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76-605: In a 5 November 1937 meeting at the Reich Chancellery with his top foreign policy and military advisors, documented in the Hossbach Memorandum , Hitler unveiled his plans for a more assertive foreign policy, including his aggressive designs against Austria and Czechoslovakia . At this meeting, the Reichsminister for Foreign Affairs, Konstantin von Neurath , expressed his concerns over this new policy. Neurath sought

152-458: A Greater German Reich . It nevertheless remained his official residence, where Hitler lived in the so-called Führerwohnung ("Leader apartment"). The Old and New Chancellery shared a large garden area, with the underground Führerbunker , where Hitler ultimately committed suicide at the end of April 1945. Hitler placed the entire northern side of the Voßstraße at Speer's disposal, assigning him

228-465: A perforated ulcer that required treatment at a hospital outside the prison. Fearing for his mental health now that he was the sole remaining inmate, and assuming that his death was imminent, the prison directors agreed to slacken most of the remaining regulations, moving Hess to the more spacious former chapel space, giving him a water heater to allow the making of tea or coffee when he liked, and permanently unlocking his cell so that he could freely access

304-472: A bestselling book, Inside the Third Reich . Dönitz wrote letters to his former deputy regarding the protection of his prestige in the outside world. When his release was near, he gave instructions to his wife on how best she could help ease his transition back into politics, which he intended, but never actually accomplished. Walther Funk managed to obtain a seemingly constant supply of cognac (all alcohol

380-405: A court of honour. By way of an outside staircase he first entered a medium-sized reception room from which double doors almost seventeen feet high opened into a large hall clad in mosaic. He then ascended several steps, passed through a round room with domed ceiling, and saw before him a gallery 480 feet (150 m) long. Hitler was particularly impressed by my gallery because it was twice as long as

456-489: A day. Due to the number of cells available, an empty cell was left between the prisoners' cells, to avoid the possibility of prisoners' communicating in Morse code . Other remaining cells in the wing were designated for other purposes, with one used for the prison library and another for a chapel. The cells were approximately 3 m (9.8 ft) long by 2.7 m (8.9 ft) wide and 4 m (13 ft) high. The highlight of

532-433: A few years of their arrival at the prison, all sorts of illicit lines of communication with the outside world were opened for the inmates by sympathetic staff. These supplementary lines were free of the censorship placed on authorised communications, and were also virtually unlimited in volume, ordinarily occurring on either Sundays or Thursdays (except during times of total lock-down of exchanges). Every piece of paper given to

608-566: A follow-up audience with Hitler who rebuffed him and left Berlin for an extended holiday at the Berghof , his mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden . When Neurath finally saw Hitler again on 14 January 1938, he reiterated his opposition to Hitler’s plans, indicating that if Hitler persisted with his expansionist plans he would have to find a new Foreign Minister. In fact, Hitler had already made up his mind to replace Neurath. On 4 February 1938, as part of

684-557: A form of suicide watch. A considerable portion of the stricter regulations was either later revised toward the more lenient, or deliberately ignored by prison staff. The directors and guards of the Western powers (France, Britain, and the United States) repeatedly voiced opposition to many of the stricter measures and made near-constant protest about them to their superiors throughout the prison's existence, but they were invariably vetoed by

760-549: A former diplomat, amiable and amenable to all the others. Despite the length of time they spent with each other, remarkably little progress was made in the way of reconciliation. A notable example was Dönitz's dislike of Speer being steadfastly maintained for his entire 10-year sentence, with it only coming to a head during the last few days of his imprisonment. Dönitz always believed that Hitler had named him as his successor due to Speer's recommendation, which had led to Dönitz being tried at Nuremberg (Speer always denied this). There

836-413: A friend of the band, journalist and DJ Robert Elms , saw the words 'Spandau Ballet' scrawled on the wall of a nightclub lavatory during a visit to Berlin. The graffiti referred to the way a condemned individual would twitch and "dance" at the end of the rope due to the standard drop method of hangings used at Spandau Prison and was in the tradition of similar gallows humour expressions such as "dancing

