Spandau Prison journalist and DJ Robert Elms, saw the name 'Spandau Ballet' scrawled on the wall of a nightclub lavatory during a visit to Berlin. This gallows humour graffiti refers to standard drop method hangings at Spandau Prison when the condemned would twitch and jump at the end of a rope. The prison featured in the 1985 film "Wild Geese II", about a fictional group of mercenaries who are assigned to kidnap Rudolf Hess (played by Laurence Olivier), and in the book "Spandau Phoenix" by Greg Iles, which is a fictional account of Hess and Spandau Prison. Notes Bibliography Spandau Prison Spandau
Spandau Romantic band Spandau Ballet again re-purposed the term for its name. After World War II Spandau fell into the British sector of West Berlin during the allied occupation. Gatow airfield in the south of the district, was used by the Royal Air Force, most notably during the Berlin Airlift. Since 1995 the airfield is now the Museum of Military History. Spandau's neighbors outside Berlin are the districts ("Kreis") of Oberhavel to the north, and Havelland to the west, and the city of Potsdam, Brandenburg, to the southwest. Within Berlin, it borders the boroughs of Steglitz-Zehlendorf to the south, Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf to