ASHES AND BONES STORIES
Weekly transmission 09-2018 presents: II Ashes and Bones Stories: Martin Bormann’s copy of Palafox and Mendoza 1945-1971. Martin Bormann’s bones mystery III-VI Weekly Drawing by éophile Bouchet: “Happy New Year” VII 1773 AD. By the brief Dominus ac Redemptor Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus 1-3 213 BCE. Burning of books and burying of scholars 4
Ashes and Bones Stories: Martin Bormann’s copy of Palafox and Mendoza
We are close to a big burning of books. Not by order of a single decision maker fanatic of the Qin Emperor exemplary orders of 213 BCA or another Great Leader a few centuries later. Just a general indifference with a multiplication of governemental bands listing books as outlaw, lists issued by technocratic bureaucraties, all impatient to get rid of thousands of librarians and optimize thousands of buildings.
Let’s pick one small volume, in a strict and severe binding, probably designed by Reichsleiter Martin Bormann. The text is a rather boring German translation of Palafox and Mendoza 1650s texts against the jesuits, printed in Gothic alphabet in 1773, the year of general bannisment of the Jesuits.
The property stamp deserves our attention as the heir of Hitler could have been interested in the administration of Latin America native people, he is said to have chosen the Paraguaian missions as a post apocalyptic heaven.
This small volume, difficult to read, brings our attention to contemplate three centurie: Spain and Mexico in mid 17th, the World in 1773 and the World abter the Fall oftheReich, 1945. Last point, ironically, Martin Bormann is the decision-maker who banished the use of gothic characters in German countries.
The e-bulletins present articles as well as selections of books, albums, photographs and documents as they have been handed down to the actual owners by their creators and by amateurs from past generations.
The album with 89 vintage prints is vailable at the price of 2,225 euros, PayPal is accepted.
N°09-2018. ASH AND BONES STORIES
Weekly Transmission 09
III
Thursday 1 March 2018
.
Property of Reich Leader Bormann wet stamp on end paper
“Martin Bormann (17 June 1900 – 2 May 1945) was a prominent official in Nazi Germany as head of the Nazi Party Chancellery. He gained immense power by using his position as Adolf Hitler's private secretary to control the flow of information and access to Hitler. He succeeded Hitler as Party Minister of the National Socialist German Workers' Party after Hitler's suicide on 30 April 1945...
He had final approval over civil service appointments, reviewed and approved legislation, and by 1943 had de facto control over all domestic matters. Bormann was one of the leading proponents of the ongoing persecution of the Christian churches and favoured harsh treatment of Jews and Slavs in the areas conquered by Germany during World War II.
Bormann returned with Hitler in Berlin on 16 January 1945 as the Red Army approached the city. Hitler transferred his headquarters to the Führerbunker ("Leader's bunker", located under the Reich Chancellery garden in the government district in the centre of the city), where he (along with Bormann, his secretary Else Krüger, and others) remained until the end of April.
Weekly Transmission 09
IV
Thursday 1 March 2018
.
The Battle of Berlin, the final major Soviet offensive of the war, began on 16 April 1945. By 19 April the Red Army started to encircle the city. On 20 April, his 56th birthday, Hitler made his last trip to the surface. In the ruined garden of the Reich Chancellery, he awarded Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth. That afternoon, Berlin was bombarded by Soviet artillery for the first time. On 23 April, Albert Bormann, young brother and Martin Bormann left the bunker complex and flew to the Obersalzberg. He and several others had been ordered by Hitler to leave Berlin.
In the early morning hours of 29 April 1945, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Goebbels, Hans Krebs, and Martin Bormann witnessed and signed Hitler's last will and testament. Martin Bormann was named executor of the estate. That same night, Hitler married Eva Braun in a civil ceremony. As Soviet forces continued to fight their way into the centre of Berlin, Hitler and Braun committed suicide on the afternoon of 30 April. Braun took cyanide and Hitler shot himself. Pursuant to Hitler's instructions, their bodies were carried up to the Reich Chancellery garden and burned. In accordance with Hitler's last wishes, Martin Bormann was named as Party Minister, thus officially confirming his position as de facto General Secretary of the Party.