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912-604: A grim and distressing impression. If photography of this underground citadel of Hitler existed, they would become a proper illustration to Dante's Hell ; just select which circle. After World War II in Europe ended, the remains in what was then East Berlin (the Soviet-occupied sector of a divided Berlin) were demolished by the order of the Soviet occupation forces. Parts of the building's marble walls were rumoured to have been used in

988-424: A hundred or more war criminals. Besides the sixty or so soldiers on duty in or around the prison at any given time, there were teams of professional civilian warders from each of the four countries, four prison directors and their deputies, four army medical officers, cooks, translators, waiters, porters and others. This was perceived as a drastic misallocation of resources and became a serious point of contention among

1064-493: A minute; there was not even an initial meeting for laying down the rules by which it should function. Some members may not even have been informed that they were members.” On 24 June 1946 Neurath himself also testified that the Council “was set up for the sole purpose of masking the reorientation in foreign policy and the changes on the military side” and that it, in fact, never convened. The above demonstrates, as with so much else in

1140-726: A predecessor of sorts of the Nazi concentration camps . While it was formally operated by the Prussian Ministry of Justice , the Gestapo tortured and abused its inmates, as Kisch recalled in his memories of the prison. By the end of 1933, the first Nazi concentration camps had been erected (at Dachau , Osthofen , Oranienburg , Sonnenburg , Lichtenburg and the marshland camps around Esterwegen ); all remaining prisoners who had been held in so-called protective custody in state prisons were transferred to these concentration camps. After World War II ,

1216-740: A reshuffle of the Reich cabinet and armed forces resulting from the Blomberg-Fritsch Affair , Neurath was sacked and replaced by Joachim von Ribbentrop , an ardent Nazi. Conversely, Neurath was a long-time professional foreign service officer, having served in posts in both the German Empire and the Weimar Republic since 1901, and had headed the Reich Foreign Ministry since June 1932. In order to assuage concerns in foreign capitals about

1292-752: A shopping centre for the British forces stationed in Germany to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine. Spandau Prison was built in 1876 on Wilhelmstraße . It initially served as a military detention center of the Prussian Army . From 1919 it was also used for civilian inmates. It held up to 600 inmates at that time. In the aftermath of the Reichstag fire of 1933, opponents of Hitler , and journalists such as Egon Kisch and Carl von Ossietzky , were held there in so-called protective custody . Spandau Prison became

1368-584: Is also a collection of medical reports concerning Baldur von Schirach, Albert Speer, and Rudolf Hess made during their confinement at Spandau, which have survived. "The Admiralty", as the other prisoners referred to Dönitz and Raeder , were often teamed together for various tasks. Raeder, with a liking for rigid systems and organization, designated himself as chief librarian of the prison library, with Dönitz as his assistant. Each designed their own sleeve insignia for both chief librarian (a silver book) and assistant chief librarian (a gold book) which were woven with

1444-622: Is also the name of the new seat of the Chancellor's Office, completed in 2001. When the military alliance of the North German Confederation was reorganised as a federal state with effect from July 1, 1867, the office of a Federal Chancellor (Bundeskanzler) was implemented at Berlin and staffed with the Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck . After the unification of Germany on January 18, 1871, by accession of

1520-570: The Congo Conference in 1884. In the days of the Weimar Republic the Chancellery was significantly enlarged by the construction of a Modern southern annex finished in 1930. In 1932/33, while his nearby office on Wilhelmstraße No. 73 was renovated, the building also served as the residence of Reich President Paul von Hindenburg , where he appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor on 30 January 1933. The Hitler Cabinet held few meetings here. In 1935,

1596-452: The Court of Honour (Ehrenhof) . The building's main entrance was flanked by two bronze statues by sculptor Arno Breker : "Wehrmacht" and "Die Partei" ("Armed Forces" and "The Party"). Hitler is said to have been greatly impressed by the building and was uncharacteristically free in his praise for Speer, lauding the architect as a "genius". The chancellor's great study was a particular favourite of

