In my opinion these three saw in Hitler a singular visionary genius. They also recognised the danger of such genius which, strengthened by the suggestive power of his oratory, drew almost everybody under his spell. These three well-above-average men were probably agreed in taking the opportunity of the frequent and long conversations to test Hitler’s infallibility by queries and objections, which he would have not found pleasant. As his intuition could not be faulted with logic because it has a visionary origin and lacked any basis of logic, he considered them to be fault-finders and pedants and eventually he cast them aside.
OSAF Franz Pfeffer von Salomon was relieved of the post of OSAF and left out in the cold.[14] At the end of 1932 secret negotiations between Gregor Strasser[15] and Schleicher regarding his being offered the vice-chancellorship led to the total break with Hitler. In 1934 he was killed ‘by mistake’ during the Röhm putsch. Dr Otto Wagener moved to Berlin in 1932 and was relieved of all offices in the summer of 1933. Apparently his closest colleagues favoured him for finance minister. I never heard of him again.[16] It is no wonder that hardly anybody knows the name after he withdrew and was apparently no longer required after 1933. No doubt Dr Wagener, Pfeffer von Salomon and Strasser were personalities with too much independence for Hitler’s liking. In any case, after Hitler took power I never heard them spoken of again.
A person then active in the OSAF who did achieve a meteoric rise was Martin Bormann, still of interest today to authors and historians. The worst character traits were attributed to him, and all decisions he imposed were blamed ‘entirely on him’ postwar, not only by journalists and historians but above all by the surviving NSDAP bosses, Gauleiters, Ministers and also people of Hitler’s entourage, who should have known better.
Martin Bormann was simply one of the most devoted and loyal of Hitler’s vassals who would often force through ruthlessly and sometimes brutally the orders and directives given him by Hitler. Seen in this way, Bormann followed the same kind of path as did Franz Pfeffer von Salomon, running battles with Gauleiters, ministers, Party bosses and the rest being the rule. In the spring of 1930 at OSAF, Bormann was as yet unburdened by the far-reaching and unpleasant tasks which Hitler gave him later. Bormann could never be called an attractive man. He had married Gerda Buch, the beautiful daughter of Party judge, retired Major Walter Buch, who as the Reich USCHLA judge in the NSDAP was highly respected and enjoyed Hitler’s confidence.[17] Buch had been an active officer and subsequently an instructor at an NCO training school. In the First World War he was regimental adjutant and later commander of a machine-gun sharpshooter unit. In 1918 he took over an officer-candidate battalion at Döberitz. After the war he left the army in the rank of major and joined the NSDAP. In 1925 he was appointed USCHLA chairman, a position which required a lot of understanding for human inadequacies, much tact, energy and authority. He was predestined for the office, for his father had been president of the Senate at the Oberland tribunals in Baden. With his long face and tall, slim figure he always looked very elegant. He had been present at the marriage of his daughter to Martin Bormann, which was naturally very beneficial for Bormann’s prospects.
At OSAF, Martin Bormann headed the SA personal injury insurance plan designed by Dr Wagener, later known as the NSDAP Hilfskasse.[18] All SA men were covered by it. At their gatherings there tended to be a lot of brawling which tended to result in bodily injuries. The insurance was useful and necessary. It was created to serve the single primitive purpose which the genius of Martin Bormann could not cover. Only after beginning work on the staff of the Führer’s deputy did Bormann succeed later in proving his extraordinary qualities. His career took off in the course of the 1930s. From chief of staff to Rudolf Hess he became NSDAP Reichsleiter and then Hitler’s secretary. He expected from his staff that same enormous industriousness which distinguished himself, and this did not help to make him loved. ‘Hurry, hurry’ was his celebrated phrase. Hitler, always full of praise for Martin Bormann, once said:
Where others need all day, Bormann does it for me in two hours, and he never forgets anything!… Bormann’s reports are so precisely formulated that I only need to say Yes or No. With him I get through a pile of files in ten minutes for which other men would need hours. If I tell him, remind me of this or that in six months, I can rest assured that he will do so. He is the exact opposite of his brother[19] who forgets every task I give him.
Bormann came to Hitler not only well prepared with his files but was also so in tune with Hitler’s way of thinking that he could spare him long-winded explanations. Anyone who knew how Hitler did things will realise that this was decisive for him!
Many of the rumours still current about Bormann have in my opinion no basis in fact. He was neither hungry for power nor the ‘grey eminence’ in Hitler’s entourage. To my mind he was one of the few National Socialists with clean hands,[20] if one may put it that way, for he was incorruptible and came down hard on all corruption he discovered. For his oppressive attitude in this regard he increasingly antagonised corrupt Party members and many others.
I am of the opinion today that nobody in Hitler’s entourage save Bormann would have had the presence to run this difficult office. For sheer lack of time Hitler could not attend to all day-today affairs, and perhaps whenever possible he avoided doing so to prevent himself becoming unloved! Accordingly all the unpleasant business was left to Martin Bormann, and he was also the scapegoat. Ministers, Gauleiters and others believed that Bormann acted from his own lust for power. I remember for example that at FHQ Wolfsschanze Hitler would often say: ‘Bormann, do me a favour and keep the Gauleiters away from me.’ Bormann did this and protected Hitler. The Gauleiters were as a rule old street fighters who had known Hitler longer than Bormann and felt senior to him. If a Gauleiter then happened to cross Hitler’s path while strolling, Hitler would play the innocent and gasp: ‘What? You are here?’ When the Gauleiter then held forth on Bormann’s shortcomings, Hitler would put on his surprised face. ‘I know that Bormann is brutal,’ Hitler said once, ‘but whatever he takes on is given hands and feet, and I can rely on him absolutely and unconditionally to carry out my orders immediately and irrespective of whatever obstructions may be in the way.’ For Hitler, Martin Bormann was a better and more acceptable colleague than Rudolf Hess had been, and of whom Hitler once said: ‘I only hope that he never becomes my successor, for I do not know whom I would pity more, Hess or the Party.’