Grand Admiral Karl DÜnitz was appointed as the new Reichspräsident (president of Germany) and Goebbels became head of government and Chancellor of Germany. Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide later that day.
On 2 May, the Battle in Berlin ended when General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling, the commander of the Berlin Defence Area, unconditionally surrendered the city to General Vasily Chuikov, the commander of the Soviet 8th Guards Army.
Private collection
Weekly Transmission 09
V
Thursday 1 March 2018
.
At around 11:00 pm on 1 May, Bormann left the Führerbunker with SS doctor Ludwig Stumpfegger, Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann, and Hitler's pilot Hans Baur as members of one of the groups attempting to break out of the Soviet encirclement.
Bormann carried with him a copy of Hitler's last will and testament. The group left the Führerbunker and travelled on foot via a U-Bahn tunnel to the Friedrichstraße station, where they surfaced. Several members of the party attempted to cross the Spree River at the Weidendammer Bridge while crouching behind a Tiger tank. The tank was hit by Soviet artillery and destroyed, and Bormann and Stumpfegger were knocked to the ground. Bormann, Stumpfegger, and several others eventually crossed the river on their third attempt.
Bormann, Stumpfegger, and Axmann walked along the railway tracks to Lehrter station, where Axmann decided to leave the others and go in the opposite direction. When he encountered a Red Army patrol, Axmann doubled back. He saw two bodies, which he later identified as Bormann and Stumpfegger, on a bridge near the railway switching yard. He did not have time to check thoroughly, so he did not know how they died. Since the Soviets never admitted to finding Bormann's body, his fate remained in doubt for many years.
During the chaotic days after the war, contradictory reports arose as to Bormann's whereabouts. Sightings were reported in Argentina, Spain, and elsewhere. Bormann's wife was placed under surveillance in case he tried to contact her. Jakob Glas, Bormann's long-time chauffeur, insisted that he saw Bormann in Munich in July 1946. In case Bormann was still alive, multiple public notices about the upcoming Nuremberg trials were placed in newspapers and on the radio in October and November 1945 to notify him of the proceedings against him...
Over the coming years, several organisations, including the CIA and the West German Government, attempted to locate Bormann without success. In 1964, the West German government offered a reward of 100,000 Deutsche Marks for information leading to Bormann's capture. Sightings were reported at points all over the world, including Australia, Denmark, Italy, and South America. In his autobiography, Nazi intelligence officer Reinhard Gehlen claimed that Bormann had been a Soviet spy, and that he had escaped to Moscow. Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal believed that Bormann was living in South America.
The West German government declared that its hunt for Bormann was over in 1971.
In 1963, a retired postal worker named Albert Krumnow told police that around 8 May 1945 the Soviets had ordered him and his colleagues to bury two bodies found near the railway bridge near Lehrter station.
Weekly Transmission 09
VI
Thursday 1 March 2018
.
One was dressed in a Wehrmacht uniform and the other was clad only in his underwear. Krumnow's colleague Wagenpfohl found an SS doctor's paybook on the second body identifying him as Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger. He gave the paybook to his boss, postal chief Berndt, who turned it over to the Soviets. They in turn destroyed it. He wrote to Stumpfegger's wife on 14 August 1945 and told her that her husband's body was "... interred with the bodies of several other dead soldiers in the grounds of the Alpendorf in Berlin NW 40, Invalidenstrasse 63." Excavations on 20–21 July 1965 at the site specified by Axmann and Krumnow failed to locate the bodies.
