German Prosecutor Starts Worldwide Hunt for Martin Bormann

published at 12/02/1964 at 18:44

Frankfurt, Feb. 11 (JTA) – Dr. Fritz Bauer, the Hesse state prosecutor, has launched a worldwide hunt for Martin Bormann, Hitler's deputy, after being informed by a former high Nazi that Bormann was alive, it was disclosed here today.

Dr. Bauer was informed by Werner Naumann that Bormann definitely had not been killed by the Russians when he sought to escape from Hitler's underground bunker in Berlin during the final Russian assault on the German capital, as had previously been reported. Bormann has also repeatedly been reported as having been seen in South American countries but none of the reports has ever been substantiated

According to the reports here, one of the sons of Adolf Eichmann, the Gestapo colonel who was tried and executed in Israel, also told Dr. Bauer that his father always spoke of Bormann as being alive. Der Spiegel, a West German newsweekly, quoted Bormann's mother-in-law as saying that her late husband, Walter Buch, had received word well after the war that Bormann was living in hiding. Buch was a Judge under the Nazi regime.

The Hesse state Justice Ministry issued a standby warrant for the former chief of the Nazi Party chancellory in 1961, on charges of suspicion of attempted murder.