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But the newest account will be checked out, as always when the name of Martin Bormann crops up. Bormann was not just a minor staff man of the Third Reich or a banally evil bureaucrat like Eichmann. He was a man of incredible power, concerned with every aspect of Nazi policy, the pillar of the party, the tireless executor of Hitler's whims as well as his own. Brutal and ruthless, he was feared even by SS Leader Heinrich Himmler. He was, in fact, Hitler's alter ego, or as one historian put it, the "Devil's Beelzebub."
There is some evidence that Bormann died shortly after leaving Hitler's bunker. State Attorney Joachim Richter, who is in charge of West Germany's continuing investigation of the Bormann case, tends to believe it. But he keeps looking for the man, dead or alive. The Bormann file in his Frankfurt office now contains 35 volumes. Says Richter: "Every story we have checked turned out not to be true, or remained simply a story—unconfirmed." Now comes Volume 36.