He took part in the abortive Munich beer-hall putsch ( uprising) 1923 and rose to high positions in the Nazi (National Socialist) Party, becoming deputy party leader May 1941 following the flight of Rudolf Hess to Britain. In 1943 Hitler made him his personal secretary, a position in which he controlled access to Hitler, preventing bad news from reaching him and exercised enormous influence over Hitler's decisions. Bormann was believed to have escaped the fall of Berlin May 1945 and was tried in his absence and sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials 1945-46, but a skeleton uncovered by a mechanical excavator in Berlin 1972 was officially recognized as his by forensic experts 1973.
