When the trials at Nuremberg concluded, eleven high-ranking Nazi officers were ultimately condemned to death by hanging. No “dignified military” firing squad for these bastards; it was the rope, a trap door, and a snapped neck.
Well — two out of three, maybe…
One of the Nazis, Hermann Göring, managed to finish himself off in his cell with a cyanide capsule just hours before the execution was to take place. The others, however, were marched to the gallows.
Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s foreign minister, was the first to go. As described in a TIME Magazine article from October 28, 1946. headlined “Night Without Dawn”:
At 1:11 a.m. he entered the gymnasium, and all officers, official witnesses and correspondents rose to attention. Ribbentrop's manacles were removed and he mounted the steps (there were 13) to the gallows. With the noose around his neck, he said: "My last wish ... is an understanding between East and West. . . ." All present removed their hats. The executioner tightened the noose. A chaplain standing beside him prayed. The assistant executioner pulled the lever, the trap dropped open with a rumbling noise, and Ribbentrop's hooded figure disappeared. The rope was suddenly taut, and swung back & forth, creaking audibly.
Sounds efficient, right?
Ernst Kaltenbrunner, by the way, was the highest ranking Nazi scheduled for execution (after Göring cheated), but third man in line for the noose. "... I have loved my German people and my Fatherland with a warm heart... Germany, good luck...".
Then, down he went.
During my research I’d come across post-mortem photos of the executed Nazi leaders and was struck by how bloody they were. Wilhelm Keitel, for instance, looks like he was beaten with a hammer. (I will not subject you to the pictures, but they can be viewed at Getty Images.
Turns out there was a reason for the gore.
Amateur Hour
Here’s a more closely observed description of Wilhelm Keitel’s hanging. He was Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces, and the second man hung that day.
Ribbentrop was hung minutes previously on the other gallows, and only a taut rope was now visible. He was not yet dead, however; beneath the trap door and under cover of the platform and canvas covering, he would slowly strangle over the course of the next 17 minutes.
Keitel took his place atop the other gallows, popped out some last words (“I call on God Almighty to have mercy on the German people. More than two million soldiers went to their death for the Fatherland before me. I follow now my sons — all for Germany.”)
… and the black hood was lowered over his head. The hangman pulled the lever.
As he fell through the trap door, he bashed the bottom of his chin against the edge of the opening; his fall was interrupted, so there was insufficient velocity to snap his neck to kill him instantly — which is how hangings are supposed to go. Gurgles and moans could be heard from beneath the platform.
His body began to jerk about, and the rope danced as Keitel slowly strangled to death.
It took him 28 minutes to die.
Fake It Until You Make It
Let’s meet the hangman. Here was TIME Magazine’s contemporaneous profile:
The executioner was U.S. Master Sergeant John C. Woods, 43, of San Antonio, a short, chunky man who in his 15 years as U.S. Army executioner has hanged 347 people. Said he afterwards: “I hanged those ten Nazis… and I am proud of it… I wasn’t nervous… A fellow can’t afford to have nerves in this business… I want to put in a good word for those G.I.s who helped me… they all did swell… I am trying to get [them] a promotion… The way I look at this hanging job, somebody has to do it. I got into it kind of by accident, years ago in the States.”
A gracious craftsman.
And a sordid liar.
While TIME Magazine wasn’t blind, they also didn’t have enough information at that point to expand upon the following passage in their story:
Later, it was charged that the executions had been cruelly bungled. Cecil Catling, correspondent for London’s Star (a veteran crime reporter and an expert on hangings), declared that there was not enough room for the men to drop, which would mean that their necks had not been properly broken and that they must have died of slow strangulation. In addition Catling claimed that they were not properly tied, so that some hit the platform with their heads as they went down and their noses were torn off. The U.S. Army denied his story.
“Their noses were torn off…”
It turns out that Woods had exaggerated his “hangman credentials” a bit, and harbored other secrets predating his service in the Army.
As detailed at The Fifth Field, the website of Col. French L. MacLean, author of American Hangman: MSgt. John C. Woods: The United States Army’s Notorious Executioner in World War II and Nürnberg:
On December 3, 1929, John Woods joined the United States Navy. He reported to the west coast. After initial training, he received an assignment for the U.S.S. Saratoga. Within months, Woods deserted. Authorities apprehended him in Colorado and returned him to California, where he received a General Court-Martial. After the conviction, a Navy medical officer recommended that a medical board examine Woods. This happened on April 23, 1930. The report following the examination read:
“This patient, though not intellectually inferior, gives a history of repeatedly running counter to authority both before and since enlistment. Stigmata of degeneration are present and the patient frequently bites his fingernails. He has a benign tumor of the soft palate for which he refuses operation. His commanding officer and division officers state that he shows inaptitude and does not respond to instruction. He is obviously poor service material. This man has had less than five months service. His disability is considered to be an inherent defect for which the service is in no way responsible. [He] is not considered a menace to himself or others.”
The report also provided a diagnosis for John Woods – Constitutional Psychopathic Inferiority without Psychosis. The Navy then discharged him.
“Constitutional Psychopathic Inferiority without Psychosis” is what is now called “Anti-Social Personality Disorder.”
Col. MacLean, by the way, includes this teaser in his description of American Hangman:
Did you know that John Woods could smoke a cigarette and blow smoke out of his ears? Well, his nieces remembered that and a great deal of additional information about a man who adored his wife, loved dogs, liked to make officers uncomfortable, had an affinity for Wild Crow bourbon whiskey, had a storehouse of entertaining stories to tell his friends and who botched more than a few hangings, the reports of which made it back to the War Department in Washington, DC.
I guess that would be the positive spin.
His background was not cushy. Parents divorced when he was two years-old and his grandmother raised him. He put in two years of high school before dropping out.
In 1933, Woods was a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps — but left his group at one point for six days and was said to have outright refused to work.
When America entered the Second World War in 1941, Woods was on probation for check fraud and not eligible for the draft. When his probation ended in 1944, he was inducted into the US Army and assigned to Company B of the 37th Engineer Combat Battalion, 5th Engineer Special Brigade. He served in North Africa and saw action at Omaha Beach on D-Day.
A Better Gig
In 1944, the U.S. Army was looking for an enlisted man to handle the execution of American personnel. Prior to the D-Day landing, American military executions in the European Theater of Operations were carried out in England by Thomas Pierrepoint, a civilian executioner, and other British personnel.
No one could blame Woods for applying for a position that would take him out of the hell he’d experienced at Omaha Beach.
From American Hangman:
He did not get wounded on Omaha Beach, but he saw a bunch of guys get killed. I’m sure he thought, I do not want to go through that experience again… He volunteers to get out of the combat engineers. He is accepted and promoted from private to master sergeant, and his pay goes from $50 to $138 a month.
So, maybe we can excuse his outright lie when he claimed he was “assistant hangman twice in the State of Texas and twice in the State of Oklahoma.”
He got the gig…
… and, as you’ll learn in next week’s Part Two, it didn’t go well.