3 months ago
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Posted On: April 16th 2026, 01:22 pm
“Can you imagine the nerve of that guy, trying to fool the whole world?” comments a bystander.
“Boy, he really was a crook,” says another.
The fraudulent finder of the fifth golden ticket, Alberto Minoleta, a Paraguayan gambler, was actually Adolf Hitler’s private secretary and Nazi Party Chancellery, Martin Bormann.
In fact, the photo you see in the film is the same one you would see if you looked him up on Wikipedia, minus the party insignia.
Bormann, who was rumored to have survived WWII, and among others in the party, escaped to South America, was tried in absentia and found guilty of crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to death by hanging.
There were rumors and reported sightings for years.
“The joke was that Bormann was Hitler’s right-hand man and Bormann, in theory, escaped and wound up in Paraguay,” said director Mel Stuart, according to Looper.
“The scene was never as successful as I had hoped,” Stuart said in his book “Pure Imagination.” It seems that, “twenty-five years after World War II, very few people knew or cared who Bormann was.”
Yeah, maybe it didn’t land, but it WAS funny.
Incidentally, the year after the movie premiered, the body of Bormann was found by construction workers near a railway yard in Berlin. Eventually it was determined he had ended it himself, with cyanide.
I can’t post this without mentioning two great podcasts. The first is “The Secret World of Roald Dahl,” a fascinating deep dive into the positively Zelig-like brilliant, troubled, and complicated life of the world’s greatest children’s author. It has given me a lot of things to write about in the future.
And the host of that podcast, Aaron Tracy, recently joined the hosts of one of my OTHER favorite podcasts, “What Went Wrong,” to accompany them on one of their great deep dives, this time into “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”
And that’s where I learned this tidbit. It’s also where Aaron Tracy learned it, which says a lot for how thorough they are.
#popculturehistorian #willywonka #behindthescenes #roalddahl #goldenticket
“Boy, he really was a crook,” says another.
The fraudulent finder of the fifth golden ticket, Alberto Minoleta, a Paraguayan gambler, was actually Adolf Hitler’s private secretary and Nazi Party Chancellery, Martin Bormann.
In fact, the photo you see in the film is the same one you would see if you looked him up on Wikipedia, minus the party insignia.
Bormann, who was rumored to have survived WWII, and among others in the party, escaped to South America, was tried in absentia and found guilty of crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to death by hanging.
There were rumors and reported sightings for years.
“The joke was that Bormann was Hitler’s right-hand man and Bormann, in theory, escaped and wound up in Paraguay,” said director Mel Stuart, according to Looper.
“The scene was never as successful as I had hoped,” Stuart said in his book “Pure Imagination.” It seems that, “twenty-five years after World War II, very few people knew or cared who Bormann was.”
Yeah, maybe it didn’t land, but it WAS funny.
Incidentally, the year after the movie premiered, the body of Bormann was found by construction workers near a railway yard in Berlin. Eventually it was determined he had ended it himself, with cyanide.
I can’t post this without mentioning two great podcasts. The first is “The Secret World of Roald Dahl,” a fascinating deep dive into the positively Zelig-like brilliant, troubled, and complicated life of the world’s greatest children’s author. It has given me a lot of things to write about in the future.
And the host of that podcast, Aaron Tracy, recently joined the hosts of one of my OTHER favorite podcasts, “What Went Wrong,” to accompany them on one of their great deep dives, this time into “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.”
And that’s where I learned this tidbit. It’s also where Aaron Tracy learned it, which says a lot for how thorough they are.
#popculturehistorian #willywonka #behindthescenes #roalddahl #goldenticket
Comments (262)
2 months agotheslag1966
He went from that. To being in the Great Rock and Roll Swindle with the Sex Pistols.
2 months agosalty_caramel_stroopwaffle
I learned this on the podcast too! And after that great crossover episode I started listening to the Dahl podcast!
3 months agotheohiocatbird
Oh my gosh! I thought he looked familiar when I read WWII history but I saw the movie when I was a kid and never put it together until now! 😆
3 months agomoore0rles
I recognized him right away. At that time many believed he was alive. He died in 1945.
3 months agohorriblehomevideo
I was 8 and got the joke. The joke is it's a bad man. Didn't know who don't need to know who. Could tell tho.
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