The skeletal remains of the Nazi war criminal Martin Bormann were cremated and then buried secretly at sea two weeks ago, German officials revealed at the weekend. The German government paid for the burial off the Baltic coast, which was not attended by Bormann's family and was organised in conditions of the utmost secrecy.
DNA tests last year confirmed that remains found beneath a Berlin building site in 1972 were those of Bormann, ending years of speculation that he had fled to South America at the end of the second World War. Investigators concluded that he committed suicide, possibly by taking poison, as the Soviet Army took Berlin on May 2nd, 1945.
As head of the Party Chancellery and Hitler's private secretary, Bormann became the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany by the end of the war. Hard-working and efficient but exceptionally coarse and uncultured, Bormann was Hitler's most trusted aide and was chosen as executor of the dictator's will.
Bormann joined the Nazi Party following a prison term for collaborating with Rudolf Hess in the murder of a schoolmaster in 1924 and became Hess's cabinet office chief in 1933.
Hess's flight to Britain in 1941 opened the way for Bormann to step into the position of the Fuhrer's right-hand man. Hitler's confidence in Bormann was such that he allowed him to administer his personal finances. Leading Nazis complained that the private secretary's influence over his master was poisonous. They particularly disliked his practice of condensing complex administrative and political problems into short memos, which he then presented to Hitler for his approval.
Encouraging Hitler to give full rein to his wildest fantasies of power, Bormann effectively silenced those voices within the leadership who wanted a more conciliatory approach to Germany's enemies.
A dogmatically orthodox Nazi, Bormann was determined to break the power of the Christian churches in Germany, which he regarded as an obstacle to successful totalitarian rule. The news of Bormann's secret burial at sea comes as German companies and Holocaust survivors attempt to agree a compensation package for former slave labourers. Talks in Bonn last week failed to resolve differences between the two sides and negotiators admitted that there is no chance of a breakthrough before the deadline set by Chancellor Gerhard Schroder - Wednesday's 60th anniversary of Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1st, 1939.
German officials hope that the disposal of Bormann's remains marks the end of more than 50 years of rumour and reported sightings of the war criminal. Although Hitler's driver, Erich Kempka, claimed to have seen Bormann's dead body in May 1945, there have been persistent claims that Hitler's henchman fled to South America with the help of Vatican officials and became a millionaire in Argentina.
"We wanted to avoid at all costs that a memorial should be created anywhere," said Ms Hildegard Becker-Toussaint, the chief investigator on Bormann's case in Frankfurt's Prosecutor's Office.
