Customer Reviews

Long Knives and Short Memories: Lives and Crimes of the 7 Nazi Leaders Sentenced at Nuremburg

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The information on Spandau Prison that Jack Fishman became privy to in the 1950's considering the secrecy surrounding the prison is quite astounding. The way that the inmates (Doenitz, Hess, von Schirach, Speer, von Neurath, Funk, and Raeder) each in their own way delude themselves as a way to deal with their imprisonment and as a way of coping with the guilt of having committed some of the worse crimes known to mankind is captured excellently in Fishman's book. Fishman manages the difficult task of making a fairly unbiased novel about Nazis, only inserting himself into the novel on the few occasions when he becomes a part of it (for instance, his turning in a secret letter written by Doenitz in order to avoid being arrested for violating the secrecy of Spandau). There are a few elements that prevent this from being a five-star non-fiction book. He becomes redundant on several occasions, especially when dicussing the matter of inmates being released on health matters. The biggest problem, though, in my opinion, was silly little factual errors like crediting Rudolf Hess's wife Ilse with having written Between London and Moscow (which is, in fact Joachim von Ribbentrop's memoirs) and saying that after the death of Baldur von Schirach Rudolf Hess and Albert Speer were the only surviving inmates of Spandau (it seems he completely forgot that Karl Doenitz out-lived von Schirach by six years). Though it's all too easy for me to focus on the negative and forget the excellent job that Fishman does of describing the day-to-day lives of the inmates of Spandau from their discussion with one another to their letters home. For people interested in the topic of Spandau Prison I'd also recommend Tales from Spandau by Norman J.W. Goda, though that deals more with the history of it all and policy inside Spandau than the lives of the inmates. This is definitely the bigger page-turner.