On the 16th October 1946 inside of the gymnasium of Nuremberg Prison, the condemned remnants
of Hitler’s government and Nazi hierarchy were led out one by one for their executions.
Amongst the men who were executed were Joachim von Ribbentrop, the former Nazi foreign minister,
Ernst Kaltenbrunner a ruthless SS executioner and overseer, and also Julius Streicher who
was one of the most virulent beasts and supports of Adolf Hitler.
There was one man who was missing who did not go through the gallows inside of the execution
chamber and that was Hermann Goring.
Goring the Head of the Luftwaffe, and possibly the most high profile defendant of the Nuremberg
Trials had died in the hours before his execution, as he had consumed a cyanide capsule evading
the hangman.
The man who carried out the executions John C Woods has gained a reputation for being
a botching executioner who made a mess of the proceedings as the condemned were not
killed instantly as they plunged through the drop, but also some hit their heads on the
trapdoor as they went through.
However the Nazis were allowed last words and final statements which were issued on
the scaffold and these were heard by priests and witnesses inside of the rooms.
Some of these phrases were more repentant than others, and some of the condemned uttered
disgusting phrases that showed they were going to their deaths as ardent a Nazi as they once
were.
Welcome to TheUntoldpast, join us today as we look at the last words of the nuremberg
executions and as always to support our channel please make sure to subscribe.
The executions of those condemned Nazis of the Nuremberg Trials, as in the most senior
Nazi war criminals occurred as mentioned inside the small gymnasium found inside Nuremberg
Prison’s courtyard.
There were specifically three gallows which had been made in the room.
Two of these were to be used by executioner John C Woods simultaneously so that he could
execute them quicker.
The third gallows was to serve as a spare incase something went wrong, but the whole
executions of the nuremberg trials were carried out within 2 hours.
They were considered botched as there was a number of problems.
Some of the men took longer than anticipated to die as the drop did not snap their necks,
with the executioner Woods miscalculating the drop required to do this.
Also some of the men were left bloodied as they hit their heads as they fell through
the trapdoor.
But also inside of the execution chamber were a number of witnesses who saw the proceedings.
The final words of the condemned were recorded as they either entered the chamber or as they
uttered these on the scaffold.
The men were accompanied by American military policemen who helped them up the steps of
the gallows and recorded final words before the executioner made his preparations.
Joachim von Ribbentrop was the first of the men executed after the body of Hermann Goring
was showed to the witnesses.
He was the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and many believed he was rather incompetent.
He was involved before the war in brokering a number of pacts with Mussolini’s Italy
and also the Soviets, however after 1941 his influence inside of government declined as
the Nazis were at war.
But at the end of the war he was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity,
and specifically in his role in starting the war.
He was the first led towards the gallows and it was said of his execution, ‘Von Ribbentrop
entered the execution chamber at 1:11 a.m.
Nuremberg time.
He was stopped immediately inside the door by two Army sergeants who closed in on each
side of him and held his arms, while another sergeant who had followed him in removed manacles
from his hands and replaced them with a leather strap.
It was planned originally to permit the condemned men to walk from their cells to the execution
chamber with their hands free, but all were manacled immediately following Goering's suicide.
Von Ribbentrop was able to maintain his apparent stoicism to the last.
He walked steadily toward the scaffold between his two guards, but he did not answer at first
when an officer standing at the foot of the gallows went through the formality of asking
his name.
When the query was repeated he almost shouted, 'Joachim von Ribbentrop!' and then mounted
the steps without any sign of hesitation.
When he was turned around on the platform to face the witnesses, he seemed to clench
his teeth and raise his head with the old arrogance.
When asked whether he had any final message he said, 'God protect Germany,' in German,
and then added, 'May I say something else?'
Joachim von Ribbentrop was allowed to utter further words, and his final words were recorded
as ‘God have mercy on my soul, my final wish is that Germany should recover her unity
and that, for the sake of peace, there should be an understanding between East and West.
I wish peace to the world.”
But von Ribbentrop was then sent crashing through the trapdoor at 1:30am.
Following him was Wilhelm Keitel, the most senior member of the Military and Hitler’s
chief of the Oberkommando Der Wehrmacht.
Keitel was considered a lacky of Hitler’s and he was someone who would do anything to
appease Hitler.
Keitel was seen as a major war criminal and someone who was a main aggressor in the German
War effort.
Keitel emerged in the execution chamber two minutes after Ribbentrop’s trap had been
sprung, and his body was hidden behind the first scaffold.
He was not as tense, and Keitel remained proud with his head held high as he was taken towards
the gallows.
