Once a town in its own right, Spandau is one of the oldest areas in the Berlin region and still retains much of its own unique character, having been spared the worst of the Allied bombing in the Second World War that so devastated the rest of the city. The center of the town is formed by a dense network of medieval streets and a market square, still retaining a large number of timber-framed buildings.
Spandau was the site of the military prison in which Hitler's deputy Rudolf Hess was imprisoned after the 1946 Nuremberg trials until his death in 1987. The prison was then demolished.