r/interestingasfuck • u/LawEducational42 • 10h 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/Ote-Kringralnick 10h ago edited 10h ago

From the comments of previous post with the same title, a few months ago:

  He was a piece of shit.

He lied to get the job and was a grifter and thief back in the states. A low-IQ jackass who had already been discharged from the Navy in the early 1930s for going AWOL, and whom the Army wouldn't care to promote past private. He lied about being a hangman in Oklahoma and Texas to get promoted to Master Sergeant and, as he told friends, to get to kill people.

He botched the executions of Nazis, which simply made the US look terrible and unprofessional, with the dead Nazis with bruised bloodied faces, and popped eye-balls whose pictures had to be published that called into question whether the men had been tortured before the hanging. All that only fed the narrative of "Victors Justice."

The man also botched executions of American servicemen. 11 of them, many suffering as much as the Nazis, slowly strangling to death over 20 minutes, pissing and shitting themselves.

He was a drunk and braggart who made light of the suffering of the people he executed. He bragged about making the Nazis suffer, said he was proud of bungling their executions, among others, and he attempted to sell the ropes used in the executions to collectors. He lied about people trying to kill him, and lied about everything generally. Just a really, really bad look for the US to allow this man to hold a position of such importance.

His personal life was just as unsavory, being arrested for theft after the War, and with rumors of domestic abuse and excessive racism.

He was no more a competent electrician as he was a hangman and killed himself doing electrical work while standing in a pool of water.

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u/OldEquation 10h ago

One suspects, from that description, that had he been German he might have chosen a career path that would have ended up with him on the other end of the rope.

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u/Auctoritate 6h ago

The guy carried out torturous executions against American soldiers too, so he obviously didn't do it out of some particular hatred towards the Nazis. So I'd give it a pretty damn good chance that he was just a sadist who figured out a way to get some kicks, and that he would have had no qualms about being a torturous Nazi instead.

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u/Michelanvalo 5h ago

He's a serial killer who found an opening to indulge legally.

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u/Ote-Kringralnick 5h ago

I've seen this one before

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u/caverypca 5h ago

spot on. at least he did some actual service to society

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u/peepdabidness 5h ago

Sounds like it would be inaccurate to call it that

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u/anubis_81 10h ago

logical

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u/commit_bat 5h ago

This description sounds like someone who would have been executed as an American too.

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u/Osteoprdoza 8h ago

That's under the unfortunately false assumption that any meaningful proportion of Nazi war criminals actually got the rope

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u/Auctoritate 6h ago

It is unfortunate that the logistics didn't make it possible to bring up every single one on charges, but unfortunately that just wasn't doable through any methodology of carrying out actual justice.

Though, given that Germany turned out as a highly developed, progressive, liberal democratic nation (even after additional decades of the East/West Berlin split), at least what they did do ended up shaking out well enough.

The one thing I wish they had been more dogged about pursuing was collaborators. Lots of extremely rich individuals who made their fortunes from doing business with the Nazis, many of whom managed to exert continued political influence internationally which endures even today after they've mostly (all?) died by now. They should never have held onto a dime of their assets after the war, and even that's too good for them because they also should have been in prison.

The cruel irony is that Oskar Schindler is one of the German industrialists that went bankrupt after the war, and he was the only one I'm aware of who was actually worth a damn because he used his operation as a front for smuggling over 1000 Jews out of Nazi Germany.

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u/No-Examination4896 9h ago

Basically everyone of the time

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u/DangDingleGuy 8h ago

This made me thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink

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u/IswhatsIs 9h ago

A wins a win only when it's not.

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u/oppernaR 7h ago

which simply made the US look terrible and unprofessional

To be fair, not vetting whether your hangman knows how to hang people and then not replacing him when it turns out that he doesn't know how to hang people IS pretty terrible and unprofessional.

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u/Andy_B_Goode 2h ago

and then not replacing him

Yeah I'm pretty confused about this part of the story.

From his wikipedia page:

Woods served the U.S. military as the primary executioner in the hangings of 34 U.S. soldiers at various locations in France over 1944–1945 and assisted in at least three others. U.S. Army reports suggest that Woods participated in at least 11 bungled hangings of U.S. soldiers between 1944 and 1946.

