OP.JB : The Last Great Secret of the Second World War

From the d.j.: "Millions of words have been written about the fate of Martin Bormann, Hitler's indispensable private secretary, and head of the Nazi Party Chancellery, who vanished at the end of the Second World War. Several stories existed about Bormann's fate. However, the truth is far more extraordinary. "Christopher Creighton now reveals that in the final night and day of the war, as the Soviet armies closed in on the capital of the Third Reich, Bormann was lifted from Berlin by a Commando raiding party, led by Ian Flemin, creator of James Bond, and himself. The team spirited their captives down the waterways to meet the Allies on the River Elbe, and by mid-May 1945 Bormann was safe in England, where he assume a new identity. Operation James Bond was ordered by Major Desmond Morton, head of the ultra-secret M Section of naval intelligence. Its ulterior purpose was to recover the immense fortune appropriated by the Nazis and salted away in numbered Swiss bank account, to which Bormann alone had access.

It was approved not only by the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, but also by both King George VI and President Roosevelt; yet it was so highly classified that even other government intelligence and security organisations knew nothing of it. After the war, thanks to the British capture of Bormann, 95 per cent of Nazi funds were recovered and restored to their former owners."

NOTE: the poor paper used in this book has resulted in the pages being "browned", but easily readable.