Editing Martin Bormann (section)

==Early life and education==
Born in [[Wegeleben]] (now in [[Saxony-Anhalt]]) in the [[Kingdom of Prussia]] in the [[German Empire]], Bormann was the son of Theodor Bormann (1862–1903), a post office employee, and his second wife, Antonie Bernhardine Mennong. The family was [[Lutheran]]. He had two half-siblings (Else and Walter Bormann) from his father's earlier marriage to Louise Grobler, who died in 1898. Antonie Bormann gave birth to three sons, one of whom died in infancy. Martin and [[Albert Bormann|Albert]] (1902–89) survived to adulthood. Theodor died when Bormann was three, and his mother soon remarried.{{sfn|Lang|1979|pp=16–18}}

Bormann's studies at an agricultural trade high school were interrupted when he joined the 55th Field Artillery Regiment as a gunner in June 1918, in the final months of [[World War I]]. He never saw action, but served garrison duty until February 1919. After working a short time in a cattle feed mill, Bormann became estate manager of a large farm in [[Mecklenburg]].{{sfn|Lang|1979|pp=22–23}}{{sfn|McGovern|1968|pp=11–12}} Shortly after starting work at the estate, Bormann joined an [[antisemitic]] landowners association.{{sfn|McGovern|1968|p=12}} While [[hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic]] meant that money was worthless, foodstuffs stored on farms and estates became ever more valuable. Many estates, including Bormann's, had ''[[Freikorps]]'' units stationed on site to guard the crops from pillaging.{{sfn|Lang|1979|p=28}} Bormann joined the ''Freikorps'' organisation headed by [[Gerhard Roßbach]] in 1922, acting as section leader and treasurer.{{sfn|McGovern|1968|p=13}}

On 17 March 1924 Bormann was sentenced to a year in Elisabethstrasse Prison as an accomplice to his friend [[Rudolf Höss]] in the murder of [[Walther Kadow]].{{sfn|Lang|1979|p=40}}{{sfn|Miller|2006|p=147}} The perpetrators believed Kadow had tipped off the [[Occupation of the Ruhr|French occupation]] authorities in the [[Ruhr District]] that fellow ''Freikorps'' member [[Albert Leo Schlageter]] was carrying out [[sabotage]] operations against French industries. Schlageter was arrested and was executed on 26 May 1923. On the night of 31 May, Höss, Bormann and several others took Kadow into a meadow out of town, where he was beaten and had his throat cut.{{sfn|McGovern|1968|pp=13–14}} After one of the perpetrators confessed, police dug up the body and laid charges in July.{{sfn|Lang|1979|p=33}} Bormann was released from prison in February 1925.{{sfn|Lang|1979|p=40}}{{efn|Höss, who later served as commandant of [[Auschwitz concentration camp]], was sentenced to ten years. He was released in 1928 as part of a general amnesty.{{sfn|Lang|1979|pp=37, 99}} }} He joined the ''[[Frontbann]]'', a short-lived [[Nazi Party]] paramilitary organisation created to replace the ''[[Sturmabteilung]]'' (SA; storm detachment or assault division), which had been banned in the aftermath of the failed [[Munich Putsch]]. Bormann returned to his job at Mecklenburg and remained there until May 1926, when he moved in with his mother in Oberweimar.{{sfn|Lang|1979|p=43}}