Following the Second World War, many war crimes trials were heard. The most famous occured
in Nuremberg, in which the final remains of Hitler’s Inner Circle and his Nazi Government
were brought infront of a judge. They were charged with war crimes and crimes against
humanity, and various other charges that resulted in the death sentences of 11 high profile
nazis including Hermann Goring, Joachim von Ribbentrop and Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Inside
the gymnasium of Nuremberg Prison on the 16th October 1946 the death sentences were carried
out. The method used was the standard drop with the US Army overseeing the executions,
and performing the executions was a man who has gone down in history as a botching executioner,
who’s past was much darker than known. John C Woods was an executioner with a steady past
who lied to get the job of performing the high profile Nuremberg executions. Join us
today as we look at ‘The SADISTIC Executioner of Nuremberg,’ and remember to support our
channel, please make sure to subscribe.
John Clarence Woods was born on the 5th June 1911 in Wichita Kansas, and was raised by
his grandmother, after his parents divorced when he was very young. He attended high school
but dropped out after two years, and his life seemed a bit of a mess. On the 3rd December
1929 at the age of 18, Woods joined the US Navy. However he could not cope with life
inside of the services, as within a few months he went AWOL, going absent without leave.
He was served with a general court martial, and was then examined by a psychiatric board
which gives us a good insight into the personality of who John C Woods really was. It was found
that Woods suffered from Psychopathic Inferiority without Psychosic.
The evaluation stated, ‘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 tumour 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 Norway
responsible, he is not considered a menace to himself or others.’
So the psychiatric evaluation found Woods to have been defiant and unable of following
orders, and he was discharged from the navy. He returned to Kansas sand took a number of
jobs being employed in the construction industry as a labourer and also he worked part time
at a shop. However he returned to the military during the Second World War. He enlisted in
the army in August 1943, and was assigned to company B of the 37th engineer combat battalion,
5th engineer special brigade. The amount of experience he had on the battlefield has been
disputed, and it’s believed that he did see action in some capacity on D-Day, participating
in the Normandy Landings, landing specifically at Omaha. But then little is unknown about
what action he saw after D-Day. It was said that, ‘He did not get wounded on Omaha,
but saw a bunch of guys get killed. I’m sure he thought I do not want to go through
that again. He volunteered to get out of the combat engineers.’
Now before D-Day, executions of American military individuals were performed in England only
and were performed by Thomas Pierrepoint and his nephew Albert Pierrepoint. But in late
1944, the US Army were looking for someone within the army to perform the execution of
American soldiers and personnel. John C Woods was one of a few who applied for the position.
What makes Woods incredibly controversial is the fact he lied through his teeth to get
the job to simply kill people. He told falsities to be the person who would be able to ‘legally’
kill others, obtaining his position as an execution through nothing but lies and deceit.
When he was asked about his experience, he told Army officers that he had been an assistant
hangman twice in Texas and also in Oklahoma.’ Now what is interesting, is that there is
no evidence that suggests the US Army sought to confirm this, checking his history out,
and that they simply just gave him the job without checking. He claimed to have hanged
2 men in both of the states.
A simple check throughout the records of executions in the states would have shown that woods
who was known previously for being rather unstable was simply lying. Both of the states
of Texas and Oklahoma during the time in which Woods’ claimed to have been a hangman used
electrocution as the execution method. Infact Oklahoma didn’t carry out any hangings during
the period quoted, and the last one took place 3 months before he was even born. If Woods
was telling the truth then he would have been also a hangman in Texas at the age of 12,
which is when they carried out the last hanging. Woods had not one piece of experience as a
hangman before the war, however somehow he got the job and was transferred to the Paris
Disciplinary Training Centre and became a master sergeant.
We can interpret this in a few ways. Maybe John C Woods wanted to try anything to try
and avoid combat as he had past in doing this going AWOL, or maybe Woods more sinisterly
enjoyed the thought of in a sense being a legal serial killer, executing men at the
behest of the army. He performed at least 24 hangings of American soldiers in France
in 1944 and 1945, and also assisted in other executioners. However it was noted that at
least 11 of the executions in which Woods was present were botched and performed poorly.
