A secret conference on 12 January 1943 discussed Bormann’s order of 12 August 1942 under which all Party agencies were placed at Himmler’s disposal for the latter’s program of forced resettlement and denationalization of occupied populations (705-PS). Correspondence from the Office of the Fuehrer’s Deputy reveals Bormann’s demands that non-German populations of occupied territories be subjected to a special discriminatory legal regime (R-139). An agreement between Thierack and Himmler was made at Bormann’s suggestion, under which all Eastern populations are subjected to brutal police regime, and under which all disputes between the parties to the agreement are to be settled by Bormann. (654-PS)
In issuing these orders Bormann took a large part in the conspiracy to exterminate millions of people in the Eastern occupied areas.
F. CONCLUSION.
Martin Bormann, only 45 years old at the time of Germany’s defeat, devoted his entire adult life to the Nazi conspiracy. When he joined the Nazi Party at the age of 25 he had already been active for several years in conspiratorial and terroristic organizations working secretly to prepare Germany for war, and had spent one year in jail for his participation in a political murder.
Bormann’s important contribution to the conspiracy remained throughout in the sphere of the Nazi Party. First, as Chief of Staff to Hess, the Fuehrer’s Deputy, then as Head of the Party Chancery, he managed the entire organization of the Party in the service of the conspiracy. He was responsible for channelling the Party’s demands concerning legislation, education, civil service, and all other fields of public and private life to Hess, who was a member of the Reich Cabinet, which was then Germany’s legislative, administrative, and judicial organ. Thus, Bormann advanced the Party’s conspiratorial program through the control of his co-conspirators over the German government machinery. He used this power for various criminal purposes, among them the persecution of the independent churches, demanding their complete elimination from German life on the ground that Christianity and National Socialism were irreconcilable.
After having acceded in 1941 to the highest position in the Nazi Party, directly under Hitler, Bormann exercised the broadest influence in the direction of Germany’s aggressive wars. Here he acted in two capacities:
(1) As executive head of the Party he commanded the Party Gauleaders who, as District Defense Commissioners, controlled all civilian and political war activities in German and the annexed territories. In that position he became responsible for the multiple war crimes committed by the German civilian population, especially the lynching of allied flying personnel, and the cruel mistreatment of forced laborers.
(2) As Secretary to the Fuehrer, Bormann took an active part in the policy-making conferences and discussions of Hitler and his political and military staffs. Here, Bormann became jointly responsible for the illegal annexation of Allied territories, the enslavement and spoliation of the civilian population in occupied countries, and the planned persecution and extermination of the populations in Eastern territories especially the Jews.