However, on 7 December 1972, construction workers uncovered human remains near Lehrter station in West Berlin just 12 m (39 ft) from the spot where Krumnow claimed he had buried them. Upon autopsy, fragments of glass were found in the jaws of both skeletons, suggesting that the men had committed suicide by biting cyanide capsules to avoid capture. Dental records—reconstructed from memory in 1945 by Dr. Hugo Blaschke—identified one skeleton as Bormann's, and damage to the collarbone was consistent with injuries that Bormann's sons reported he had sustained in a riding accident in 1939. Forensic examiners determined that the size of the skeleton and the shape of the skull were identical to Bormann's. Likewise, the second skeleton was deemed to be Stumpfegger's, since it was of similar height to his last known proportions. Composite photographs, where images of the skulls were overlaid on photographs of the men's faces, were completely congruent. Facial reconstruction was undertaken in early 1973 on both skulls to confirm the identities of the bodies. Soon afterward, the West German government declared Bormann dead. The family was not permitted to cremate the body, in case further forensic examination later proved necessary.
The remains were conclusively identified as Bormann's in 1998 when German authorities ordered genetic testing on fragments of the skull. The testing was led by Wolfgang Eisenmenger, Professor of Forensic Science at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Tests using DNA from one of his relatives identified the skull as that of Bormann. Bormann's remains were cremated and the ashes were scattered in the Baltic Sea on 16 August 1999... [Controversy is not over — many suggest Bormann lived twenty years as a priest in Paraguay and his body was burried in Berlin after his death, to be found at the right place.
On 2 September 1929, Bormann married 19-year-old Gerda Buch, whose father, Major Walter Buch, served as a chairman of the Untersuchung und Schlichtungs-Ausschuss (USCHLA; Investigation and Settlement Committee), which was responsible for settling disputes within the party. Hitler was a frequent visitor to the Buch house, and it was here that Bormann met him. Hess and Hitler served as witnesses at the wedding. Bormann also had a series of mistresses, including Manja Behrens, an actress. Martin and Gerda Bormann had ten children.” (Wikipedia)
Weekly Drawing by éophile Bouchet: “Martin Bormann and Gerda Buch”
Weekly Transmission 09
1
Thursday 1 March 2018
.
The power and wealth of the Society of Jesus with its influential educational system was confronted by adversaries in this time of cultural change in Europe, leading to the revolutions that would follow. Monarchies attempting to centralize and secularize political power viewed the Jesuits as being too international, too strongly allied to the papacy, and too autonomous from the monarchs in whose territory they operated.
By the brief Dominus ac Redemptor (21 July 1773) Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Society of Jesus, as a fait accompli and with no reasons given. Russia, Prussia, and the United States allowed the Jesuits to continue their work, and Catherine the Great allowed the founding of a new novitiate in Russia. Soon after their restoration by Pope Pius VII in 1814 they began returning to most of the places from which they had been expelled.
Weekly Transmission 09
2
Thursday 1 March 2018
.
Blessed Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (June 26, 1600 – October 1, 1659) was a Spanish politician, administrator, and Catholic clergyman in 17th century Spain and viceregal Mexico.
Palafox was the Bishop of Puebla (1640−1655), and the interim Archbishop of Mexico (1640−1642).
He also held political office, from June 10, 1642 to November 23, 1642 as the Viceroy of New Spain. He lost a high-profile struggle with the Jesuits in New Spain, resulting in a recall to Spain, to the minor Diocese of Osma in Old Castile. Although a case was opened for his beatification shortly after he died in 1659, he was not designated "blessed" until 2011.
Weekly Transmission 09
3
Thursday 1 March 2018
.
Palafoxwas embroiled in a major controversy with the Jesuits over ecclesiastical jurisdiction that eventually cost him his post as Bishop of Puebla de los Ă ngeles. The Spanish crown was moving to displace mendicant orders from their populous and lucrative doctrinas in central Mexico, and replace them with parishes staffed by secular (diocesan) clergy with benefices rather than mendicants. He was largely successful in doing so in Puebla.