Rudolf Hess was born in Alexandria, Egypt, the son of a wholesaler. His father came from Franconia and his mother was of Swiss descent. He was brought up in Egypt until aged fourteen, when he attended a special school at Godesberg on the Rhine, took the one-year examination and then a course in business practice which took him to the French-speaking region of Switzerland and then Hamburg. At the outbreak of the First World War he volunteered for military service and in 1918 was an airman with Jagdstaffel 35 on the Western Front with the rank of lieutenant. After the 1919 revolution he joined the Thule Society[21] in Munich and took part in the overthrow of the revolutionary councils in Munich, receiving a leg wound. Next he entered commerce and studied economics and history. One evening in 1920 he happened upon an NSDAP meeting and joined the Party immediately as an SA-man. In November 1923 Hess led the SA Student’s Group and was at Hitler’s side for the putsch attempt of 9 November 1923, being involved in the detention of the ministers at the Bürgerbräukeller. Following the failure of the putsch he spent an adventurous six months in the Bavarian mountains. Two days before the abolition of the Bavarian peoples’ court he surrendered to the police, was tried and sentenced immediately, and taken to Landsberg prison where he remained with Hitler until New Year’s Eve 1924. Later he became an assistant to the professor for geopolitics, General Haushofer, at the German Academy at Munich University. From 1925 he was Hitler’s secretary. Martin Bormann was certainly not dismayed by Rudolf Hess’s flight to Britain in 1941. I remember that on the evening of 10 May 1941, after Hitler and Eva Braun had gone upstairs, he invited a few guests sympathetic to him to his country house for a celebration. That evening everybody reported on how relieved he seemed!
14
Franz Felix Pfeffer von Salomon (b. 19.2.1888 Düsseldorf, d.12.4.1968 Munich). Pfeffer remained in Munich without an office after his withdrawal but lived with Party associates until elected to the Reichstag on 6.11.1932. In 1933 police commissioner in Kassel; 1938 president, provincial government at Wiesbaden; 1944 briefly under arrest in connection with July Plot; interned by Allies; released 1946.
15
Gregor Strasser (b. 31.5.1892 Geisenfeld, d. 30.6.1934 Berlin). 9.6.1932 head NSDAP Reich Organisational Directorate; 8.9.1932 resigned from Party activities after accusation of disloyalty by Hitler in the Schleicher affair; expelled from the Party, returned to industry in Berlin; murdered by Gestapo by shooting at their Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse prison.
16
Otto William Heinrich Wagener (b. 29.4.1888 Durlach/Baden, d. 9. 8.1971 Chieming-Stöttham/Bavaria). Took over position of acting OSAF from Salomon until 31.12.1930; from 1.1.1931 head of Economic-Political Office (WPA) at Braunes Haus; 4.9.1932 resigned office, attached to Führer-Staff for special purposes, Berlin; 20.4.1933 resumed former WPA post; 3.5.1933 Reich commissioner for trade and industry; 12.6.1933 relieved of all posts after Hitler and Göring suspected him of lobbying for post of minister for industry; following USCHLA hearing cleared of all involvement; end 1933 Reichstag deputy Koblenz-Trier; 30.6.1934 arrested in Röhm purge, released and returned to Erzgebirge to farm, but remained Reichstag deputy until 1938 and SA-Gruppenführer; fought in the Second World War; PoW (British) 1944 in rank of major general; 1947 convicted in Italy of war crimes; 1952 released.
17
USHLA =
18
The SA personal injury insurance scheme started with the Giesinger SA in Munich and at the beginning of 1927 was extended to cover the entire SA under the administration of OSAF in a special sub-division
19
Albert Bormann (b. 2.9.1902 Halberstadt, d. 8.4.1989 Munich). Brother of Martin Bormann; joined NSDAP 27.4.1927; NSDAP
20
Although Schroeder may have thought him to be Herr Incorruptible, the ‘clean hands’ of Martin Bormann were the result of his personal devotion to the Nazi cause. In a letter to Hess on 5 October 1932 he summed up his attitude thus: ‘For me and all true National Socialists the only thing that matters is the Movement, nothing else. Whatever or whoever is useful to the Movement is good, whoever damages it is a parasite and my enemy.’ Bormann executed all Hitler’s orders faithfully and without question, never asking if they were right, humane or serving some useful purpose.
21
The Thule Society was a cornerstone of the Nazi Movement. The three co-founders were mystics. Guido von List (1865–1919) was the first popular writer to combine racial ideology with occultism. He advocated the racist State with a self-elected Führer, and saw international Jewry as the enemy of Germanism. His friend and pupil Lanz von Liebenfels (1874–1954), a former Cistercian monk, propagated racial purity in his first book in 1905. He wrote a magazine Ostara in Vienna in 1907–8. Hitler collected all issues, which von Liebenfels gave him free of charge. The third co-founder was Rudolf von Sebottendorf (1875–1945?), who had studied sufism, rosicrucianism and astrology in Turkey.
Dr Wilfred Dahms, Viennese psychologist and biographer of Lanz von Liebenfels whom he knew well, stated in the biography
Hitler was not a member of the Thule Society but the link was the DAP founded on 5 January 1919 by Anton Drexler which was useful for contacts, members and the interchange of information. The DAP was the forerunner of the NSDAP. The Thule Society was still in existence in 1933 when it was probably absorbed into the SS. (Translator’s Note)