I've never taken a particular interest in the name when reading it before, but I just recently got one of those whims to find out a little bit more about the men who surrounded Hitler - more than just their names that is. It seems to me that while Bormann seemingly had a very powerful position and with it probably (?) featured in a lot of the propaganda videos with Hitler, he would not have been a person whom the average German could identify by name. Correct?
Apparently not, Bormann like most Nazis came up through the party Bureaucracy. He worked for a Nazi paper in the early days and then began working as an administrator in the SA. Eventually he worked his way up to be the secretary for the Deputy Fuhrer, Rudolf Hess. That was important title, as Rudolf Hess, as Deputy Fuhrer was head of the Party with Bormann as his second in command. This is where Bormann began to work behind the scenes, developing connections, settling disputes between the various parts of the party, handling the affairs of the party, etc.
When Hess took his trip to Scotland, Hitler abolished the position of party leader and replaced it with a new position known as "Party Chancellery" which was headed by Bormann. But even with this new public position, Bormann never changed out of his previous behaviour of staying behind the scenes , manipulating and working through intermediaries. He became hated by Goebbels, Himmler Goring, and Ribbentrop the other parts of "Hitler's inner circle." Mainly because his reclusive ways led to him being disliked, but also because as Hitler's personal secretary, he held a lot of sway over the information that got through to Hitler; a power Bormann obviously manipulated to his own ends. Most famously Bormann edited a telegram from Goering near the end of the war to make it look as if Goering was trying to commit a coup, when if fact Goering was simply asking if Hitler was still able to rule (Goering was to take over as leader of Germany if Hitler was unable to rule at any time). This led to Goering being expelled and had the Nazis not collapsed shortly after, Goering may very well have been executed because of Bormann.
Bormann developed a number of nicknames, namely "Hitler's Evil Spirit." Where as other Nazi leaders sought public fame and notoriety; Bormann stayed to himself. He didn't even write articles or make speeches like say Himmler or Goebbels did. Goebbels even said of Bormann that:
Bormann is not a man of the people. He has always been engaged in administrative work and therefore has not the proper qualifications for the real tasks of leadership