German Leadership

Gerda Bormann.

Daughter of a Nazi Party internal judge/arbitrator, Gerda Buch married Martin Bormann, rising star in the National Socialist Party, in September 1929 at the age of 19. She appears to have been a devoted National Socialist and, in one respect at least, did her best to live up to Nazi "ideals" by giving Bormann 9 (or was it 10 ?) children, starting with Adolf Martin in 1930. Bormann himself must have been difficult to live with. An inveterate womaniser and keeper of mistresses, his letters (if they were collected in a book, it might be entitled "Memoirs of a Nazi Sex Addict) indicate extraordinary sexual arrogance and sexual fixations that can have left little space for attention to Gerda - in spite of all those children. At the end of the war, Gerda was rigorously questioned by Allied interrogators (in part, I suppose, because Martin was "missing" at the time). She was, however, suffering from cancer (not sure when it was diagnosed, exactly) and she died from poisioning of mercury (apparently used in her treatment) at Merano, Italy, in March 1946. Best regards, JR.