In December 1945, six months after their secret arrival into the country, Bormann invited a hand-picked group of businessmen for a weekend stay at El Blondi, where they were granted a brief audience with the Führer. Rumours had been circulating for months among pro-Nazi elite circles that Hitler and Bormann had escaped from Berlin and set up a home somewhere in the Santa Cruz area. Once the businessmen had seen Hitler for themselves and confirmed the rumours were true, Bormann became the most powerful and significant figure in Buenos Aires. Financially, he had access to seemingly unlimited funds and, politically, he had the support and protection of the Perón regime. For the second time in his life, he found himself at the centre of a country’s economic and political power base.

Three years earlier, in 1943, Bormann had started to learn Spanish and English: essential skills he knew he’d require in order to pull off his long-term plan. Two female tutors, specialising in the respective languages, came to his house every day at separate times. The lessons only stopped when he was forced to move into the bunker. Within a week of relocating to El Calafate, he’d recruited a local schoolteacher who was fluent in both, a huge bonus for Bormann as it saved him precious time. He was a dedicated student, and when he chaired the first ever board meeting of Franklin Pharmaceuticals on 17 September 1946 his English was getting there but he was fluent in Spanish, albeit with an unmistakable German accent.

He glanced around the impressive boardroom at the assembled directors, some of whom were meeting for the first time. He had poached most of them from rival pharmaceutical companies located throughout South America. An easy task as he had tripled their salaries and offered generous sign-on bonuses in order to entice them away from their jobs.

“Gentlemen, welcome to the birth of a new enterprise. Today, we begin life as a virgin company with zero status. In five years, we will be the largest pharma company in South America and, in twenty years, the Franklin Corporation will be the biggest pharmaceutical company in the world.”

No one in the boardroom who heard Ronald Franklin’s opening words had any doubt he would achieve his aim.

* * *

Ten days later, at three o’clock in the morning, Eva Braun gave birth to an eight-pound baby boy. Hitler and the Third Reich had gained an heir. Richard George Franklin entered the world at precisely three fifteen in the morning, after Braun had gone through two days of difficult labour. Hitler insisted on the choice of the baby’s middle name as a tribute to his paternal grandfather, Johann Georg Hiedler.