To the best of my current knowledge,Rudolf Hess was nothing more than a fanatic Hitler supporter and glorified flunky with no responsibilities concerning the Nazi Party or it's actions and directives during the war.In fact,unless I am mistaken,his part in the war ended in 1941 when he made his famous flight.Long before the worst of the Nazi attrocities were committed.Why then did he receive such a lengthy prison sentence while other Nazi war criminals received a comparative slap on the wrist?
I believe it was because Stalin wanted it. The Britisch originaly wanted to keep Hess in prison and then put him on the Neurnberg Trail. However, all those years before the Trail, Stalin demanded that Hess should be sentenced at once. A curious fact was that Hess hanged himself in a woodshed in the Spandau prison when the it was the Russians turn to gaurd the prison. Hang or was hanged? That is still a qestion that is unanswered.
Already a topic on this. http://www.fun-online.sk/forum/viewtopi ... 52&start=0. I think there was a discussion about wether he hung himself or he was hung on the topic about Hitler + Remorse???. Wasn't the prison on the western side of Berlin?
. yep that was part of the nuremberg trials results , all condemned were executed , died or served their sentences in the case of rudolf hess ,it probably was unjust . the egyptian born german , stalward of the early days , was good nazi , honest and somewhat naive , his job as party secretary was making him a glorified fixture , his personnal relationship with hitler was deteriorating , not least by having for a deputy a slimy piece of sh.t called martin bormann, who got his job ! when churchill heard of rudolf hess flight to britain he must have had an heart attack , churchill knew that it would make the russians even more paranoia , he took extreme care to distance himself and his government of a potential nazi provocation . .
Hess in Spandau It is quite right that Spandau was in the part of Berlin that fell under Allied control. This location, and the fact that it gave the Russians a legitimate excuse to have an, albeit small, military presence in that area, was as much a part of the reason as to why the Russians wanted Hess confined there. BG
Interesting but irrelevant fact - the borough of Spandau was twinned with Luton (where I come from). They presented us with a very nice phone box which appeared in our Shopping Centre with much fanfare, and was then quietly removed a few months later to make way for a kiosk selling lottery tickets. Moving on...
. there is often some mention of "spandau " as made in spandau , during WW2 I guessed it to have been some kind of heavy machine gun . .
I believe this is because Spandau housed a large weapons factory during the war where the MG42 was being manufactured, but I'm not sure about this.
. from google The spandau 08 seems to have been a german copy of the maxim , it was the standard German machine gun of WW1 and saw action during WW2 until about 42 . .
Coming from a town whose disgruntled Great War veterans burned down it's town hall because they were a tad miffed at not being invited to the Victory celebration dinner, it is surprising that the phone box lasted as long as it did !
yup,same old hess, bailed out from a me 110 (or bf 110? but do not want to start that discussion again)
Bf, IIRC Wily Messerschmitt never did manage to talk to RLM into officially re-designating his earlier aircraft with an "Me" prefix.
Yeah, our new town hall was specifically designed to be fire-proof! Mind you, it won't have helped that the old one was sandwiched between two pubs...