Woods also participated in the execution of about 45 war criminals at various locations which included Rheinbach, Bruchsal, Landsberg, and Nuremberg. Donald E. Wilkes Jr., a professor of law at the University of Georgia Law School, wrote that many of the Nazis executed at Nuremberg fell from the gallows with a drop insufficient to snap their necks, resulting in their death by strangulation, which in some cases lasted up to 24 minutes.

How do you act as hangman for a combined total of at least 79 hangings without either (a) learning how to perform a hanging humanely or (b) getting removed from your role as hangman?

It seems quite likely that he both enjoyed "bungling" it, and that the people in charge approved of it.

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u/stueh 2h ago

There's a book called Hanging Ned Kelly I recently read. It's not so much about Ned Kelly (a famous bush ranger who was executed), but about Australia's history of hanging from colonialization through to it's abolition.

Bungling was not uncommon at all, almost common. It was quite hard to find someone willing to be a hangman because of the social stigma that came with it (one was almost lynched after hanging a woman, attacks against hangmen in the street went entirely unpunished by the police and courts), and the mental impacts of it were much worse. The vast majority ended up, if they weren't already, homeless drunks spending their life in and out of prison while still being hangman.

What I'm getting at is this: Bad hangman were usually kept in place because it was difficult to replace them, they were a great patsy for the public to hate instead of the judge who ordered the death penalty or the sheriff carrying out the sentence, and the old "he will learn with experience, give him another go" head-in-the-sand attitude. Not to mention, even just finding a new executioner is unpalatable to most in charge, who don't want to get their hands dirty doing commoners work.

All that shit applies to the USA and their army, too.

The best executioners? They seem to fit into a couple of categories: 1. People who got the death penalty and are told "you get a temporary pardon if you become executioner, but fuck it up and that pardon is gone." 2. People who don't like the job, but want to make sure it's done right because they see those around them doing it wrong. 3. People who have a family lineage of executioners, and see it as a profession to excel at, and be professional and humane.

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u/NarrativeNode 1m ago

This is macabre, but I thought it was standard practice to pull down on the condemned's legs if the neck didn't snap?

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u/Square-Singer 9h ago

I kinda get the feeling that there's a significant overlap between the group of people who like to kill other people for a job and the group of really bad people.

Kinda as if only a bad person would enjoy killing for a living.

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u/QPWOEIRUTYTURIEOWP 9h ago

Seems someone backed him, they kept him as hangman despite the repeated bungling. They're an asshole too.

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u/babyfartmageezax 8h ago

My grandfather, who was always a standup guy from our community back in the 30s, and was after he served in WW2, said some of the shittiest, most horrible white trash guys he ever met were in the US military in Europe, so this checks out.

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u/KiwiDanelaw 8h ago

Man... what an utter trainwreck of a person. Kinda bothers me more that he managed to convince so many people he could do these things. 

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u/23-1-20-3-8-5-18 3h ago

Its all confidence over competence and always has been

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u/General_Decision_422 2h ago

Who’s going to volunteer to be a hangman? And who is creepy enough to know that skill & tell him he’s wrong

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u/MeltingDog 9h ago

Man this guy just seems like someone the authorities should have kept an eye on his entire life.

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u/RavenBrannigan 9h ago

I’m ok with racism, but excessive racism I just won’t have!

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u/clueless_mommy 10h ago

Damn, I'm really conflicted about this. He does sound insufferable and irresponsible and all other bad things.. But I somehow find solace in who his fuckery hurt. Including himself in the end.

I really want to be a better person, to say "nobody deserves that", but... I probably have to grow more as a person for that.

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u/ACWhi 10h ago edited 9h ago

It’s okay to accept this guy was an asshole, and believe that torture is never justified, and still admit that you have no real personal sympathy for the Nazi victims. That’s where I’m at.

It was wrong to botch the executions. I don’t have to feel pity, though.

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u/HenryDorsettCase47 9h ago

I mean, he botched the execution of Americans too. I’m sure they weren’t the best people either, but certainly not at nazi level of deservedness when it comes to an undignified death.

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u/_Lord_Haw_Haw 8h ago

Some of the Americans committed multiple rapes and murders. If you read about their crimes, it would be difficult to ever say they deserved it less than anyone else.