His final words were, ‘"I call on God Almighty to have mercy on the German people.
More than two million German soldiers went to their death for the fatherland before me.
I follow now my sons—all for Germany."
After this, Keitel crashed through the trapdoor after the noose was secure and a black cap
had been placed over his head.
Up next was Ernst Kaltenbrunner, a high ranking member of the SS.
He served as the Chief of the Reich Security Main Office and oversaw the Gestapo, Kripo
and SD, and was responsible for a significant part of the genocide conducted by the SS.
He was the highest ranking member of the SS who was brought to trial, and as he was led
up the scaffold he was recorded as saying, ‘"I have loved my German people and my fatherland
with a warm heart.
I have done my duty by the laws of my people and I am sorry my people were led this time
by men who were not soldiers and that crimes were committed of which I had no knowledge.
Germany, good luck."
He was one of the Nazis of Nuremberg who seemed to go to his death with solemnity and he wished
for a greater Germany one day.
Next up was Alfred Rosenberg, a Nazi theorist and ideologist who crafted a lot of the Nazi
policies that caused such terror and persecution.
He was one of the main authors of the persecution of the jews policies, as well as other ideas
such as Lebensraum.
He was tried of all four counts and was also linked to being a planner in the Invasion
of Norway, but his final words on the scaffold were possibly the most underwhelming.
When he was asked if he had anything to say, he replied with simply ‘No’ and this was
it.
Hans Frank when he entered the execution chamber smiled, and he seemed nervous as he approached
the scaffold.
He had converted to Catholicism in prison, and he was a man who served as the Head of
the General Government in occupied Poland, and he instilled a reign of terror into the
nation, and oversaw four extermination camps.
On the scaffold his final words were stated to have been, ‘I am thankful for the kind
treatment during my captivity, and I ask God to accept me with mercy.’
Wilhelm Frick was sixth to go through the trapdoor, and he was the Minister of Interior
in Adolf Hitler’s cabinet, and he was involved in creating many of the laws in Germany including
the Nuremberg laws that persecuted Jews.
His final words on the scaffold were short, and he said ‘Long Live eternal Germany,’
Julius Streicher emerged in the execution chamber 7th of the condemned Nazis and he
was brought in struggling and shouting antisemitic vitriol.
He may have even offered a final Hitler salute towards the witnesses, and he was the horrific
editor of Der Sturmer newspaper.
His final words were ‘Adele my dear wife,’ but he struggled and put up more of a fight
than the other Nazis.
Fritz Sauckel emerged after Streicher, and he claimed on the scaffold that, ‘I am dying
innocent, the sentence is wrong.
God protect Germany and make Germany Great again, Long live Germany, god protect my family.’
Sauckel was involved in Labour deployment and slave labour programmes, and he would
in his final moments protest his innocent but of course this did nothing and very little
to actually spare him from the gallows as John C Woods secured the noose around his
neck.
He believed he had been condemned by the victors of the war.
Alfred Jodl was the penultimate man to be brought to the gallows.
He wore a black coat of his Wehrmacht uniform which had been hurriedly put on, and Jodl
was very nervous as he made his way into the execution chamber.
He was haggard as he walked, and he was then helped up the steps and his final words were
‘My greetings to you, my Germany,’ before he plunged through the gallows.
But the final execution that was carried out was upon Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the Chancellor
of Austria before the Anschluss.
He held a number of different positions inside of the Third Reich, and he was also made the
Reichskommisar of the occupied Netherlands.
He was responsible for instigating a reign of terror inside of the land, and he subjected
many people to forced labour and thousands were deported to concentration camps where
they were slaughtered.
As he was helped up the scaffold, Seyss-Inquart seemed to be rather reflective on his execution
and impending doom.
He stated as his final words, ‘"I hope that this execution is the last act of the tragedy
of the Second World War and that the lesson taken from this world war will be that peace
and understanding should exist between peoples.
I believe in Germany."
Within a couple of hours, the 10 executed men of the Nuremberg Trials had been killed
and they were then placed inside of coffins ready to be cremated.
These were the final remnants of Hitler’s government, and in the years after there would
be others who were brought to trials and were executed.
Nuremberg was the most high profile set of executions.
Many of the men who were sent through the trapdoor were reflective on their time in
government, and some believed that they had been victims of a miscarriage of justice and
that they were being condemned for their role on the losing side of the Second World War,
being put to death for Allied propaganda rather than their actions and crimes.
But their last words were the final thoughts of some of the Second World War’s most barbaric
war criminals.
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