Hitler's Fixer

Rating:
Summary: Interesting if Uneven Treatment Of Martin Bormann
Review: Martin Bormann is probably one of the world's most infamous underachievers in the sense that he rose from obscurity by being the ultimate company man, willing to say and do anything to please Hitler and thereby ensure his own desperate status as a somebody in the universe of freaks and psychopaths that fluttered in Hitler's domain. He survived at least temporarily in the confusion of the siege of Berlin by the Soviets, and various accounts having him succumbing to a sniper to escaping to Brazil.

Whatever his fate, his is an unusual story, depicted here quite well through the use of documentary newsreels and circumstantial evidence. Thus this documentary about his rise to become Hitler's deputy, and as such one of the most powerful men in the Third Reich, is a strange tale indeed. Bormann skillfully controlled access to Hitler and use this power to manage his own political and private affairs. In the end of course, he could not escape the fall of the Third Reich and all it meant to those in the Nazi superstructure.

This film concentrates on the quite intense personal relationship between Hitler, on the one hand, and Martin Bormann, illustrating how it was that Bormann connived his way through adroit insinuation into the innermost circle of the Nazi hierarchy, fashioning a spot for himself that was unrivaled within Hitler's inner circle. Indeed, by the time of the fall of Berlin, Hitler referred to Bormann as being "my most faithful party comrade", anointing him as the incumbent leader of the Nazi party. The film ruminates about the mysteries surrounding Bormann's final fate, including the enduring rumors about Bormann's supposed 'escape' to South America and the allegation that he might have been a Soviet spy. This is an entertaining look at one of the most misunderstood of the figures in the Nazi hierarchy. Enjoy!