GERMANY: The Seven Inmates

In the grubby, working-class suburb of Spandau in the British sector of Berlin stands a huge, rust red castle surrounded by 15 acres of grounds and a stout brick heptagonal wall. This is Spandau Fortress.*

The Blackest Nazis. Behind its imposing, heavily guarded barricade are seven sick and lonely men, the only inmates. But they are seven of the blackest Nazis still alive: Rudolf Hess, one of Hitler’s closest confidants; Karl Doenitz, once commander of the German navy; Baron Konstantin von Neurath, former proconsul of Czechoslovakia; Albert Speer, Hitler’s production genius; Walter Funk, director of Nazi finances; Baldur von Schirach, leader-hero of Nazi youth; and ex-Admiral Erich Raeder.

Their jailers are Russian, British, French and American. The four officers occupy desks in the same office, speak German to each other, take turns being warden. Similarly, outside the troops of four nations take turns manning the ramparts; this month it is a company of Yorkshiremen.

From the time the seven inmates passed through the heavy iron gates of Spandau (in July 1947, when many of their fellow conspirators were being hanged), the four-power administration has kept prison doings secret. The wardens are agreed in wanting their seven infamous prisoners kept from public notice; if possible, they want them to be completely forgotten by the German public.

Ailing & Aging. Last week a crack appeared in the secrecy wall. Frau Walter Funk, who occasionally visits her husband in the prison, called a press conference in Bonn. The Spandau prisoners are ailing and aging, she reported. Hess is “even more insane and often screams.” Neurath is almost blind and must be led about the prison. She painted a tearful picture of the dethroned supermen (actually they have four doctors to guard their health, gardens to work in, books to read).

Frau Funk petitioned Chancellor Konrad Adenauer to grant them amnesty and was trying to enlist the support of some politicians in Bonn and of Cardinal Jo seph Frings, archbishop of Cologne. Busy with signing the peace, West German officials took little note of her plea.

* Built as a military prison by the Prussians in 1860, the Nazis took it over in 1939, equipped it with a guillotine and eight hangman’s hooks, designed it as an induction and interrogation center for concentration camps.