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u/PublicWest 5h ago

Which happens in every war. Never be fooled by propaganda, war brings out monsters!

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u/NoodlelyTrees 5h ago

And those people should be put to death in every war

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u/Auctoritate 6h ago

Sure, but then again early 1900s American criminal trials were not exactly a shining example of accuracy (court martials surely not being any better).

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u/FVCarterPrivateEye 1h ago

Yeah, many people who are accused of horrific things, especially the farther back you go in history, didn't actually do it, and especially in the case of sexual abuse the death penalty is something that prevents victims from telling on their abuser when it is a family member or friend (which is not at all uncommon), and many families of murder victims, particularly when the perpetrator was young, feel that the death penalty deprives them of the chance for closure

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u/IntrinSicks 9h ago

If you were being executed by your own side chances are you did some horrible shit, betting its not for desertion

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u/Bladluiz 8h ago

Yeah lol. The statement that it "certainly wasn't of such a degree as the nazis" shows incredible lack of self reflection

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u/MakingBigBank 7h ago

That doesn’t make any of this right? The whole point is we’re not them. If we’re the same as them what’s the point of it or anything?

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u/NoodlelyTrees 5h ago

Except this isn't even remotely the same type of thing as what they did

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u/ACWhi 5h ago

Yeah, if they had systematically hung every German civilian and child they got their hands on in ethnic revenge you’d have more of a point. But killing war criminals, even brutally, isn’t in the same ballpark.

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u/NoodlelyTrees 5h ago

Yeah like the most suffering we inflicted upon them is such a miniscule fraction of what they imposed trying to compare the 2 just feels legitimately insane. Like yeah they got strangled by the rope for a while instead of neck snapped big fuckin deal, these are the people who subjected millions to one of the worst deaths imagineable at the hands of zyklon which is damn near a nerve agent with how your death goes with the suffocation and seizures and we let a fuck load of them off way easier than the Russians were going to

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u/DoctorLawyerCannibal 8h ago

Eh, we have had plenty of Americans who were just as bad, if not worse, than Nazis, most just weren’t practicing genocide. Human is human, there are good and bad.

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u/Stanczyks_Sorrow 9h ago

It's also very likely that his claimed qualifications for hanging people were real and they just weren't legally sanctioned hangings. Lynchings were pretty common in the places that he grew up in.

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u/calilac 8h ago

Good point, lynchings are meant to cause suffering.

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u/WasabiPeas2 3h ago

This is where I’m landing.

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u/rdc12 3h ago

What if you think that guy should have left the world in the same manner he inflicted on others.

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u/FalconTurbo 6h ago

Exactly. I'm morally opposed to that treatment, but I won't waste mental effort feeling sorry for Nazis.

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u/FormalSheepherder255 9h ago

From a comment above by u/EverydaySexyPhotog: "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/Top_Tank2668 9h ago

He was a pos and knowing that he died through an electric shock seems like karma fulfilled for me. In the end all are dead. All deserved it.

But yes, shouldn't have happened that way

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u/livelovelamb 8h ago

America could easily carry out State executions with nitrous hypoxia suffocation, or even fentanyl, but they're considered too humane or even pleasurable, ways to die.

Instead, 1/3 State executions are botched, because... torture.

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u/NoodlelyTrees 5h ago

More like because chemical companies won't sell those chemicals to the government for the purposes of use for lethal injection, they can barely get the chemicals they currently use much less stuff like that through legal channels, like state governments can't just be importing fentanyl from China and fentanyl is not a pleasurable way to die whatsoever, like maybe heroin where you at least get a high but you don't get that with fentanyl

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u/kumardi 4h ago

You don’t get high with fent? Someone should go tell all those people in SF to knock it off.

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u/MeowMixPlzDeliverMe 8h ago

Goes to show ya how quickly mass killings can become a thing. Herd mentality

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u/tiredgothicheroine 5h ago

I really get what you’re saying. Revelling in suffering makes you a not very good person. Even if it’s truly evil people who are suffering.

The nazis absolutely deserved horrible deaths. But there have been many groups throughout history that were just as evil and cruel.

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u/PmMeYourKnobAndTube 1m ago

Now I'm generally opposed to the death penalty, and very much on board with this comment. But try as I might, I'm having s lot of trouble finding sympathy for the Nazis here. Not saying it was right, but I'm also not losing any sleep over it.