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1672-489: The King's Own Scottish Borderers at Berwick Barracks . The prison, initially designed for a population in the hundreds, was an old brick building enclosed by one wall 4.5 m (15 ft) high, another of 9 m (30 ft), a 3 m (10 ft) high wall topped with electrified wire, followed by a wall of barbed wire . In addition, some of the sixty soldiers on guard duty manned six machine-gun armed guard towers 24 hours

1748-576: The Ministries Trial in 1949, with the term later commuted to 10 years. He was released in 1951 and died in 1962. Reich Chancellery The Reich Chancellery ( German : Reichskanzlei ) was the traditional name of the office of the Chancellor of Germany (then called Reichskanzler ) in the period of the German Reich from 1878 to 1945. The Chancellery's seat, selected and prepared since 1875,

1824-624: The Moscow Metro's palatial-style subway stations after the war. Also, it is alleged that a heater from one of Hitler's rooms was placed in a Protestant hospital located not too far away from the Reich Chancellery. While the western half of the plot was used by the East German government for the establishment of the so-called "Death-Strip" adjacent to the Berlin Wall in 1961 (when the barrier

1900-559: The Nuremberg Trials on 14 March 1946, Hermann Göring testified about the creation and existence of the Council: “In order to avoid a lowering of Herr von Neurath's prestige abroad, I myself was the one to make a proposal to the Führer. I told him that in order to make it appear abroad that von Neurath had not been entirely removed from foreign policy, I would propose to appoint him chairman of

1976-616: The Council never actually met and never acted as a group or organization. Goebbels had committed suicide on 1 May 1945 and Brauchitsch died in British captivity in October 1948 before being brought to trial. The surviving members of the Council all were indicted individually and convicted of war crimes. Göring, Ribbentrop and Keitel were sentenced to death by the International Military Tribunal in October 1946. Göring committed suicide

2052-511: The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. Hitler was delighted: "On the long walk from the entrance to the reception hall they'll get a taste of the power and grandeur of the German Reich!" During the next several months he asked to see the plans again and again but interfered remarkably little in this building, even though it was designed for him personally. He let me work freely. The series of rooms comprising

2128-588: The Nuremberg trials, the latter for his antisocial personality and perceived mental instability. The two former grand admirals , Erich Raeder and Karl Dönitz , stayed together, despite their heated mutual dislike. This situation had come about when Dönitz replaced Raeder as Commander in Chief of the German navy in 1943. Baldur von Schirach and Walther Funk were described as "inseparable". Konstantin von Neurath was, being

2204-517: The Old Reich Chancellery was not as badly damaged). Andrei Gromyko , who would later become the Soviet foreign minister, visited the partially-destroyed structure a few weeks after the fighting in the city had completely ceased. He recalls, "We reached it not without difficulties. Ruined edifices, formless heaps of metal and ferro-concrete encumbered the way. To the very entrance of the Chancellery,

2280-496: The Old Reich Chancellery were not cleared until 1950. In late January 1938, Adolf Hitler officially assigned his favourite architect, Albert Speer , to build the New Reich Chancellery around the corner on Voßstraße , a western branch-off of Wilhelmstraße, requesting that the building be completed within a year. Hitler commented that Bismarck's Old Chancellery was "fit for a soap company" and not suitable as headquarters of

2356-451: The Russians of keeping Spandau prison in operation chiefly as a centre for Soviet espionage operations. Every day, prisoners were ordered to rise at 6 a.m., wash, clean their cells and the corridor together, eat breakfast, stay in the garden until lunch-time at noon (weather permitting), have a post-lunch rest in their cells, and then return to the garden. Dinner followed at 5 p.m., after which

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2432-488: The Secret Cabinet Council. There was, to be sure, no such council in existence, but the expression would sound quite nice, and everyone would imagine that it meant something. The Führer said we could not make him chairman if we had no council. Thereupon I said, "Then we shall make one," and offhand I marked down names of several persons .... I declare under oath that this Cabinet Council never met at all, not even for

