At the end of World War II, the Allies faced a critical decision. What would they do with the remaining members of the defeated German government? The answer was to put them on trial. The surviving Nazi officials were prosecuted in Nuremberg, Germany. However, the highest-ranking among them, Hermann Göring, escaped the hangman’s noose by just a few hours.
At the conclusion of the trials, 11 men were sentenced to death. Among them were Wilhelm Keitel, the head of the German Armed Forces High Command; Joachim von Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister; and Julius Streicher, a close friend of Hitler and a key propagandist for the Third Reich. The executions of these convicted Nazis did not go smoothly. Many considered the events inside the execution chamber to be a failure and highly unseemly.
In the early hours of October 16, 1946, ten prominent members of the Nazi Party leadership were hanged. Some of the condemned requested execution by firing squad, but the Allies decided they would be hanged as common criminals. The men executed were Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, and Arthur Seyss-Inquart.
The executions began at 1:10 a.m. The men were led one by one to the execution chamber in the gymnasium of the Nuremberg prison. Three temporary gallows were built in the hall. At one point, two Nazis were hanging simultaneously to speed up the process. But things went wrong from the very start.
The primary executioner that day was Master Sergeant John C. Woods of the United States Army. Woods had carried out a number of military executions during and after the war, but he was not professionally trained as a civilian hangman. He had a long history of errors in executions. When the U.S. Army requested a hangman, Woods claimed he had assisted in executions in Texas and Oklahoma. However, his claims were later found to be false. Both states had abandoned hanging in favor of the electric chair during the period he claimed to have gained his experience. He learned the trade by performing military executions himself, rather than through the rigorous apprenticeship that professional hangmen typically underwent.
The equipment given to Woods was also likely not up to standard. A well-planned hanging should break the neck or severely dislocate the upper vertebrae. The weight of the condemned, their physical build, and the length of the drop all had to be considered. If the drop was too long, the head could be torn off. If it was too short, the neck would not break, and the person would die by strangulation. Woods used the standard American drop method, rather than the carefully calculated long-drop system used by British hangmen.
According to reports, the drop distances were not sufficient to break the necks of the Nuremberg prisoners. Witnesses claimed that some men continued to move or breathe for several minutes. Wilhelm Keitel was not killed quickly. Reports suggested he remained alive for up to 20 minutes after falling through the trapdoor. Many of the deaths were said to have taken at least 10 to 15 minutes, much longer than intended.
The gallows themselves had design flaws. The trapdoors were too small. When several prisoners fell through, they hit the sides of the opening. In some cases, the hinged door did not close properly and struck the men in the face. Photographs of the bodies later showed that Wilhelm Keitel and Wilhelm Frick were heavily bloodied, with blood covering their faces. If the men did not fall perfectly straight or if they resisted, their heads or faces could strike the edges of the narrow opening. The impact with the sides of the hinged door also slowed their fall, reducing the force applied to their necks.
The gallows were largely improvised. They were not in a permanent execution chamber but in a place where American soldiers had played a basketball game just days earlier. The Allied authorities wanted the executions to be safe, private, and quick. They also wanted to prevent the bodies from becoming Nazi icons or the execution site from becoming a shrine. These security concerns encouraged secrecy and speed. The temporary setup was less disciplined than a permanent facility run by experienced specialists.
Ten men had to be executed within the early morning hours. The first execution began just after 1 a.m., and the last was completed after 3 a.m. The two gallows were used alternately, allowing a body to be examined and removed while the next prisoner was being prepared. This assembly-line arrangement saved time but placed pressure on the execution team, which may have caused them to rush.
The execution of Julius Streicher is widely considered the worst of the Nuremberg hangings. Streicher was the anti-Semitic editor of the Nazi newspaper *Der Stürmer*. He went to the gallows kicking and screaming. He resisted and shouted insults before giving a final "Heil Hitler" salute. As he dropped through the trapdoor, witnesses reported hearing groans and moans from behind the black curtain that concealed his body. He was kicking and moving violently.
One eyewitness wrote that the hinged door opened with a loud noise and Streicher fell kicking. When the rope snapped taut, his body swung violently, and moans could be heard from inside the concealed part of the gallows. The hangman, Woods, then descended from the platform, lifted the black curtain, and entered. Something happened that stopped the moaning and the movement of the rope. The witness assumed Woods had grabbed the swinging body and pulled it down. Everyone was certain that Streicher had been strangled.
Woods had gone behind the gallows and physically pulled down on Streicher’s body, putting an end to his life by strangulation. Streicher’s defiance may have dislodged the knot, or Woods may have placed it poorly. Either way, the execution was a gruesome affair.
In the decades since, some have claimed that Woods deliberately botched the executions. Some assumed he wanted the condemned men to suffer. However, this would have undermined the entire purpose of the Nuremberg trials, which were meant to show that legal justice was more important than revenge. Woods may have hated the Nazis, and he admitted as much, but this does not prove he intentionally sabotaged the executions. The U.S. Army rejected these claims and insisted that the prisoners were executed properly. Officials also stated that reports of Keitel taking over 20 minutes to die did not prove he was conscious and suffering during that time.
Still, the facial injuries and the witness descriptions make it difficult to accept that everything went according to plan. The Nuremberg executions were carried out poorly for several reasons. The U.S. Army trusted the wrong man, John Woods, to perform the hangings. His experience was questionable. The gallows equipment was not suitable for a quick death. The execution team may have been in a hurry. The pressure to execute the ten Nazis quickly likely made the task much harder.
There is little evidence that the executions were deliberately sabotaged. However, Woods later claimed he was very proud of carrying them out. It is a strange statement. If he had caused a major mess on the most important day of his career, pride would seem out of place. Regardless, the Nuremberg executions remain a dark and troubled chapter in the history of post-war justice.