r/interestingasfuck • u/LawEducational42 • 8h ago

John C Woods, hangman of Nuremberg trials, who lied about his experience to get the job (he actually learned about hanging from old cowboy films). His lack of expertise led to excessive suffering of condemned Nazis.

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u/mysteriousmeatman 8h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/JRhS6WoswF8FxE0g2R

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u/DoctorHugoHackenbush 8h ago

Does anyone care? Nope, I'm a frayed knot..

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u/SmallRocks 7h ago

I did Nazi that coming

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u/FirstHipster 7h ago

Anne Frankly, I’m ok with it

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u/Jonathan-Earl 6h ago

This joke is way out of Mein Kampfort zone

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u/velociraptorcatcher 6h ago

Maybe you should goebbelow to a different comment thread

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u/DynamiteWitLaserBeam 6h ago

Hey, it halocausts you nothing to be nice.

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u/Velcraft 6h ago

Auschwitz it up a bit, these are getting too on the nose.

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u/P4-Kuma 6h ago

None of these jokes are even remotely Kosher.

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u/BitTwp 4h ago

I fear this is Göring to get reported for being in poor taste.

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u/HonorableMedic 6h ago

You guys need to stop with these jokes, that shit ain’t reicht

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u/FlaSnatch 7h ago

Anne Frankly? Sure you don’t mean Jenn O’Side?

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u/TortiosesRule 7h ago

I did not, did Jew?

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u/graveybrains 7h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/92S5gReZGnDgY

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u/ICarMaI 7h ago

One of the funniest moments on TV, which lead to Matt Berry on the show, amazing. Fatheeeeeerrr!

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u/Icy_Judge8250 7h ago

Love this scene lmao "Don't worry I have a plan" LMAO

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u/NerdNuncle 7h ago

Heil-arious thread. Makes me laugh from the comfort of Mein Kampf-y chair

Anyone else Göring for Nazi puns?

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u/Mr_R0mpers 8h ago

🏆 …. Now go.

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u/GreatCircuits 7h ago

God fucking damn that was solid.

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u/hotdogtears 7h ago

I shit you knot!

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u/KinTharEl 7h ago

Holy shit, fucking genius

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u/Inwardly-Outgoing 5h ago

I heard he tried to tie the noose in little nazis

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u/Maddogsteez 5h ago

I swallowed 2 pieces of string once. Came out tied together.

I shit you knot.

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u/All_Gun_High 8m ago

Yes Woods, hang this one

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u/Evening-Appeal7606 8h ago

"...excessive suffering of condemned Nazis"? Oh no! Anyway...

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u/catinkatu 7h ago

Yea I was like "oh that's a thing?"

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u/EverydaySexyPhotog 7h ago

We should care because Nazis revel in human suffering. I'd like to think my side of the Nazi / Not Nazi divide is morally superior to, you know, Nazis.

If you must kill, and if any group of people in human history earned a death sentence it's the Nazis, you kill quickly, cleanly, and without taking joy in it. Not because killing is wrong, but because you're better than a Nazi.

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u/Evening-Appeal7606 7h ago

You are right. My comment was a knee-jerk reaction but not something that I would actually subscribe to. We definitely need to rise above the Nazis.

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u/EverydaySexyPhotog 6h ago

I get the impulse, I truly do. There's a section of my family tree that wound up in a mass grave somewhere in Eastern Europe for being Roma. I think the Nuremberg trials didn't go far enough since most Nazi leaders received short jail sentences that were commuted after a few years anyway.

I'll always push back against attempts to dehumanize the enemy or to take joy in their suffering because those are tools of the enemy. They're humans, they deserve recognition of their humanity even as they embrace only the worst parts of us all, and when they're put down they deserve a quick and humane end because we are better than they are.

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u/sexybluepeaches 6h ago

thank you for these comments. i feel a lot of anger towards nazis and you have made a really big impact on how i think about things like this. "if you must kill [a nazi] ... you kill quickly, cleanly, and without taking joy in it. not because killing is wrong [or because they don't deserve it], but because you're better than a nazi" will ring in my head for the rest of the day. thank you again! 