He then targeted the Jesuits as another entity that did not respect ecclesiastical jurisdiction by paying tithes, essentially a 10% tax on agricultural production, to the Church hierarchy. In the 1640s when he took on the Jesuits, Palafox pointed out that the Jesuit order was a hugely wealthy landowner in New Spain. Jesuits claimed that the income from their haciendas went exclusively toward support of their educational institutions (colegios) and their missionary work on the colonial frontiers.[5] On principle, Palafox asserted that it was the spiritual duty of all to pay the tithe, which the Jesuits steadfastly refused to do. The tithe transferred wealth from the countryside's landed estates to cities and towns, supporting the cathedral chapter, parish priests, and charitable institutions.
Weekly Transmission 09
4
Thursday 1 March 2018
.
“The burning of books and burying of scholars (pinyin: fénshū kēngrú) refers to the supposed burning of texts in 213 BCE and live burial of 460 Confucian scholars in 210 BCE by the First Emperor of the Qin dynasty of ancient China. The event caused the loss of many philosophical treatises of the Hundred Schools of Thought. The official philosophy of government ("legalism") survived.
Recent scholars doubt the details of the story in the Records of the Grand Historian—the main source —since Sima Qian, the author, wrote a century or so after the events and was an official of the Han dynasty, which could be expected to portray the previous rulers unfavorably. While it is clear that the First Emperor gathered and destroyed many works which he regarded as subversive, two copies of each school were to be preserved in imperial libraries. These were destroyed in the fighting following the fall of the dynasty.
According to the Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), after Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of China, unified China in 221 BCE, his chancellor Li Si suggested suppressing intellectual discourse to unify thought and political opinion.
Chancellor Li Si Said: "I, your servant, propose that all historians' records other than those of Qin's be burned. With the exception of the academics whose duty includes possessing books, if anyone under heaven has copies of the Shi Jing [Classic of Poetry], the Shujing [Classic of History], or the writings of the hundred schools of philosophy, they shall deliver them (the books) to the governor or the commandant for burning. Anyone who dares to discuss the Shi Jing or the Classic of History shall be publicly executed. Anyone who uses history to criticize the present shall have his family executed. Any official who sees the violations but fails to report them is equally guilty. Anyone who has failed to burn the books after thirty days of this announcement shall be subjected to tattooing and be sent to build the Great Wall. The books that have exemption are those on medicine, divination, agriculture, and forestry. Those who have interest in laws shall instead study from officials." —Shiji Chapter 6. "The Basic Annals of the First Emperor of Qin" thirty-fourth year (213 BC)
Three categories of books were viewed by Li Si to be most dangerous politically. These were poetry (particularly the Shi Jing), history (Shujing and especially historical records of other states than Qin), and philosophy. The ancient collection of poetry and historical records contained many stories concerning the ancient virtuous rulers. Li Si believed that if the people were to read these works they were likely to invoke the past and become dissatisfied with the present. The reason for opposing various schools of philosophy was that they advocated political ideas often incompatible with the totalitarian regime.
Of the various categories of books mentioned, history suffered one of the greatest losses of its ancient time. Extremely few state history books before Qin have survived. Li Si stated that all history books not in the Qin interpretation were to be burned. It is not clear whether copies of these books were actually burned or allowed to stay in the imperial archives. Even if some histories were preserved, they possibly would have been destroyed in 206 B.C. when enemies captured and burned the Qin imperial palaces in which the archives were most likely located.” (W.)
Serge Plantureux Expertises et investigations 80 rue Taitbout F-75009 Paris Number 10th of the Weekly Transmission has been uploaded on Thursday 1st March 2018 at 15:15 (Paris time) Forthcoming upload and transmission on Thursday 8th March 2018, 15:15 expertises@plantureux.fr Follow the Galerie du palace on our Telegram channel: t.me/galeriedupalace