CASE FILE 046 ● ARCHIVE OPEN
THE HANGMAN
OF NUREMBERG.
The Nazis were convicted. The hangman had a secret. And some witnesses said the final night went badly wrong.
1946
You are not deciding whether the Nazi leaders were guilty. A court decided that. You are investigating whether the executions went wrong—and what can actually be proved.
SOME DETAILS ARE DISPUTED. THAT IS THE POINT.BYTE 01 / 1945
THE WORLD WANTED ANSWERS.
World War II was over. The Nazi government had carried out mass murder, including the Holocaust, in which it murdered six million European Jews. The Allies had captured senior Nazi leaders.
Now what? Some leaders favored shooting Nazi officials without trials. Instead, four Allied countries set up an international court in Nuremberg, Germany. Accused leaders could have lawyers. Prosecutors had to present evidence.
It’s 1945. The Allies ask for your advice.
You can’t undo Nazi crimes. Which approach better establishes lasting justice?
BYTE 02 / OCTOBER 1946
TWELVE SENTENCED.
TEN HANGED.
The trials ended October 1, 1946. Of twelve death sentences, only ten were carried out.
Martin Bormann was tried in absentia—he was not there. Hermann Göring, a top Nazi leader, died by suicide using cyanide before his execution. The ten others were executed early on October 16.
Two scaffold platforms were used inside a prison gymnasium. A third was kept in reserve.
Where did the other two death sentences go?
Göring: died by suicide shortly before the
executions.
Bormann: absent; the court sentenced
him without him there. He had actually died in Berlin in 1945,
though that was not then certain.
BYTE 03 / THE HANGMAN
MEET JOHN C. WOODS.
The U.S. Army assigned Master Sergeant John Clarence Woods to carry out the Nuremberg executions.
The press described a seasoned hangman: 43 years old, from Texas, with fifteen years of experience and 347 executions behind him.
Military historian French L. MacLean examined Woods’s records. The findings were different.
- 43 years old
- 15 years as a hangman
- Experience in Texas and Oklahoma
BYTE 04 / BEFORE DAWN · 16 OCTOBER
SOMETHING SOUNDED WRONG.
At about 1:11 a.m., Joachim von Ribbentrop arrived at the gallows. The last condemned man was hanged at about 2:45 a.m.
Correspondent Joseph Kingsbury-Smith witnessed the executions. He reported groans after Julius Streicher, a publisher of vicious antisemitic propaganda, dropped through the trapdoor.
But part of the drop space was screened off from witnesses. He could report the sounds he heard, not everything happening out of sight.
DIRECT OBSERVATION: A reporter heard distressing sounds.
NOT DIRECTLY OBSERVED: How long a prisoner remained conscious, or why the sounds occurred.
Which statement goes beyond what this witness could know?
Pick the statement the witness could NOT establish directly.
BYTE 05 / THE EVIDENCE DESK
CLAIM. RECORD.
INFERENCE.
Some historians believe the hangings were botched. Others questioned the exact stories later told about them. A claim can be dramatic and still lack proof.
BYTE 06 / FOUR YEARS LATER
THE HANGMAN’S OWN END.
John Woods survived the war and the Nuremberg executions. In July 1950, at age 39, he died in an electrical accident on Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Later stories claimed he was killed while building an electric chair—or even murdered by German scientists. Reliable evidence does not establish either story.
The accident was real. The elaborate conspiracy stories are not supported.
BYTE 07 / DECIDE FOR YOURSELF
YOU ARE THE HISTORIAN.
Two separate questions belong in this case: Were some executions mishandled? And can we prove Woods intended to cause extra suffering? The evidence for one claim is not automatically evidence for the other.
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