The Lonely Man of Spandau – a feature article published in the British newspaper The Sun on Tuesday, April 18, 1969, about Rudolf Hess – former Deputy Führer of Nazi Germany and one of the senior figures in Adolf Hitler’s regime – at Spandau Prison, ahead of his 75th birthday.
The reporter describes Hess’s condition in prison and how he spends his time as the last remaining Nazi war criminal: “The former Deputy Führer of Nazi Germany, Rudolf Hess, will celebrate his 75th birthday this coming Saturday. Like every birthday he has marked for the past 23 years, he will spend it in Spandau Prison in West Berlin. Hess was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Nuremberg war crimes trials on charges of conspiracy against peace, planning, incitement, and execution of aggressive war. He is now the only inmate in Spandau, a military prison built to house 660. He has been alone there since the former Nazi Armaments Minister, Albert Speer, and Hitler Youth leader, Baldur von Schirach, were released from their 20-year sentences on September 30, 1966. Hess, the last Nazi, walks alone in the prison yard under the guard of 40 Allied soldiers and a full prison staff. The cost of holding him there is estimated at $200,000 a year. He refuses to participate in any prison labor to pass the time. On his daily walks, his only activity is feeding the birds with breadcrumbs brought from his cell. He walks his own 100-meter path through the grass and bushes of the prison’s inner courtyard… Despite his age, Hess walks at a steady pace. Witnesses report no signs of mental or physical weakness, and his voice is said to be clear. But his conversations are limited to discussions of the weather or prison food with his guards. He keeps his thoughts on politics and the outside world to himself, and speaks of nothing beyond his daily routine, even with prison staff who have been at Spandau since the 1940s. He has refused every visit from his wife, now 68, and his 31-year-old son. This is the man who was second only to Hitler in the Third Reich – the man who flew a fighter plane from Germany to Scotland on May 10, 1941, in an apparent attempt to convince Britain to make peace with Hitler. It is unclear how long he will remain the lone prisoner at Spandau. It is reported that the Western Allies are open to releasing him on humanitarian grounds, but the Russians are said to insist that he serve his full life sentence. West Germany, which pays the annual cost of his imprisonment, would at least like to see him moved to a less expensive residence.”
The article is accompanied by early photographs of Hess: with his wife atop the Alpine peaks in 1935; meeting with Hitler and Mussolini in May 1938;
at a military ceremony in July 1934 in Königsberg; as well as postwar images of him in the defendants’ dock at the Nuremberg Trials alongside Hermann Göring and Joachim von Ribbentrop; and within the walls of Spandau Prison after being sentenced to life imprisonment. “This is the silent and grim world of the last of the Nuremberg Nazis, ” the article states.
Rudolf Hess, Deputy to Adolf Hitler, was sentenced in 1946 to life imprisonment by the International Military Tribunal at the Nuremberg Trials for crimes against peace and conspiracy to commit crimes against peace. Although convicted of serious offenses, he was not found guilty of crimes against humanity, which spared him from the death penalty. From 1947 until his death in 1987, Hess served his sentence at Spandau Prison in Berlin. For 40 years – since 1966, he remained the sole inmate, after all other convicted Nazi leaders were either released or had died. The prison was guarded by the Four Allied Powers (the USSR, USA, UK, and France) on a rotating monthly basis. Hess died on August 17, 1987, at the age of 93. Authorities claimed he had committed suicide by hanging, but his death sparked widespread speculation, including allegations of political assassination by Western intelligence agencies. After his death, Spandau Prison was demolished to prevent it from becoming a neo-Nazi pilgrimage site. In July 2011, German authorities – with the consent of his granddaughter, destroyed his grave in the village of Wunsiedel in southern Germany, after it had become a gathering point for neo-Nazis. Hess’s remains were exhumed, cremated, and scattered at sea.
[2] pages. Center spread of the issue (not a complete issue). Light stains. Good condition.