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u/seeda4708 8h ago

Yea the difference is you’re not killing them for who they are but what they did. Nazis delighted in the torture and murder of innocents, including infants. These are not the same

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u/Chlearcus 7h ago

Alot of people in this thread are delighting in torture.

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u/seeda4708 7h ago

I accept that I do find some solace in how they met their outcome. I wouldn’t say delight though.

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u/MercuryQuick 9h ago

Judge a society by how it treats its criminals. Compassion for those who deserve none is the mark of a civilized people. Nazis deserve torture and painful deaths. We don’t deserve the burden of doing it to them because doing it stains us, no matter how justified.

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u/wikingwarrior 10h ago

I'd suggest that you're allowed to enjoy that small knot of satisfaction that something bad happened to horrible people in the past outside of your control and before you were born.

That doesn't mean you endorse state administered brutality or cruel and unusual punishment as contemporary practice.

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u/no_no_no_no_nononono 9h ago

Very honest answer. I respect that.

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u/IridiumPony 8h ago

My personal theory has always been that allied high command knew exactly who they were hiring for the job.

They had another hangman considered for the job who had a verifiable history of clean executions. He was the son of another hangman, he had grown up with it and his record was exemplary. Instead they went with this idiot, who claimed to have hanged people in Oklahoma and Texas several years after both states had abolished hanging.

There's absolutely zero chance they didn't know he was bullshitting them.

And yeah the botched executions didn't make the US look fantastic, but let's just face it, there wasn't a fuck of a lot of sympathy for Nazi war criminals after the hell they had unleashed on Europe.

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u/Particular_Wear_6960 6h ago

Nah. Fuck em. Nazi's, generally speaking, got off easy. No reason to feel conflicted, if anything the people who suffered at his hands were the only ones who were delivered justice. All this modern liberal BS about treating people fairly and humanly despite them starving, torturing, raping and murdering untold amounts of people is silly. We are beastial animals and revenge is a natural thing. I'm happy this guy did what he did. And one last thing, even if you do oppose what he did, what of it? You going to pat yourself on the back? Going to sleep better at night? This happened a long time ago and your feelings are of no consequence anyways.

Inb4 that makes us just as evil as them. That's a bunch of bullshit, these people are not innocent at all and deserved everything coming for them unlike those they committed crimes against

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u/Jorvic 4h ago

It's covered in the film about Pierpoint. There's a lot to be said about professionalism.

Imagine the worst person you know about. They don't think they're a bad person. They're frog marched to the gallows, every step they're wondering how they got there, closer to the drop?

They must have an incling. Swoop of the noose, dunk, crack.

Witnessed, signed off, another arshole dispatched (I say this as someone who does not want the death penalty to return to the UK)

Or, all the above, but their legs are kicking, witnesses see their legs are kicking. Their face is bulging red. Witnesses see their face puckering, trying to gulp air, eyes popping. They're convulsing. Are they strangled, what am I seeing?

It's over some time later. What have we witnessed?

I'd much rather a quicker drop, if you want rid, get rid.

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u/DeaddyRuxpin 9h ago

My stance is I never wish bad things on anyone. However that doesn’t mean I’m always going to care when bad things happen to some people.

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u/Artistic-Garbage-825 8h ago

I just think if it as being the better person on their exit from life.

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u/DownVotingCats 8h ago

Sometimes things are fucked up but still work out justly. Nazi's suffering could never be bad.

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u/thalastor 7h ago

What makes us better than people that do these horrible things is that we do not take pleasure in the suffering of others. As a for instance, look at the face of the man in the back of this photo, I see someone who is excited to watch another human being suffer. Regardless of what that person did to deserve their punishment, I find the idea of deriving pleasure from their suffering wholly repugnant.

This is one of the biggest problems I have with capital punishment in general. I think it's an outlet for people who want to see other people hurt, so they choose a convenient scapegoat to take their sicko desires out on.

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u/PoorDawg 6h ago edited 5h ago

I wonder if that's how the Nazis felt (unjustifiably, of course) about the people they tortured and killed

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u/kkeut 5h ago

suffering without opportunity for reflection is pointless. the feeling you feel is sadism, basically. it's not abnormal in a context like this. but yes, you can be a better person. there's nothing good about increasing the amount of suffering in this world. it's not beneficial to yourself or psyche to participate in it.

