Spandau Prison | Third Reich Tours
Third Reich Tours
Spandau Prison
HALF DAY TOUR:
Spandau Prison was a prison situated in the borough of Spandau in western Berlin, constructed in 1876 and demolished in 1987 after the death of its last prisoner, Rudolf Hess, to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazishrine. The prison was near, though not part of, the Renaissance-eraSpandau Citadel fortress. In history, Spandau Prison succeeded as a prison to the citadel and where Frederick II of Prussia had held captive the magistrates of the Prussian Kammergericht and the Spandau gaol, whereCarl Schurz had freed his friend Gottfried Kinkel in the aftermath of the 1848 German revolution. The magistrates and Kinkel were held captive as Festungsgefangene (fortress prisoners), being privileged in detainment conditions.
The prison was built in 1876. It initially served as a military detention center. From 1919 it was also used for civilian inmates. It held up to 600 inmates at that time.
History
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 a sort of predecessor of the Nazi concentration camps. While it was formally operated by the Prussian Ministry of Justice, the Gestapo tortured and abused its inmates, as Egon Erwin Kisch recalls in his memories of Spandau 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 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:
Rudolf Hess – serving a life sentence (died 1987)
Walther Funk – serving a life sentence (released 16 May 1957)
Erich Raeder – serving a life sentence (released 1955)
Albert Speer – serving a 20 year term (released 30 September 1966)
Baldur von Schirach – serving a 20 year term (released 30 September 1966)
Konstantin von Neurath – serving a 15 year term (released 1954)
Karl Dönitz – serving a 10 year term (released 1956)
Let our exert take you to this place and explain it’s symbolic history.