2508-669: The South German states, Bismarck became Reich Chancellor of the new German Empire . In 1869, the Prussian state government had acquired the Rococo city palace of late Prince Radziwiłł on Wilhelmstraße No. 77 (former "Palais Schulenburg"), which from 1875 was refurbished as the official building of the Chancellery. It was inaugurated with the meetings of the Berlin Congress in July 1878, followed by

2584-574: The Soviet Union, which favored a tougher approach. The Soviet Union, which suffered between 10 and 19 million civilian deaths during the war and had pressed at the Nuremberg trials for the execution of all the current inmates, was unwilling to compromise with the Western powers in this regard, both because of the harsher punishment that they felt was justified, and to stress the Communist propaganda line that

2660-508: The Third Reich, how Hitler presented the outward appearance of establishing formal governmental institutions and procedures while retaining all actual decision-making authority in his own hands. The Secret Cabinet Council was indicted as a criminal organization as part of the larger Reich government ( Reichsregierung ) by the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. However, the Tribunal found that no declaration of criminality could be made, as

2736-454: The approach to Hitler's reception gallery were decorated with a rich variety of materials and colours, and totalled 221 m (725 ft) in length. The gallery itself was 147.5 m (484 ft) long. Hitler's own office was 400 square meters in size. From the outside, the chancellery had a stern, authoritarian appearance. From the Wilhelmplatz , guests would enter the Chancellery through

2812-584: The approaching of unsettled prisoners, and so the prison remained exclusively for the seven war criminals for the remainder of its existence. Every facet of life in the prison was strictly set out by an intricate prison regulation scheme designed before the prisoners' arrival by the Four Powers – France , Britain , the Soviet Union , and the United States . Compared with other established prison regulations at

2888-426: The appropriate colored thread. Both men often withheld themselves from the other prisoners, with Dönitz claiming for his entire ten years in prison that he was still the rightful head of the German state (he also got one vote in the 1954 West German presidential election ), and Raeder having contempt for the insolence and lack of discipline endemic in his nonmilitary fellow prisoners. Despite preferring to stay together,

2964-516: The architects Paul Troost and Leonhard Gall redesigned the interior as Hitler's domicile. They also added a large reception hall/ballroom and conservatory, officially known as the Festsaal mit Wintergarten in the garden area. The latter addition was unique because of the large cellar that led a further one-and-a-half meters down to an air-raid shelter known as the Vorbunker . Once completed in 1936, it

3040-474: The building of the Soviet war memorial located in Treptower Park , or to renovate and repair the nearby war-damaged Mohrenstraße U-Bahn subway station. Petrographic analyses of materials used for construction there did not confirm those rumours. Some of the so-called "red marble" (actually limestone) obtained from the demolition of the New Reich Chancellery was also supposedly used in the construction of

3116-583: The capitalist powers had supposedly never been serious about denazification . This contrasted with Werl Prison , which housed hundreds of former officers and other lower-ranking Nazi men who were under a comparatively lax regime. However, a more contemporary consideration was that the continued incarceration of even one Nazi (i.e. Hess) in Spandau ensured a conduit that guaranteed the Soviets access to West Berlin would remain open, and Western commentators frequently accused

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3192-417: The car could not approach. We had to reach it on foot..." He noted the New Reich Chancellery "...was almost destroyed... Only the walls remained, riddled by countless shrapnel, yawning by big shot-holes from shells. Ceilings survived only partly. Windows loomed black by emptiness." The last stage of defense by defending German troops took place inside the Reich Chancellery, as mentioned by Gromyko, who stated

3268-401: The clock. The immense construction was finished 48 hours ahead of schedule, and the project earned Speer a reputation as a good organiser, which played a part in the architect becoming Armaments Minister and a director of forced labour later in the war. Speer recalls that the whole work force—masons, carpenters, plumbers, etc. were invited to inspect the finished building. Hitler then addressed

