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