Lieutenant Colonel Eugene K. Bird (1926, Lambert, Montana – October 28, 2005, Berlin) was U.S. Director of the Spandau prison from 1964 to 1972. For more than two decades, Bird guarded deputy Nazi Fuehrer Rudolf Hess. Image File history File links Ekbird. ... Image File history File links Ekbird. ... In the U.S. Army, Air Force and Marine Corps, a lieutenant colonel is a commissioned officer superior to a major and inferior to a colonel. ... Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Lambert is an unincorporated village in Richland County, Montana, United States. ... is the 301st day of the year (302nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the capital of Germany. ... For other uses, see United States (disambiguation) and US (disambiguation). ... Executive director is a title given to a person who is the head of an executive branch of an organization or company. ... Spandau Prison from the air Spandau Prison was a prison situated in the borough of Spandau in western Berlin, constructed in 1876 and demolished in 1987 after the death of the last prisoner. ... Also Nintendo emulator: 1964 (emulator). ... Year 1972 (MCMLXXII) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Nazism, or National Socialism (German: Nationalsozialismus), refers primarily to the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party (National Socialist German Workers Party, German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP) under Adolf Hitler. ... Führer (often written Fuehrer or Fuhrer in English when umlauts are not used; also written with the German definite article included, der Führer) is a proper noun meaning leader or guide in the German language. ... Not to be confused with Rudolf Hoess. ...

Bird was born in Lambert, Montana. In 1944, Bird joined the U.S. Army. He was sent to Europe, where he fought against the Germans. 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday. ... For other uses, see Bird (disambiguation). ... The Army is the branch of the United States armed forces which has primary responsibility for land-based military operations. ...

In 1947, he became the first American guard at the Spandau prison. Spandau was set up by the Allies to imprison those convicted of war crimes. In 1964, Bird was named prison director. By 1966, the only inmate in Spandau was Hess. Year 1947 (MCMXLVII) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1947 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Look up ally in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In the context of war, a war crime is a punishable offense under International Law, for violations of the laws of war by any person or persons, military or civilian. ... Year 1966 (MCMLXVI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the 1966 Gregorian calendar. ...

Bird and Hess developed a close relationship through the years. In 1974 Bird wrote a book about his relationship with Hess titled The Loneliest Man in the World: The Inside Story of the 30-Year Imprisonment of Rudolf Hess. Bird wrote the book while still governor of the Spandau. He freely admitted that he had consulted Hess secretly in his prison cell while working on the text. This admission shocked Allied authorities. According to Allied officials, his actions were a breach of prison regulations as the prisoner was kept in strict solitary confinement. Year 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the 1974 Gregorian calendar. ...

Bird claimed his motivation for the book was a desire to preserve Hess' account of his action. According to Bird, Hess remained unrepentant of his actions. Hess reportedly told Bird: "I would travel the same route and end up here in Spandau. My sincere desire from the beginning was to bring Germany back to the old heights which it had attained before the First World War before the Versailles Diktat, which was wrong."

After writing the book, Bird lost his job at Spandau and was forced to resign from the U.S. Army. It is reported that he was pursued about Berlin by CIA agents for some time afterwards. The CIA Seal The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is an American intelligence agency, responsible for obtaining and analyzing information about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and reporting such information to the various branches of the U.S. Government. ...

Even after his forced resignation, Bird didn't regret his choice in recording Hess' story: "There have been speculations in newspapers and magazines in every language in the world of what is going on," he wrote in an appendix to the 1972 Secker&Warburg-published book. "They have said here is a madman being kept in chains and starved; or, here is a man living off the fat of the land. It has been speculation because nobody knew what was going on."

After losing his job at Spandau Prison, Bird campaigned intensively for the release of Rudolf Hess, calling his continued imprisonment 'a medieval act of cruelty', barbaric and a 'savage injustice.

After Hess' death, Bird remained suspicious of the official account of suicide. "I was suspicious for several reasons," Bird told a Deutsche Presse-Agentur reporter. "After all, Hess who had been held in Spandau for almost 30 years was by then 93 years old and fragile. I doubted he had the strength to kill himself with a cord which was not attached at both ends to anything."

After leaving the U.S. Army, Bird remained in Berlin, living in the city's outlying Zehlendorf district and operating a family business. Later in life Bird was active in the Association of July 17, 1953, a German group honoring the East German uprising that took place on that day. Bird died in his Berlin home on October 28, 2005. He left behind a widow and two daughters. Bird was buried at the Walfriedhof cemetery in Berlin. For the historical eastern German provinces, see Historical Eastern Germany East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR), German Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), was a Communist Party-led state that existed from 1949 to 1990 in the former Soviet occupation zone of Germany. ... is the 301st day of the year (302nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

References

• [1]A Call for a Congressional Investigation of The Murder of Rudolf Hess, hosted by the Institute for Historical Review, an organization espousing Holocaust denial
• [2]German press report on Bird's death.