Spandau Citadel, built in 1594, the 1848 St. Marien am Behnitz Catholic church designed by August Soller, and Spandau arsenal, Germany's arms development center until 1919, now a museum. That arsenal's Spandau machine gun inspired the slang "Spandau Ballet" to describe dying soldiers on barbed wire during the First World War, and later was applied to the appearance of Nazi war criminals hanged at Spandau Prison. The notorious prison, built in 1876, held Nazi war criminals after World War II until 1987, when it was demolished after the death of the last surviving prisoner, Rudolf Hess. In 1979, the English New
Britannia Centre Spandau Britannia Centre Spandau The former Britannia Centre Spandau, previously known as British Forces Families Centre (BFFC), was built in 1990 by the PSA for the British Authorities on the site where Spandau Prison was once located. Britannia Centre Spandau centralized the main shopping, welfare, employment and broadcasting facilities for the British military community in Berlin. The Britannia Centre consisted of a new shopping and cinema complex, as well as five existing and completely refurbished two and three-story buildings. It was opened in phases between September 1990 and mid-1991. Its buildings are located at the junction of Wilhelmstraße and Gatower Straße