3344-406: The day and night, and their authenticity was repeatedly the subject of debate between the prisoners and the prison directors. Raeder, Dönitz, and Schirach were contemptuous of this behaviour, and viewed it as cries for attention or as a means to avoid work. Speer and Funk, acutely aware of the likely psychosomatic nature of the illness, were more accommodating to Hess. Speer, in a move that invoked

3420-540: The dictator. In it there stood a grand marble-topped table, which remained generally decorative up until 1944, when it served as an important part of the Nazi leader's military headquarters; the study being used for military conferences. On the other hand, the Cabinet room was never used for its intended purpose. The New Reich Chancellery suffered severe damage during the Battle of Berlin between April and May 1945 (in comparison,

3496-489: The end of the Nazi regime on 8 May 1945. It was established as a select advisory committee of the Reich government for the deliberation of foreign affairs and was granted neither legislative nor administrative functions. The image of an important deliberative body was presented to the world by Nazi propaganda, which depicted the Council as a type of “super cabinet.” In reality, the Council was an empty façade and never even convened. At

3572-526: The following: Doors, windows and chandeliers testified on them the big imprint of the battle, most of them being broken. The lowest floors of the Reich Chancellery represented chaos. Obviously, the garrison of the Citadel fiercely resisted here... All around lie heaps of crossbeams and overhead covers, both metal and wood and huge pieces of ferro-concrete. On both sides of a narrow corridor, there were certain disposed cells, all eroded by explosions… All this produced

3648-468: The inmates, later took up the task of refashioning the entire plot of land into a large complex garden, complete with paths, rock gardens and floral displays. On days without access to the garden, for instance when it was raining, the prisoners occupied their time making envelopes together in the main corridor. The Allied powers originally requisitioned the prison in November 1946, expecting it to accommodate

3724-506: The ire of his fellow prisoners, would often tend to Hess's needs, bringing him his coat when he was cold and coming to his defence when a director or guard was attempting to coax Hess out of bed and into work. Hess occasionally wailed in pain at night, affecting the sleep of the other prisoners. The prison's medical officer would inject Hess with what was described as a "sedative", but was in reality distilled water, and succeeded in putting Hess to sleep. The fact that Hess repeatedly shirked duties

3800-408: The night before his scheduled execution but the other two were hanged on 16 October. Hess and Raeder were sentenced to life imprisonment. Raeder was released in 1955 due to ill health and died in 1960; Hess committed suicide in 1987 while still incarcerated at Spandau prison . Neurath was sentenced to 15 years, but released in 1954 due to ill health and died in 1956. Lammers was sentenced to 20 years in

3876-453: The others had to bear and received other preferential treatment because of his illness irked the other prisoners, and earned him the title of "His imprisoned Lordship" by the admirals, who often mocked him and played mean-spirited pranks on him. Hess was also unique among the prisoners in that, as a matter of dignity, he refused all visitors for more than twenty years, finally consenting to see his adult son and wife in 1969 after suffering from

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3952-503: The prison directors, politicians from their respective countries, and especially the West Berlin government, who were left to foot the bill for Spandau yet suffered from a lack of space in their own prison system. The debate surrounding the imprisonment of seven war criminals in such a large space, with numerous and expensive complementary staff, was only heightened as time went on and prisoners were released. Acrimony reached its peak after

4028-661: The prison fell in the British Sector of what became West Berlin , but it was operated by the Four-Power Authorities to house the Nazi war criminals sentenced to imprisonment at the Nuremberg Trials . Only seven prisoners were finally imprisoned there. Arriving from Nuremberg on 18 July 1947, they were: Of the seven, three were released after serving their full sentences, while three others (including Raeder and Funk, who were given life sentences) were released earlier due to ill health. Between 1966 and 1987, Rudolf Hess

