Spandau Prison Spandau Prison Spandau Prison was located in the borough of Spandau in western Berlin. It was constructed in 1876 and demolished in 1987 after the death of its last prisoner, Rudolf Hess, to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi shrine. The site was later rebuilt as a shopping centre for the British forces stationed in Germany. Spandau Prison was built in 1876 on Wilhelmstraße. 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. In the aftermath of the Reichstag fire of 1933, opponents
Spandau Prison and especially, the West Berlin government, who were left to foot the Spandau bill yet suffered a lack of space in their own prison system. The debate surrounding the imprisonment of the seven war criminals in such a large space, with such a numerous and expensive complementary staff, was only heightened as time went on and prisoners were released. Acrimony reached its peak after 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, ranging from moving the prisoners to an appropriately sized