Actually Lehrter Bahnhof is not far from the Weidendammer Brücke, but all is relative of course. I can recommend other forum members a trip to Berlin for a spot of WWII 'After the Battle' touring, its well worth it IMO.
Not half hearted? Well, again its relative.
Id call a last minute (actuall well after 'twelve o'clock') going back and forth escape ending in ones unintended death for half hearted, but thats just me.
Bormann went to the Weidendammer bridge and TURNED BACK in order to go towards the Lehrter Bahnhof.
A well planned determined attempt of fleeing might have succeeded what ever their goal was.
Nothing in any records, that I have read points to anything less than a too late half hearted attempt.
But discussing that further is just splitting hairs, so lets refrain from that.
Anyway, its correct that he was killed near Lehrter - on the way there he passed the Weidendammer and turned back.
For a very interesting look at the route, take a peek here Info/map/links below). I just found this a little while ago and found it interesting.
'At 23:00 hours the mass escape began. Moving in small groups, they proceeded underground, as planned, to the Friedrichstrasse station. Here they emerged to find the ruins of Berlin in flames, and Russian shells bursting everywhere around them. The first group managed to cross the river Spree by an iron footbridge that ran parallel to the Weidendammer Bridge. The remaining groups likewise emerged at the Friedrichstrasse Station, but there became confused and disoriented. They made their way north along the Friedrichstrasse to the Weidendammer Bridge, where they found their way blocked, at the bridge's north end, by an anti-tank barrier and heavy Russian fire.
They next withdrew to the south end of the bridge, where they were soon joined by a few German tanks. Gathering about the tanks, they again pressed forward. Bormann, Artur Axmann (head of the Hitler Youth), Ludwig Stumpfegger (Hitler's surgeon), and others followed the lead tanks as far as the Ziegelstrasse. There a panzerfaust struck the lead tank. The violent explosion stunned Bormann and Stumpfegger, and wounded Axmann. All retreated to the Weidendammer Bridge.
Now it was every man for himself. Bormann, Stumpfegger, Axmann, and others followed the tracks of the surface railway to the Lehrter station. There Bormann and Stumpfegger decided to follow the Invalidienstrasse east. Axmann elected to go west, but encountered a Russian patrol and returned on the path Bormann and Stumpfegger had taken. He soon found them. Behind the bridge, where the Invalidienstrasse crosses the railroad tracks, they lay on their backs, the moonlight on their faces. Both were dead. Axmann could see no signs of an explosion, and assumed that they had been shot in the back. He continued on his way, escaping from Berlin and spending the next six months hiding out with the Hitler Youth in the Bavarian Alps, where he was eventually captured.'
In any event, I understand that Bormann was not shot by the Russians, as glass shards was supposedly found amongst the teeth in his skull when found decades later by Berlin city workers during construction.
Bormann might have bitten down on a glass cyanide ampule upon finding all roads blocked and his escape attempt from the bunker futile.
ACHTUNG!
Map of Bormanns escape route
Conventional Map of The Escape Route of Martin Bormann
ACTUNG version deux - animated map of the Bormann escape route!!!
Animated Map of The Escape Route of Martin Bormann
Source, further info, pics of Friedrichstrasse and not least the Weidendammer Brücke (random site - I dont vouch for anything on the site)
The Weidendammer Bridge
The Friedrichstrasse
The Escape Route of Martin Bormann
by Scout
Actually Lehrter Bahnhof is not far from the Weidendammer Brücke, but all is relative of course. I can recommend other forum members a trip to Berlin for a spot of WWII 'After the Battle' touring, its well worth it IMO.
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