Editing Spandau Prison (section)

==The Spandau Seven==

The prisoners, still subject to the petty personal rivalries and battles for prestige that characterized Nazi party politics, divided themselves into groups: [[Albert Speer]] and [[Rudolf Hess]] were the [[loner]]s, generally disliked by the others – the former for his admission of guilt and repudiation of [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] at the Nuremberg trials, the latter for his [[Psychopathy|antisocial]] personality and perceived mental instability. The two former [[grand admiral]]s, [[Erich Raeder]] and [[Karl Dönitz]], stayed together, despite their heated mutual dislike. This situation had come about when Dönitz replaced Raeder as Commander in Chief of the German navy in 1943. [[Baldur von Schirach]] and [[Walther Funk]] were described as "inseparable".<ref name=speer>{{cite book | author=Speer, Albert | title=The Spandau Diaries | publisher=Macmillan | year=1976 | isbn=0-671-80843-5 | url=https://archive.org/details/spandausecretdia00spee }}</ref> [[Konstantin von Neurath]] was, being a former diplomat, amiable and amenable to all the others.

Despite the length of time they spent with each other, remarkably little progress was made in the way of reconciliation. A notable example was Dönitz's dislike of Speer being steadfastly maintained for his entire 10-year sentence, with it only coming to a head during the last few days of his imprisonment. Dönitz always believed that Hitler had named him as his successor due to Speer's recommendation, which had led to Dönitz being tried at Nuremberg (Speer always denied this).

There is also a collection of medical reports concerning Baldur von Schirach, Albert Speer, and Rudolf Hess made during their confinement at Spandau, which have survived.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://oculus.nlm.nih.gov/spandau477|title=Minutes of the meetings of the physicians of the Spandau Allied Prison 1947–1987|publisher=National Library of Medicine}}</ref>

===Albert Speer===
{{Main|Albert Speer#Imprisonment}}

===Erich Raeder and Karl Dönitz===

"The Admiralty", as the other prisoners referred to [[Karl Dönitz|Dönitz]] and [[Erich Raeder|Raeder]], were often teamed together for various tasks. Raeder, with a liking for rigid systems and organization, designated himself as chief librarian of the prison library, with Dönitz as his assistant. Each designed their own sleeve insignia for both chief librarian (a silver book) and assistant chief librarian (a gold book) which were woven with the appropriate colored thread. Both men often withheld themselves from the other prisoners, with Dönitz claiming for his entire ten years in prison that he was still the rightful head of the German state (he also got one vote in the [[1954 West German presidential election]]), and Raeder having contempt for the insolence and lack of discipline endemic in his nonmilitary fellow prisoners. Despite preferring to stay together, the two of them continued their wartime feud and argued most of the time over whether Raeder's battleships or Dönitz's U-boats were responsible for losing the war. This feud often resulted in fights. After Dönitz's release in 1956, he wrote two books, one on his early life, ''My Ever-Changing Life'', and one on his time as an admiral, ''Ten Years and Twenty Days''. Raeder, in failing health and seemingly close to death, was released in 1955 and died in 1960.

===Rudolf Hess===
[[File:Rudolf Hess - extracto.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.75|[[Rudolf Hess]], seen here in prison in [[Nuremberg]] in 1945, was the last inmate of Spandau Prison]]

[[Rudolf Hess]], sentenced to life but not released due to ill health (as were Raeder, Funk, or Neurath), served the longest sentence out of the seven and was by far the most demanding of the prisoners. Regarded as being the 'laziest man in Spandau', Hess avoided all forms of work that he deemed below his dignity, such as pulling weeds. He was the only one of the seven who almost never attended the prison's Sunday church service. A paranoid [[hypochondriac]], he repeatedly complained of all forms of illness, mostly stomach pains, and was suspicious of all food given to him, always taking the dish placed farthest away from him as a means of avoiding being poisoned. His alleged stomach pains often caused wild and excessive moans and cries of pain throughout the day and night, and their authenticity was repeatedly the subject of debate between the prisoners and the prison directors.

Raeder, Dönitz, and Schirach were contemptuous of this behaviour, and viewed it as cries for attention or as a means to avoid work. Speer and Funk, acutely aware of the likely [[psychosomatic]] nature of the illness, were more accommodating to Hess. Speer, in a move that invoked the ire of his fellow prisoners, would often tend to Hess's needs, bringing him his coat when he was cold and coming to his defence when a director or guard was attempting to coax Hess out of bed and into work. Hess occasionally wailed in pain at night, affecting the sleep of the other prisoners. The prison's medical officer would inject Hess with what was described as a "sedative", but was in reality distilled water, and succeeded in putting Hess to sleep. The fact that Hess repeatedly shirked duties the others had to bear and received other preferential treatment because of his illness irked the other prisoners, and earned him the title of "His imprisoned Lordship" by the admirals, who often mocked him and played mean-spirited pranks on him. 

Hess was also unique among the prisoners in that, as a matter of dignity, he refused all visitors for more than twenty years, finally consenting to see his adult son and wife in 1969 after suffering from a [[perforated ulcer]] that required treatment at a hospital outside the prison. Fearing for his mental health now that he was the sole remaining inmate, and assuming that his death was imminent, the prison directors agreed to slacken most of the remaining regulations, moving Hess to the more spacious former chapel space, giving him a water heater to allow the making of tea or coffee when he liked, and permanently unlocking his cell so that he could freely access the prison's bathing facilities and library.

Hess was frequently moved from room to room every night for security reasons. He was often taken to the British Military Hospital not far from the prison, where the entire second floor of the hospital was cordoned off for him. He remained under heavy guard while in hospital. Ward security was provided by soldiers  including Royal Military Police Close Protection personnel. External security was provided by one of the British infantry battalions then stationed in Berlin. On some unusual occasions, the Soviets relaxed their strict regulations; during these times, Hess was allowed to spend extra time in the prison garden, and one of the wardens from the superpowers took Hess outside the prison walls for a stroll, and sometimes dinner, at a nearby Berlin restaurant, in a private room.<ref name="bird">[[Eugene K. Bird]] (1974) ''Prisoner #7: Rudolf Hess'' p. 234, {{ISBN|978-0-670-57831-3}}.</ref>