World War II Nazi German War Criminal. He served as head of the Nazi Party Chancellery and and as private secretary to Adolph Hitler, and by the end of World War II had become second only to Hitler himself in terms of real political power. Born in Halberstadt in 1900, he is one of the most mysterious and sinister figure in the Third Reich. He signed Hitler's political testament, acted as the witness to his marriage to Eva Braun and watched Hitler commit suicide in the Chancellery bunker. Ordered by Hitler 'to put the interests of the nation before his own feelings' and to save himself, Martin Bormann left the Fuhrer-bunker on April 30, 1945. Accounts of what happened afterwards vary widely. According to Erich Kempka (Hitler's chauffeur), Bormann was killed trying to cross the Russian lines by an anti-tank shell which hit the tank in which they were trying to escape, causing it to burst into flames. Kempka, who was temporarily blinded at the time, claimed nonetheless to have seen Bormann's dead body. Hitler Youth Leader Artur Axmann, on the other hand, believed that Bormann committed suicide and claimed to have seen Bormann's body on May 2, 1945 in the Invalidenstrasse, north of the River Spree in Berlin. Doubts, however, have persisted and numerous sightings of Bormann have been reported, beginning in 1946 when his presence in a North Italian monastery was announced. In the same year, his wife Gerda (a rabid Nazi and daughter of Supreme Party Judge, Walter Buch) died of cancer in South Tyrol, though his ten children survived the war. It was then alleged that Bormann had escaped (like other loyal Nazis) via Rome to South America. Rumored to have settled in Argentina where he was living secretly as a millionaire, allegedly spotted in Brazil and also in Chile, Bormann's traces proved as elusive as the anonymity in which he first rose to power. Having been sentenced to death in absentia at Nuremberg on October 1, 1946, he was formally pronounced dead by a West German court in April 1973. The circumstances of this death are very controversial, but a body discovered in Berlin in late 1972 was positively identified through forensic investigation as being Bormann's. He had committed suicide by cyanide poisoning, early on the morning of May 2, 1945. Along with his companion Dr. Stumpfegger, he was buried in a hasty unmarked grave during the cleanup of Berlin in May 1945. Following the identification of his body in 1973, the remains were cremated and the ashes were scattered in an undisclosed location.