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Sup­ple­ment­ing pre­vi­ous dis­cus­sion of the remark­able and dead­ly Bor­mann Orga­ni­za­tion, this broad­cast illu­mi­nates writer Paul Man­ning’s cor­re­spon­dence with var­i­ous jour­nal­is­tic con­tem­po­raries con­cern­ing his remark­able text Mar­tin Bor­mann: Nazi in Exile (Hard­cov­er, Lyle Stu­art 1981.)

Antic­i­pat­ing the defeat of the Third Reich, Reich­sleit­er Mar­tin Bor­mann set up 750 cor­po­ra­tions in neu­tral coun­tries, primed as vehi­cles to receive the liq­uid wealth of Ger­many. This cap­i­tal flight was effec­tive­ly real­ized. An orga­ni­za­tion­al genius and the real pow­er behind Hitler, Bor­mann suc­cess­ful­ly fled Europe for South Amer­i­ca and admin­is­tered a “Reich in Exile” in the years since the war.

With the SS as an enforce­ment arm, for­mer Gestapo chief Gen­er­al Hein­rich Mueller as secu­ri­ty direc­tor, the 750 cor­po­ra­tions as a base of eco­nom­ic pow­er and the will­ing silence and coop­er­a­tion of the West­ern Allies, Bor­mann guid­ed his Orga­ni­za­tion to a posi­tion of con­sum­mate pow­er. One banker quot­ed by Man­ning termed the Bor­mann Orga­ni­za­tion, the “world’s most impor­tant accu­mu­la­tion of mon­ey pow­er under one con­trol in his­to­ry”. Con­trol­ling Ger­many’s major cor­po­ra­tions, the Fed­er­al Repub­lic itself and much of Latin Amer­i­ca, the Bor­mann Orga­ni­za­tion is also a for­mi­da­ble pres­ence in the Unit­ed States.

A col­league of Edward R. Mur­row dur­ing the Sec­ond World War, Paul Man­ning wrote the defin­i­tive text on the Bor­mann Orga­ni­za­tion.

This pro­gram details some of his con­tacts with major news orga­ni­za­tions and indi­vid­u­als in a vain attempt to gar­ner greater pub­lic­i­ty for, and dis­tri­b­u­tion of, his work. Although few acknowl­edge the Orga­ni­za­tion, aware­ness of the group and its influ­ence is greater than might be sup­posed from the rel­a­tive lack of dis­cus­sion of the sub­ject.

Pro­gram high­lights include: inter­est in the rites to Man­ning’s book as a pos­si­ble motion pic­ture or the­atri­cal pro­duc­tion; CBS news’ par­tial spon­sor­ship of Man­ning’s research on the Bor­mann sto­ry; the role of the Bor­mann Orga­ni­za­tion in the so-called “Eco­nom­ic Mir­a­cle;” the post-war recov­ery of the West Ger­man econ­o­my; acknowl­edge­ment by Simon Weisen­thal’s top inves­ti­ga­tor that Gen­er­al Hein­rich Mueller com­mand­ed the best intel­li­gence orga­ni­za­tion in the world from his posi­tion as direc­tor of secu­ri­ty for the Orga­ni­za­tion; Hein­rich Mueller’s role in set­ting up Moham­mer Khadafy’s secret ser­vice; Mueller’s skill­ful dis­cred­it­ing of author Ladis­las Fara­go (author of After­math); Man­ning’s dev­as­tat­ing rebut­tal of crit­i­cism direct­ed at his book by an L.A. Times review­er and his unsuc­cess­ful attempts to obtain an inter­view with Bor­mann him­self, despite sus­tained com­mu­ni­ca­tion with both Mueller and Bor­mann. Sad­ly, there was no sub­stan­tive response to the efforts of Man­ning’s con­tem­po­raries. (Record­ed on 3/21/99.)