Editing Martin Bormann (section)

===''Reichsleiter'' and head of the party chancellery===
After the ''[[Machtergreifung]]'' (Nazi Party seizure of power) in January 1933, the relief fund was repurposed to provide general accident and property insurance, so Bormann resigned from its administration. He applied for a transfer and was accepted as chief of staff in the office of [[Rudolf Hess]], the [[Deputy Führer]], on 1 July 1933.{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=47}}{{sfn|Lang|1979|pp=74–77}} Bormann also served as personal secretary to Hess from July 1933 until 12 May 1941.{{sfn|Miller|2006|p=148}} Hess's department was responsible for settling disputes within the party and acted as an intermediary between the party and the state regarding policy decisions and legislation.{{sfn|Lang|1979|p=78}}{{efn|In practice, this requirement was usually circumvented.{{sfn|Lang|1979|p=87}} }} Bormann used his position to create an extensive bureaucracy and involve himself in as much of the decision-making as possible.{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=47}}{{sfn|Lang|1979|p=78}} On 10 October 1933 Hitler named Bormann ''[[Reichsleiter]]'' (national leader – the second highest political rank) of the Nazi Party.{{sfn|Lang|1979|p=79}} At the [[November 1933 German parliamentary election|November 1933 parliamentary election]], Bormann was elected as a ''[[Reichstag (Nazi Germany)|Reichstag]]'' deputy from electoral constituency 5 ([[Frankfurt an der Oder (electoral district)|Frankfurt an der Oder]]); he was reelected in 1936 and 1938.{{sfn|Reichstag Database}} By June 1934, Bormann was gaining acceptance into Hitler's inner circle and accompanied him everywhere, providing briefings and summaries of events and requests.{{sfn|Lang|1979|pp=84, 86}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1968-100-21A, Martin Bormann.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Bormann in 1939]]
In 1935, Bormann was appointed as overseer of renovations at the [[Berghof (residence)|Berghof]], Hitler's property at [[Obersalzberg]]. In the early 1930s, Hitler bought the property, which he had been renting since 1925 as a vacation retreat. After he became [[Chancellor of Germany|chancellor]], Hitler drew up plans for expansion and remodelling of the main house and put Bormann in charge of construction. Bormann commissioned the construction of barracks for the SS guards, roads and footpaths, garages for motor vehicles, a guesthouse, accommodation for staff, and other amenities. Retaining title in his own name, Bormann bought up adjacent farms until the entire complex covered {{convert|10|sqkm|sqmi}}. Members of the inner circle built houses within the perimeter, beginning with [[Hermann Göring]], [[Albert Speer]], and Bormann himself.{{sfn|Speer|1971|pp=128–129}}{{sfn|Lang|1979|pp=108–109}}{{efn|The Bormann family also had a house in the Munich suburb of [[Pullach]].{{sfn|Lang|1979|p=135}} }} Bormann commissioned the building of the ''[[Kehlsteinhaus]]'' (Eagle's Nest), a tea house high above the Berghof, as a gift to Hitler on his fiftieth birthday (20 April 1939). Hitler seldom used the building, but Bormann liked to impress guests by taking them there.{{sfn|Lang|1979|pp=121–122}}

While Hitler was in residence at the Berghof, Bormann was constantly in attendance and acted as Hitler's personal secretary. In this capacity, he began to control the flow of information and access to Hitler.{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=47}}{{sfn|Fest|1970|p=131}} During this period, Hitler gave Bormann control of his personal finances. In addition to salaries as chancellor and president, Hitler's income included money raised through royalties collected on his book ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' and the use of his image on postage stamps. Bormann set up the [[Adolf Hitler Fund of German Trade and Industry]], which collected money from German industrialists on Hitler's behalf. Some of the funds received through this programme were disbursed to various party leaders, but Bormann retained most of it for Hitler's personal use.{{sfn|Speer|1971|pp=131–132}} Bormann and others took notes of Hitler's thoughts expressed over dinner and in monologues late into the night and preserved them. The material was published after the war as ''[[Hitler's Table Talk]]''.{{sfn|McGovern|1968|p=96}}{{sfn|Speer|1971|p=142}} Historian Mikael Nilsson contends that Bormann (along with [[Henry Picker]] and [[Heinrich Heim]], who transcribed the material) distorted the table talks so that the content would be useful to help him win disagreements within the Nazi leadership. Picker noted Bormann would make him insert fictitious statements, and that Bormann wanted their notes to fit in with his own fight against the churches. Nilsson notes that Bormann seemed willing to pursue his anti-Christian stance behind Hitler's back.{{sfn|Nilsson|2020|pp=12, 113, 143, 197}} 

