow to Maria Kirchental, a pilgrimage site with missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Before Father Regent Dr. Franz Wimmer, he declared his wish to be baptized Catholic. 

He also revealed his true identity—“I’m Martin Bormann, son of the Reichsleiter”—he braced for rejection. Father Wimmer smiled: “So, you’re the Bormann? That’s fine.”

Thereafter, every Sunday, Martin made the six-hour round trip hike to Maria Kirchental, finding solace with forgiving people. They knew he had been a died-in-the-wool Hitler Youth and steeped in Nazi philosophy. Nevertheless, he recalled that they would tell him that God's grace was sufficient if he prayed earnestly for forgiveness and turned away from his former thinking.  He did.  In May 1947, he was baptized, with Nikolaus Hohenwarter as his godfather.

At Kirchental, Martin pondered his future, assuming he’d remain a farmhand. “If I use my real name, no one will want me,” he told Father Wimmer. But Wimmer saw potential. When Martin asked about becoming a lay brother, Wimmer encouraged study. It was at that moment that Martin says he felt God's calling on his life. 

In September 1947, at 17, Martin moved into the order’s house at Kirchental. It was then that Martin received the devastating news that his mother, Gerda, had died in a British military hospital in Merano, Italy, in March 23 of the previous year. He was told that the cause of death had been experimental treatments (believe it or not, with mercury!) for otherwise incurable uterine cancer.  It was widely reported at the time that Gerda died of "stomach cancer".  One brief news article, in a London paper, suggested she had been trying to escape to meet up with her husband, had fallen ill and was buried somewhere in Merano.  Other sources closer to the Bormann family said Gerda was cremated by British intelligence and her remains scattered to the wind. Either way, Martin never saw his mother again.  Other than her American and British captors, who else might have been responsible for the cremation or burial? If anyone knows, they've never said so publicly. There is a reasonable candidate, however.

According to Martin, Jr., Theodor Schmidt was a parish priest in Neukölln (a suburb of Berlin). How Schmidt got to South Tyrol from Berlin at the end of the war is unknown. In any case, Gerda first called on Father Schmidt to help her find living arrangements for her children as she could not support them in prison. She explained to Schmidt that she and her children had been found by a US Army CIC unit in mid-May of 1946, that she had been arrested and harshly interrogated about her husband's whereabouts (So far, no trace of these interrogations in the US National Archives has been found). He agreed to find placement of the Bormann children in South and East Tyrol.  

According to Martin, Jr., his brother Volker lived with a Dr. Hiener in Bruneck (Brunico) in South Tyrol, and Irmgard was with the Hellweger family in San Lorenzen in the Pustertal. His other siblings were also living somewhere in southeastern Austria. Where and with whom? If he knew, Martin didn't say in his earliest public interviews (1948-51).  In his later life, he never publicly accounted for the specifics of their early post-war whereabouts either.  On the other hand, his sister Irmgard revealed in an 1987 interview that her father's aide, Wilhelm Zander, visited the children several times when they were all still living together with their mother in Wolkenstein, which must have been prior to his arrest in December of 1945. Whether Zander visited Martin, Jr., is unknown.

Many months later, Gerda called on Father Schmidt again.  She had been taken to the aforementioned hospital in Merano and had only days to live.  Again, she pleaded with him to make sure her children were looked after.  He agreed and facilitated visits to Gerda's bedside by at least two of her three oldest children prior to her passing.  

Martin, Jr., was not one of them, of course. However, it was at that time that he began writing letters to his two oldest siblings.  They wrote back, and on it went back and forth until a letter from his sister, Irmgard, addressed to “Martin Bormann - Querleitenhof, Hinterthal" raised suspicion at the local post office. Somehow word got out and the cry arose, “Priests are hiding Nazis!” and the local Austrian police found Martin at Kirchental, arrested him, and thoroughly searched the order’s dorms and the Hohenwarter farm - looking for clues to his father's whereabouts.

Nothing turned up, so Martin was turned over to the American Occupation Authorities in Austria. Imprisoned, he endured numerous US Army Counterintelligence interrogations - first at  Zell am See, then at Salzburg, and finally at Linz. (So far, no record of Martin's interrogations has been found in the US National Archives). After 24 days, the investigators concluded that Martin knew nothing about what happened to his father other than what he'd read in the newspaper. Martin was never questioned about his uncle Albert Bormann, Helmut von Hummel, Gauleiter Scheel, Julius Schaub, Gretl Braun, or Eva's parents. 

Released, he faced the possibility of prison and more interrogation in Austria, but the Catholic Church in Bavaria intervened. He avoided extradition because a monastery in Freilassing offered to take him in.  He gladly accepted and returned to Germany.

Martin Adolf Bormann's years in hiding were over but many questions and loose ends remain to this day.