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Bonn Says Martin Bormann, Hitler’s Deputy, is Alive; Sought by Germany

May 8, 1961
See Original Daily Bulletin From This Date
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The German Government has “positive evidence” that Martin Bormann, deputy to Adolf Hitler, is alive and hiding “somewhere outside Germany,” according to Dr. Fritz Bauer, the State Prosecutor here.

Dr. Bauer, who is conducting a widespread search for Nazi war criminals, said he has “virtually certain proof” that Bormann is alive. The prosecutor is trying to trace a number of Nazi war criminals, some of them related through their past activities to the case of Adolf Eichmann, the Gestapo colonel now on trial in Israel for the annihilation of 6, 000, 000 European Jews.

In connection with those cases, Dr. Bauer declared, he is carrying out a “most intensive search” for Bormann and for Dr. Joseph Mengele, the Nazi physician who was in charge of “selecting” Jews for gassing at Auschwitz. According to Dr. Bauer, leading Nazis repatriated to Germany from Russia five years ago brought reports that they had “confirmed” Bormann’s death. Those reports, he said today, “were deliberate lies.” Dr. Bauer said that a secret SS escape network, using the code name “Odessa, ” had helped Bormann escape.

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