4104-588: The prison on a monthly basis, each having the responsibility for a total of three months out of the year. Observing the Four-Power flags that flew at the Allied Control Authority building could determine who controlled the prison. The prison was demolished in August 1987, largely to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine, after the death of Hess, its final remaining prisoner. To further ensure its erasure,

4180-508: The prison's bathing facilities and library. Hess was frequently moved from room to room every night for security reasons. He was often taken to the British Military Hospital not far from the prison, where the entire second floor of the hospital was cordoned off for him. He remained under heavy guard while in hospital. Ward security was provided by soldiers including Royal Military Police Close Protection personnel. External security

4256-415: The prison, from the inmates' perspective, was the garden. Very spacious given the small number of prisoners using it, the garden space was initially divided into small personal plots that were used by each prisoner in various ways, usually to grow vegetables. Dönitz favoured growing beans, Funk tomatoes and Speer daisies, although the Soviet director subsequently banned flowers for a time. By regulation, all of

4332-399: The prisoners returned to their cells. Lights out was at 10 p.m. Prisoners received a shave and a haircut, if necessary, on Mondays, Wednesdays, or Fridays; they did their own laundry every Monday. This routine, except the time allowed in the garden, changed very little throughout the years, although each of the controlling nations made their own interpretation of the prison regulations. Within

4408-450: The prisoners was recorded and tracked, so secret notes were most often written by other means, where the supply went officially unmonitored for the entire duration of the prison's existence. Many inmates took full advantage of this. Albert Speer, after having his official request to write his memoirs denied, finally began setting down his experiences and perspectives of his time with the Nazi regime, which were smuggled out and later released as

4484-411: The produce was to be put toward use in the prison kitchen, but prisoners and guards alike often skirted this rule and indulged in the garden's offerings. As prison regulations slackened and as prisoners became either apathetic or too ill to maintain their plots, the garden was consolidated into one large workable area. This suited the former architect Speer, who, being one of the youngest and liveliest of

4560-419: The release of Speer and Schirach in 1966, leaving only one inmate, Hess, remaining in an otherwise under-utilized prison. Various proposals were made to remedy this situation over the years, ranging from moving the prisoners to an appropriately sized wing of another larger, occupied prison, to releasing them; house arrest was also considered. Nevertheless, an official refraining order went into effect, forbidding

4636-462: The removal of Neurath, a known-quantity in international diplomatic circles, Hitler cloaked the departure as a promotion, naming the long-time diplomat as President of the newly created and impressive-sounding Secret Cabinet Council. The 4 February 1938 Decree establishing the Council enumerated the following nine members: The Council was officially in existence from its inception in February 1938 until

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4712-401: The seven who almost never attended the prison's Sunday church service. A paranoid hypochondriac , he repeatedly complained of all forms of illness, mostly stomach pains, and was suspicious of all food given to him, always taking the dish placed farthest away from him as a means of avoiding being poisoned. His alleged stomach pains often caused wild and excessive moans and cries of pain throughout

4788-504: The site was made into a parking facility and a shopping center, named The Britannia Centre Spandau , nicknamed Hessco's after the well-known British supermarket chain Tesco . All materials from the demolished prison were ground to powder and dispersed in the North Sea , or buried at the former RAF Gatow airbase, with the exception of a single set of keys now exhibited in the regimental museum of

4864-421: The task of clearing the site, designing, constructing, and furnishing the building in less than a year. In fact, preliminary planning and versions of the designs were already being worked on as early as 1935. To clear the space for the New Reich Chancellery, the buildings on the northern side of Voßstraße No. 2–10 had been demolished in 1937. Over 4,500 people worked in shifts, so that progress could be made around

4940-404: The time, Spandau's rules were quite strict. The prisoners' outgoing letters to families were at first limited to one page every month, talking with fellow prisoners was prohibited, newspapers were banned, diaries and memoirs were forbidden, visits by families were limited to fifteen minutes every two months, and lights were flashed into the prisoners' cells every fifteen minutes during the night as