After the war had finished, he transitioned into becoming a hangman for the US Army inside
of Germany, and he was tasked with executing a number of Nazi war criminals. His first
in Germany occured on the 29th June 1945, where he hanged 3 germans for murdering a
US Service man, and in November of the same year he hanged 5 germans involved in the Russelheim
massacre, which resulted in the brutal deaths of a number of US Airmen. More executions
continued with him hanging 14 men convicted of crimes against humanity and mass slaughter
at Dachau Concentration Camp. However his biggest and most famous job was to be the
man who would execute those high ranking Nazis found guilty at the Nuremberg Trials.
The Nuremberg Trials saw the remaining members of Hitler’s Nazi hierarchy placed on trial
accused of the crimes of the Second World War, the Holocaust and many atrocities that
were committed at the hands of the Germans. 24 prominent members of the Nazi Party were
tried, and the proceedings resulted in the death sentences of 11 men. He would only perform
10 as Hermann Goring took his own life the night before the trials. In the early hours
of October 16th 1946, Woods carried out the death sentences of the 10 men of the Nuremberg
Trials condemned, and he used the standard drop method insitead of the long drop method.
However the executions performed by Woods would be in keeping with his botching past,
and many did not go to plan at all. Eyewitness accounts showed how a number of the men died
very slow deaths, and that their necks were not snapped at all. For example Wilhelm Keitel’s
death allegedly took 28 minutes after he plunged through the trapdoor, with him slowly strangling
to death after falling through the trapdoor. Later Time Magazine published an article telling
of the executions, and it was said that there was not enough room for the men to drop meaning
their necks were probably not broken, and most died from slow strangulation. It was
also claimed that Woods did not tie many of their nooses correctly, and a number of the
men whacked their heads of the platform and the door as they fell through. A number may
have also been hit by the trapdoor.
What was interesting also was what occured with the execution of Julius Streicher. A
staunch Nazi journalist who published Der Sturmer, an antisemitic newspaper he was one
of them executed. However it was said, ‘When the rope snapped taut with the body swinging
wildly, groans could be heard from within the concealed interior of the scaffold. Finally
the hangman, Woods, who had descended from the gallows platform lifted the black canvas
curtain and went inside. Something happened that put a stop to the groans and brought
the rope to a standstill. After it was over, I was not in the mood to ask what he did,
but I assume that he grabbed the swinging body and pulled down on it.’ With this it’s
interesting to consider that Woods finished off Streicher, strangling him to death.
The executions were performed all within 2 hours, and Woods stated ‘Ten men in 103
minutes, that’s fast work,’ and he commended himself for his work. After the executions,
he did draw criticism but responded with ‘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 buiness, and I want
to put in a good word for those GI’s who helped me. They did swell, I am trying to
get them a promotion. The way I look at the hanging job is that somebody has to do it.
I got into it by accident years ago in the states.’ So even after the job was complete,
Woods was still lying to the press about his credentials.
After he remained in the military, and ended up working on the Eniwetok Atoll in the Pacific,
which was known for its testing of nuclear weapons. The island was used even by German
scientists as part of Operation Paperclip, a secret program to develop different advancements
to support the US military during the Cold War. But it was here where John C Woods was
killed. Allegedly whilst changing a lightbulb, he was electrocuted as he was also stood in
a puddle of water whilst doing it. Interestingly this may have killed him quicker than infact
many of the criminals executed at Nuremberg were.
So John C Woods was a rather divisive figure in History. It’s in no doubt that those
who were executed at Nuremberg were discipicable war criminals who were responsible for the
deaths of millions, however their executions were performed incorrectly in some cases by
Woods. He was a man who ultimately lied to get a job to kill people legally, which turns
up a number of questions about the sort of character he was.
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