The office of the Deputy Führer had final approval over civil service appointments, and Bormann reviewed the personnel files and made the decisions regarding appointments. This power impinged on the purview of Minister of the Interior [[Wilhelm Frick]], and was an example of the overlapping responsibilities typical of the Nazi regime.{{sfn|Lang|1979|p=126}} Bormann travelled everywhere with Hitler, including trips to Austria in 1938 after the ''[[Anschluss]]'' (the annexation of Austria into [[Nazi Germany]]), and to the [[Sudetenland]] after the signing of the [[Munich Agreement]] later that year.{{sfn|Lang|1979|pp=118, 121}} Bormann was placed in charge of organising the 1938 [[Nuremberg Rally]], a major annual party event.{{sfn|Lang|1979|p=123}}

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-2004-0017, Paris, Besuch Adolf Hitler, Speer, Giesler, Breker.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Bormann (in front beside Hitler) in Paris, June 1940]]
Hitler intentionally played top party members against one another and the Nazi Party against the civil service. In this way, he fostered distrust, competition, and infighting among his subordinates to consolidate and maximise his own power.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=323}} He typically did not give written orders; instead he communicated with them verbally or had them conveyed through Bormann.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|p=377}} Falling out of favour with Bormann meant that access to Hitler was cut off.{{sfn|McGovern|1968|p=64}} Bormann proved to be a master of intricate political infighting. Along with his ability to control access to Hitler, this enabled him to curtail the power of [[Joseph Goebbels]], Göring, Himmler, [[Alfred Rosenberg]], [[Robert Ley]], [[Hans Frank]], Speer, and other high-ranking officials, many of whom became his enemies. This ruthless and continuous infighting for power, influence, and Hitler's favour came to characterise the inner workings of the Third Reich.{{sfn|Evans|2005|p=47}}{{sfn|Speer|1971|p=132}}

As [[European theatre of World War II|World War II]] progressed, Hitler's attention became focused on foreign affairs and the conduct of the war to the exclusion of all else. Hess, not directly engaged in either of these endeavours, became increasingly sidelined from the affairs of the nation and from Hitler's attention; Bormann had successfully supplanted Hess in many of his duties and usurped his position at Hitler's side. Hess was concerned that Germany would face a war on two fronts as plans progressed for [[Operation Barbarossa]], the invasion of the [[Soviet Union]] scheduled to take place later that year. He flew solo to Britain on 10 May 1941 to seek peace negotiations with the British government.{{sfn|Evans|2008|p=167}}{{sfn|Shirer|1960|p=837}}{{sfn|Sereny|1996|p=321}} He was arrested on arrival and spent the rest of the war as a British prisoner, eventually receiving a life sentence &ndash; for crimes against peace (planning and preparing a war of aggression), and conspiracy with other German leaders to commit crimes &ndash; at the [[Nuremberg trials]] in 1946.{{sfn|Evans|2008|pp=168, 742}} Speer later said Hitler described Hess's departure as one of the worst blows of his life, as he considered it a personal betrayal.{{sfn|Sereny|1996|p=240}} Hitler ordered Hess to be shot should he return to Germany and abolished the post of Deputy Führer on 12 May 1941, assigning Hess's former duties to Bormann, with the title of Head of the ''Parteikanzlei'' ([[Party Chancellery]]).{{sfn|Miller|2006|p=148}}{{sfn|Shirer|1960|p=838}} In this position he was responsible for all Nazi Party appointments, and was answerable only to Hitler.{{sfn|McGovern|1968|p=63}} By a Führer decree (''Führererlass'') on 29 May, Bormann also succeeded Hess on the six-member [[Council of Ministers for Defense of the Reich]], which operated as a war cabinet. He simultaneously was awarded cabinet rank equivalent to a ''[[Reichsminister]]'' [[minister without portfolio|without portfolio]].{{sfn| Lang| 1979| p=191}} Associates began to refer to him as the "[[Political colour#Brown|Brown]] [[Éminence grise|Eminence]]", although never to his face.{{sfn|McGovern|1968|p=77}}{{efn|German: ''der brauner Schatten''. The term is a reference to [[Cardinal Richelieu]] (termed the "Red Eminence"), the power behind the throne in the court of [[Louis XIII of France]].{{sfn|McGovern|1968|p=77}} }}

Bormann's power and effective reach broadened considerably during the war.{{sfn|Hamilton|1984|p=94}} By early 1943, the war produced a labour crisis for the regime. Hitler created a three-man committee with representatives of the State, the army, and the Party in an attempt to centralise control of the war economy. The committee members were [[Hans Lammers]] (head of the Reich Chancellery), Field Marshal [[Wilhelm Keitel]], chief of the ''[[Oberkommando der Wehrmacht]]'' (Armed Forces High Command; OKW), and Bormann, who controlled the Party. The committee was intended to independently propose measures regardless of the wishes of various ministries, with Hitler reserving most final decisions to himself. The committee, soon known as the ''Dreierausschuß'' (Committee of Three), met eleven times between January and August 1943. However, they ran up against resistance from Hitler's cabinet ministers, who headed deeply entrenched spheres of influence and were excluded from the committee. Seeing it as a threat to their power, Goebbels, Göring, and Speer worked together to bring it down. The result was that nothing changed, and the Committee of Three declined into irrelevance.{{sfn|Kershaw|2008|pp=749–753}}