Former Nazi Leaders To Leave Prison At Night

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31177, 29 September 1966, Page 7

Former Nazi Leaders To Leave Prison At Night

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter) BERLIN. When the heavy iron gate of Spandau prison in Berlin opens late at night on September 30, two men will step out into a world which they have not seen since Adolf Hitler’s Germany lay in ashes in 1945.

They are Baldur von Schirach, the former Nazi Youth leader, now aged 59, and Albert Speer, aged 61, Hitler’s Armaments Minister.

They will be greeted by their families as they leave behind the high red-brick walls of the prison where they have served 20-year sentences passed on them by the Allied War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremburg in 1946. When the gate closes the 600 cell former Prussian prison will have only one prisoner left—Rudolf Hess, at one time Hitler’s deputy. Hess, now 72, is serving a life sentence on a charge of helping to prepare the Second World War. He flew to Scotland in 1941, baled out of his aircraft, and offered to open peace talks. He was arrested, interned in Britain, and brought to trial at Nuremburg.

He will become the world’s most expensive, most lonely and best-guarded prisoner if Russia continues to veto his premature release or transfer from Spandau. All attempts by his lawyer, Dr. Alfred Seidl, and the three Western Allies, Britain, France and the United States, to get Hess released have so far failed. Russian Opposition. The Russian attitude, according to a Berlin spokesman of the three Western Allies, is that they want to preserve Spandau prison as a reminder of German war guilt "So long as Hess suffers no serious illness, there is no hope that he will be released,” the spokesman said. The Russians have also turned a deaf ear on proposals to move Hess to a smaller, less costly place of confinement. The latest Allied figures show that Spandau costs the West Berlin City Government alone about £36,000 a year. Von Schirach and Speer will emerge from Spandau to start new lives in a Germany which has completely changed since they last knew it—a Germany split in two. Instead of brown-shirted Hitler Youths, they will find long-haired, beat-loving young men in a rebuilt West Germany. Instead of a nationalistic state, they will find a militarily and economically Integrated West Germanv. Speer, a talented architect, is said to be planning to reenter his old profession in Heidelberg. Von Schirach is now greyhaired and half-blind. He suffered two blood clots and in recent years lost the sight of one eye. Doctors performed two operations to save the other eye.

His sons, who live in Munich, are expected to take him to some place in Bavaria where he will rest—and try

to forget. For two decades, his only links with the outside world have been occasional visits by members of his family and the newspapers. Allied Co-operation

Running Spandau prison Is one of the last two operations in which Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union co-operate in Berlin. The other is the Allied Air Safety Centre dealing with flights along Germany’s air corridors.

Armed troops of the four countries take monthly turns to guard the prison. Officials of all four meet occasionally inside the prison for a joint luncheon.

Von Schirach, Hess and Speer were taken to Spandau, not far from the East German border, on July 18, 1947, together with four other major war criminals, who have since been released. First to come out was Baron von Neurath, former Foreign Minister, one-time German

Ambassador in London and Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. He was set free on grounds of age and ill health in 1954 and died two years later aged 84. Next to emerge, in 1955, was the former Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, chief of the German Navy until 1943, also freed because of advancing years and ill health. He, too, died shortly after his release. Karl Doenitz, Hitler’s successor for 10 days in 1945, was released in 1956 after having served his full ten-year term. Walter Funk, Hitler’s former Economics Minister, was released in 1957 from a sentence of life imprisonment He was ill and has since died. And the future of Spandau?

The three Western Allies are working out plans to cut down the staff and perhaps make available to the West Berlin authorities parts of the empty prison. But here again Soviet agreement is required.