5016-419: The two of them continued their wartime feud and argued most of the time over whether Raeder's battleships or Dönitz's U-boats were responsible for losing the war. This feud often resulted in fights. After Dönitz's release in 1956, he wrote two books, one on his early life, My Ever-Changing Life , and one on his time as an admiral, Ten Years and Twenty Days . Raeder, in failing health and seemingly close to death,

5092-434: The work of creating grand halls and salons which "will make an impression on people". Speer was given a blank cheque —Hitler stated that the cost of the project was immaterial—and was instructed that the building be of solid construction, and that it be finished by the following January in time for the next New Year's diplomatic reception to be held in the new building. Speer claimed in his autobiography that he had completed

5168-513: The workers in the Sportpalast ; interior fittings, however, were not finished until the early 1940s. In the end, the project cost over 90 million Reichsmarks (equivalent to 400 million 2021 €), and hosted the various ministries of the Reich. In his memoirs , Speer described the impression of the Reichskanzlei on a visitor: From Wilhelmsplatz an arriving diplomat drove through great gates into

5244-507: Was a former military prison located in the Spandau borough of West Berlin (present-day Berlin , Germany ). Built in 1876, it became a proto-concentration camp under Nazi Germany . After the Second World War , it held seven top Nazi leaders convicted in the Nuremberg trials . After the death of its last prisoner, Rudolf Hess , in August 1987, the prison was demolished and replaced by

5320-407: Was banned) and other treats that he would share with other prisoners on special occasions. The prisoners, still subject to the petty personal rivalries and battles for prestige that characterized Nazi party politics, divided themselves into groups: Albert Speer and Rudolf Hess were the loners , generally disliked by the others – the former for his admission of guilt and repudiation of Hitler at

5396-427: Was being constructed), a Plattenbau apartment block, together with a kindergarten, was built on the eastern half (along Wilhelmstraße) during the 1980s. 52°30′42″N 13°22′55″E  /  52.51167°N 13.38194°E  / 52.51167; 13.38194 Spandau prison 52°31′16″N 13°11′07″E  /  52.52111°N 13.18528°E  / 52.52111; 13.18528 Spandau Prison

5472-461: Was officially called the "Reich Chancellery Air-Raid Shelter" until 1943, with the construction to expand the bunker complex with the addition of the Führerbunker , located one level below. The two bunkers were connected by a stairway set at right angles which could be closed off from each other. Devastated by air raids and almost completely destroyed during the Battle of Berlin , the ruins of

5548-504: Was provided by one of the British infantry battalions then stationed in Berlin. On some unusual occasions, the Soviets relaxed their strict regulations; during these times, Hess was allowed to spend extra time in the prison garden, and one of the wardens from the superpowers took Hess outside the prison walls for a stroll, and sometimes dinner, at a nearby Berlin restaurant, in a private room. The British band Spandau Ballet got their name after

5624-400: Was released in 1955 and died in 1960. Rudolf Hess , sentenced to life but not released due to ill health (as were Raeder, Funk, or Neurath), served the longest sentence out of the seven and was by far the most demanding of the prisoners. Regarded as being the 'laziest man in Spandau', Hess avoided all forms of work that he deemed below his dignity, such as pulling weeds. He was the only one of

5700-542: Was the former city palace of Adolf Friedrich Count von der Schulenburg (1685–1741) and later Prince Antoni Radziwiłł (1775–1833) on Wilhelmstraße in Berlin . Both the palace and a new Reich Chancellery building (completed in early 1939) were seriously damaged during World War II and subsequently demolished. Today the office of the German chancellor is usually called Kanzleramt (Chancellor's Office), or more formally Bundeskanzleramt (Federal Chancellor's Office). The latter

5776-616: Was the only inmate in the prison, and his only companion was the warden, Eugene K. Bird , who became a close friend. Bird wrote a book about Hess's imprisonment titled The Loneliest Man in the World . Spandau was one of only two Four-Power organizations to continue to operate after the breakdown of the Allied Control Council ; the other was the Berlin Air Safety Center . The four occupying powers of Berlin alternated control of

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