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 wing of another larger, occupied prison, to releasing them; house arrest was also considered. Nevertheless, an official "refraining [o]rder" went into effect, forbidding 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 the time, Spandau's rules were quite strict. The prisoners' outgoing letters to