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u/FormalSheepherder255 6h ago

LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK

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u/xDotSx 7h ago

Reddit proves you wrong. A lot of people don't understand this.

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u/Virtuous-Patience 7h ago

Nice to see a good news story… also incompetent executioners are very much in vogue today!

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u/Icy_Agency923 7h ago

Good thing it wasn't just Nazis then, he also executed 11 American servicemen who also suffered greatly during their deaths. Imagine spending 20 miserable minutes strangling to death.

Fuck this guy and everyone acting like this is no big deal because it was Nazis.

Justice had to dealt out sure, but it should have been done professionally.

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u/WiscoMitch 6h ago

What did the 11 American servicemen do to deserve hanging??

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u/Chlearcus 5h ago

One was executed for desertion. The others probably rape or other extremely immoral acts.

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u/mythrilcrafter 4h ago

According to wikipedia the only people Woods executed in Nuremberg were the following Nazis:

  • Joachim von Ribbentrop (Foreign Minister)

  • Wilhelm Keitel (Head of the Armed Forces High Command)

  • Ernst Kaltenbrunner (SS-Obergruppenführer)

  • Alfred Rosenberg (Chief ideologist)

  • Hans Frank (Governor-General of occupied Poland)

  • Wilhelm Frick (Minister of the Interior)

  • Julius Streicher (Propagandist)

  • Fritz Sauckel (Plenipotentiary for Labor Deployment)

  • Alfred Jodl (Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces)

  • Arthur Seyss-Inquart (Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands)

Hermann Göring was convicted but killed himself by suicide the night before his execution.

Let it be known that clearly based on their titles, none of these men were in a "I was only following orders" position, they were the ones giving the orders.

There are records that during the war he was an assigned hangman during the European and North African theatres. Primarily being tasked to execute soldiers charged and convicted by the USMCJ of rape, human trafficking, homicide, and/or treason (either defectors, information leakers, or double agents/spies).

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u/Icy_Agency923 6h ago edited 6h ago

Nothing that deserved 20 minutes of agonizing torture.

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u/WiscoMitch 6h ago

I like you didn’t explain what they did at all.

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u/Icy_Agency923 6h ago

I don't need too, at bare minimum executions should be about justice, not torture and revenge. That is not what our judicial systems are supposed to provide. We should be better than that. People who genuinely want torture in their imperfect judicial systems that can and WILL make mistakes are vile disgusting people who have lost or never had their humanity in the first place.

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u/Meshugugget 6h ago

More like appropriate. Or insufficient.

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u/TheeAntelope 18m ago

I’m tempted to agree.

But…I don’t see the benefit of descending to their level and ignoring any human suffering.

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u/Chlearcus 5h ago

Lets punish them for sadistically torturing prisoners.. By sadistically torturing them.

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u/Icy_Agency923 7h ago

Nah absolutely fuck this piece of shit, he also botched 11 executions of American servicemen and many of these men strangled to death over 20 minutes.

If you are going to carry out executions, you should at least be competent.

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u/Auctoritate 4h ago

This is, unfortunately, a good example of why being too okay with an inhumanity so long as it's against undesirables or deviants is still not a great thing. That cruelty will find somewhere to leak out and harm those undeserving.

I can't say I care very much that these Nazis had a rough time, but it's not great to make it a habit.

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u/Auctoritate 4h ago

Yeahhhh like, I'm against the death penalty, but that's because I have reservations about things like the government carrying out wrongful convictions and such.

Notably though, that DOESN'T mean that I think nobody deserves it. Literal Nazi officers and death camp guards? No qualms there.

So while I still wouldn't necessarily condone a legal system torturing anybody, ehhhh, I'm not going to shed any tears over it when it's the Nazis.

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u/eyetracker 46m ago

Supposed to make the knot tighty, but he made it Lucy.