Publisher description

SPANDAU GUARD is set during December 1979 at the notorious Spandau Prison in West Berlin, Germany. Spandau Prison is home to the last of the Spandau 7; the seven convicted World War II war criminals (Konstantin von Neurath, Erich Raeder, Karl Dönitz, Walther Funk, Albert Speer, Baldur von Schirach, and Rudolf Hess) that were sentenced to spend between 10 years to life at the prison. December is also the month the United States Army in Berlin is in charge of guarding the prison. A very interesting changeover with the Soviets sets the basis for a story that reaches back to the early days of the Third Reich. U.S. Army Infantryman Alfredo Ledesma along with his fellow soldiers, struggle through the 31-day rotation of boredom, cold Berlin nights, and the holiday season they can only see and enjoy from afar. As the month of Spandau Guard duty progresses, some strange things start to happen until they come to a head on Christmas Eve.

In 1937, Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King travelled to Nazi Germany in an attempt to prevent a war that, to many observers, seemed inevitable. The men King communed with in Berlin, including Adolf Hitler, assured him of the Nazi regime's peaceful intentions, and King not only found their pledges sincere, but even hoped for personal friendships with many of the regime's top officials. Four Days in Hitler's Germany is a clearly written and engaging story that reveals why King believed that the greatest threat to peace would come from those individuals who intended to thwart the Nazi agenda, which as King saw it, was concerned primarily with justifiable German territorial and diplomatic readjustments. Mackenzie King was certainly not alone in misreading the omens in the 1930s, but it would be difficult to find a democratic leader who missed the mark by a wider margin. This book seeks to explain the sources and outcomes of King's misperceptions and diplomatic failures, and follows him as he returns to Germany to tour the appalling aftermath of the very war he had tried to prevent.

I Know This Much – by Gary Kemp, Spandau Ballet's prime mover – is simply the freshest, most exciting and best-written memoir to arrive for years.

Examines the fate of the seven high-ranking Nazi officers--Hess, Funk, Speer, Schirach, Neurath, Doenitz and Raeder--incarcerated at Spandau Prison after their convictions at the Nuremberg War Crime Trials.