U.S. Army Hangman John C. Woods Intentionally Botched Nazi Executions To Ensure Their Agonizing Deaths.

The Nuremberg executions took place on 16 October 1946, shortly after the conclusion of the Nuremberg trials.

Ten prominent members of the political and military leadership of Nazi Germany were executed by hanging: Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Alfred Jodl, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Alfred Rosenberg, Fritz Sauckel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, and Julius Streicher. 

Hermann Göring was also scheduled to be hanged on that day, but committed suicide using a potassium cyanide capsule the night before.

 Martin Bormann was also sentenced to death in absentia; at the time his whereabouts were unknown, but it is now thought that he committed suicide or was killed by Soviet troops while attempting to escape Berlin on 2 May 1945.

The sentences were carried out in the gymnasium of Nuremberg Prison by the United States Army using the standard drop method instead of long drop.

The executioners were Master Sergeant John C. Woods and his assistant, military policeman Joseph Malta. Woods miscalculated the lengths for the ropes used for the executions, some alleging intentionally, such that some of the men did not die quickly of an intended broken neck but instead strangled to death slowly.

Some reports indicated some executions took from 14 to 28 minutes.  The Army denied claims that the drop length was too short or that the condemned died from strangulation instead of a broken neck. Additionally, the trapdoor was too small, such that several of the condemned suffered bleeding head injuries when they hit the sides of the trapdoor while dropping through.

The bodies were rumored to have been taken to Dachau for cremation, but were in fact incinerated in a crematorium in Munich and the ashes scattered over the river Isar.

Kingsbury Smith of the International News Service wrote an eyewitness account of the hangings. His account appeared with photos in newspapers.

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U.S. Army Hangman John C. Woods Intentionally Botched Nazi Executions To Ensure Their Agonizing Deaths

John C. Woods lied to the U.S. Army and got them to promote him to the position of the official hangman of the Nazis at Nuremberg — and he made sure they suffered as they died.

There are few tears shed anywhere in the world for the 10 Nazi war criminals hanged by Master Sergeant John C. Woods after their conviction at the Nuremberg Trials following World War II. Of the 10 men he was charged with hanging, quite a few of them weren’t killed by a broken neck, which is how a hanging is supposed to work.

Instead, several of the convicted Nazis died a slow death by strangulation at the end of Woods’ noose. One Nazi, Field Marshall Wilhelm Keital, reportedly took a full 28 agonizing minutes to die. One might say that M/Sgt. Woods was bad at his job, but it’s even more likely that he was deliberately bad at his job, taking a perverse pleasure in the slow torturous deaths of the condemned. For some, this makes his handiwork all that much more fitting for some of the 20th century’s greatest monsters.

“Those Nazis were bad, bad men,” said military historian Col. French MacLean (Ret.). “So what if it took longer for them to die. Maybe they should have thought of that as they were sending people to concentration camps.”

The Early Life And Military Career Of John C. Woods

John Clarence Woods was born on June 5, 1911, in Wichita, Kansas, and was raised by his grandmother following his parents’ divorce when he was only two years old. He made it as far as Wichita High School, but dropped out after attending only two years.

On December 3, 1929, Woods joined the U.S. Navy. However, he went AWOL after a few months. Woods was convicted by a general court-martial and examined by a psychiatric board in April 1930, where it was determined that Woods suffered from Psychopathic Inferiority without Psychosis and was dishonorably discharged:

“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.”

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