Spandau Prison - The Spandau Seven

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 loners, generally disliked by the others — the former for his admission of guilt and repudiation of Hitler at the Nuremberg trials, the latter for his antisocial personality and perceived mental instability. The two former Grand Admirals, 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". 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 ten 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).

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