The Shocking Death Of The Nuremberg Executioner John C Woods

on the 16th of October 1946 inside of the gymnasium of nurenberg prison the most high-profile Nazi war criminals and surviving members of Hitler's government made their way to The Gallows for their executions they had their identities confirmed before they were led up the steps of the execution structure where the American executioner was there waiting for them this man who was tasked with hanging men such as jurkin Von ribbon trop vilhelm kital and Alfred yodo has gone down in history in infamy for the way he performed the job despite the results being the executions and deaths of the nurur confirmed John C Woods made a mess of the proceedings he miscalculated most of the drops leading to some of the condemned taking up to 28 long agonizing minutes to die and during one of the executions it was claimed that Woods even went behind the curtain and pulled down on one of the bodies strangling and finishing off The Condemned but the nurenberg Executioner had a dark history and he was someone who lied to be able to take the lives of people through legal means but his own death was rather strange and quite literally shocking welcome to the untold past join us today as we look at the death of the botching nurenberg Executioner and as always to support our Channel please make sure to subscribe John Clarence Woods was born on the 5th of June 1911 in Kansas and he was raised by his grandmother following his parents divorce he went to high school but dropped out and then at the age of 18 he joined the US Navy but it was clear that he was struggling inside the armed forces and after a number of months Woods went awall and he was then subject to a general court marshall and during this he was evaluated by a psychologist and he described the personality of John C woods and what he found was that Woods suffered from what was referred to as Psychopathic inferiority without psychosis the evaluation claimed that 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 tumor of the soft pallet for which he refuses operation his commanding officer and division officer state that he shows inaptitude and does not respond to instruction he is obviously poor service material this man has had less than 5 months service his disability is considered to be an inherent defect for which the service is in no way responsible he is not considered a menace to himself or others it was found that Woods was not capable of following orders well and he was then discharged from the Navy he returned to Kansas and took a number of different jobs before he returned to the military during the second world war he then enlisted in the the US Army in 1943 and was assigned to Company B of the 37th engineer combat Battalion the fifth engineer special Brigade It is believed that he had some experience on the battlefield that he did participate in the Normandy Landings and he landed specifically on Omaha Beach but it was claimed 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 however before D-Day the executions of American soldiers and military personnel were actually performed in England and someone who committed a crime such as murder would be sent back to England to be executed in a prison but the US Army then began to search in 1944 for someone inside of the army to execute and to condemn American soldiers John C Woods applied for this job and he lied to get the position and he was someone who happily lied about his credentials and PED in order to be able to legally execute he may have done this out of desperation to get off the front lines too Woods claimed he had hanged men inside two different states Texas and Oklahoma but there's no evidence that shows the army checked these claims but the simple check would have shown that Woods was lying Texas and Oklahoma both at the time did not execute people by hangings and the final one in Oklahoma using a Gallows took place 3 months before Woods was even born the last hanging in Texas also took place when Woods was just 12 years old he had no experience at all and this was later told he performed at least 24 hangings of American soldiers in France in 1944 and 1945 and he then helped in other executions but many of these at least 11 which were performed by Woods were said to have been botched and they were performed in a poor way following the end of the war in Europe Woods then became the hanging man for the American Army inside of occupied Germany and he was involved in executing condemned Nazi war criminals he first carried out an execution in Germany on the 29th of June 1945 and he hanged three Germans for carrying out the murder of a US serviceman then months later he executed five Germans who had killed a number of Allied Airmen John C Woods continued to hang Germans including 14 men who had been convicted of crimes against humanity inside of daal concentration camp but then he had his most famous job of all executing the Nazis of the nurburg trials the nurburg trials saw a number of members of Hitler's government and the Nazi party's hierarchy on trial for their Crimes of the second world war and before they were accused of charges such as crimes against humanity and there were 24 men who were to be tried but 11 men were given a death sentence Woods would only perform 10 executions as Herman guring the head of the lwaa cheated the hangman hours before his execution as he died by his own hand consuming cide in the early morning of the 16th of October 1946 Woods conducted the death sentences of the 10 men of the nurbo trials and he used a standard drop method for the executions that were performed by Woods were carried out poorly and many did not go well a number of the witnesses claimed they saw a number of Nazis succumb to rather slow death some claimed that their necks were not snapped as they went through the trap door vilhelm kitle the chief of the obber Commando the verm took 28 minutes to die after he went through the Gallows and he slowly strangled to death behind the curtain the drop was not sufficient enough to have snapped his neck and there was not enough room for the men to fall through the drop a number also had their nooses not tied correctly and some even bashed their heads on the edge of the trapo as they went through this and this left them being bloodied and the trap door even swung back open and hit some of them on the head but one of the most shocking accusations of wood's Behavior was linked to the execution of ulius Striker the brutal and ruthless editor of d sturmer a Nazi newspaper of Striker's execution it was claimed by an eyewitness that when the Rope snapped Tau with the body swinging wildly groans could be heard from within the concealed interior of the scaffold finally the hang Man woods who had descended from The Gallows platform lifted the black canvas curtain and went inside something happened that put a stopped 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 assumed that he grabbed the swinging body and pulled down on it so John C Woods disappeared behind the curtain and literally pulled down on Striker's body and strangled the life literally out of him he performed the nurenberg executions in less than 2 hours and he claimed about this 10 men in 103 minutes that's fast work and he commended himself for this after the executions he did draw criticism but responded with I hang those 10 Nazis and I am proud of it I wasn't nervous a fellow can't afford to have nerves in this business and I want to put a good word for those GIS who helped me they did swell I'm trying to get them a promotion the way I look at this hanging job is that someone has to do it I got into it by accident years ago in the States but he remained inside the Army and John seawoods would never really make it back home to America he was sent across to the Pacific and specifically he worked on the any attack at all this was part of the Pacific which became known for its testing of nuclear weapons the Island was used by German scientists as part of Operation Paperclip a secret program which developed different advancements for the American Military during the Cold War but whilst Woods was here presumably working as an electrician or an engineer he was killed but he died in a rather in uous way the man who had conducted the nurenberg executions with such botching Woods was changing a light bulb but whilst he was doing this he did not realize he was actually stood in a puddle of water and he was electrocuted and killed the irony of John Woods's death was that he was probably killed a lot quicker than those men who he hanged during the Nur executions and he was then repatriated back to America and was buried in Toronto Township Cemetery in Toronto Kansas there were some rumors that his death may have even been caused by German scientists in Revenge who had him murdered and then made it look like an accident however John C Woods is remembered today for being the man who performed the nurburg executions rather poorly he claimed that he did the job but he did not go about it in the way which was intended he was someone who was more than happy to lie about his credentials to become an executioner for the Army and he was someone who was previously said to be suffering with a condition that made him defiant to Authority but in the Pacific on the 21st of July 1950 he was killed by electrocution doing a rather innocuous task of Simply changing a light bulb thanks for watching to support our Channel please make sure to subscribe and once again thank you so much for watching

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Id: edOvEp5qIbM

Length: 10min 33sec (633 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2024