Here is a new one for you. What happened in history, yesterday… I know, I know. A day late, and a dollar short. But it was too good not to go back and cover it. Actually, I looked into this specific event months ago and had been waiting for yesterday to write about it. Unfortunately, I spent eight hours traveling yesterday and didn’t get the opportunity to write about it.
Yesterday in history, October 16, 1946, ten Nazi war criminals were hanged as a result of the Nuremberg Trials. While the trials themselves are historically famous, a part of it that is often overlooked are–for lack of a better term–the ‘brutal’ executions that these men faced. There are several that give into conspiracies and believe that the job was purposely botched, there are those that blame it on hurried and shoddy craftsmanship of the noose and the gallows, and of course there believe that the hangings were unfortunate, but accidentally brutal.
John C. Woods Preparing the Gallows
The hangman was John C. Woods, an American Master Sergeant, that over his career, as the hangman for the Third United States Army, would execute three hundred and forty-seven (347) criminals during his fifteen years of service. Woods, with the help of Joseph Malta, a United States Army military policeman who volunteered to help him, hung all ten men on two separate gallows. The gallows and hangman nooses were constructed by Woods, and the executions took place in the prison gymnasium. Unfortunately, there were issues with both the gallows and the nooses.