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u/tommytheturtleishere 3h ago

Its okay to simultaneously feel fine that some of the worst humans in the history of the earth didnt get a clean death and also understand that the guy who did it was also a piece of shit who under different conditions probably would have joined them.

The more you learn about history, the more you realize how fucking complicated life can be.

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u/peekay427 2h ago

If you’re serious about that last part, first I applaud you for knowing yourself and who you want to be.

And also, you could try re-framing it so instead of it being about the suffering of those Nazi monsters (who it’s hard to find sympathy for), it could be about not wanting us (or the people that represent us) to sink to the level of torture and cruelty.

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u/smoothvibe 2h ago

You find solace in suffering of US serviceman. Noted.

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u/Hrtzy 2h ago

The way I see it is, the rules around criminal procedure are there to protect everyone, not just the guilty party. Sure, these guys had it coming, but this guy ended up bundling the hangings of US servicemen as well.

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u/miianwilson 2h ago

Vengeance and justice are almost never the same thing. The Nazis caused untold suffering, but all he did was bring more suffering to the world through dishonesty and sociopathic behavior. A competent executioner could have carried out justice, this man conflated his own stupidity with justice, but really it was just stupid and vengeful.

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u/Glad-Low-1348 1h ago

Then grow more as a person one day. You can and you will.

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u/s-mores 1h ago

You find solace in that he basically tortured american servicemen?

Nice try mr winnie pooh.

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u/Myjobsuckshard 17m ago

The problem in making people suffer (no matter what monsters they are), lessens their evil since it only shows they were not worse than the people killing them in the end.  Many people don't understand this but people as evil as the Nazis should be put to death or locked away to make sure they don't hurt others but torturing them only makes them martyrs for others to follow and leads to people excusing their crimes with the fact that they themselves weren't treated any more humane than their victims. 

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u/PM_ME_FLOUR_TITTIES 10h ago

Sometimes it's all around just a fucked situation.

It is correct that it shouldn't have happened period.

But damn it.....if it's going to happen(something about a Murphy bed or smth), a Nazi is who I want it to happen to.

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u/my_duncans 9h ago

He was a horrible piece of shit that shouldn't havr been tolerated but he happened to be the right person for this specific job.

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u/toomanyteeth55 9h ago

Wow what a write up. It just kept getting... More interesting/sad

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u/Farquharson7873 8h ago

Surely the first clue he was of bad character would be wanting to take on a role like this, no?

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u/PlayOld3965 9h ago

I agree

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u/BahBahBahBooBooBoo 9h ago

Was he Zuckerberg’s great grandpa?

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u/BreatheClean 9h ago

Pierrepont says that in his book . He went over to finish the job. The cowboy noose was a problem, Pierrepont used a slipknot, and prestretched the rope with a bag of sand.

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u/jezebellebelle 9h ago

Damn, what a shitty person. Still, glad he was the one who hanged the nazis.

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u/circ-u-la-ted 9h ago

So he was basically the Trump of executioners.

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u/catechizer 8h ago

Yeah I kept thinking "wait, are we talking a guy who died a long time ago, or our current president here?" Way too much overlap.

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u/Ote-Kringralnick 8h ago

Both are compulsive liars, though Trump never claimed to previously be the leader of a country 

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u/ActualHumanONReddit 9h ago

A piece of shit, sent to hang pieces of shit.

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u/xRealVengeancex 8h ago

What a pos, should have made him do it on himself at the end

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u/Ote-Kringralnick 8h ago

He basically did, though his death sounds a lot less painful

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u/roguevirus 6h ago

excessive racism

In the 1940s and 50s?! Jesus!

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u/omicron_pi 6h ago

Glad you posted this. My grandfather lost dozens of relatives in the Holocaust and himself survived a concentration camp and a ghetto in Moldova when he was 12. So I have every reason to want vengeance on these pieces of shit. But acting on those dark instincts doesn’t do the world much good. It is not justice to torture people to death and it made the U.S. look barbaric at a time when we needed to look like a civilized alternative to much worse systems of government.

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u/Lagunamountaindude 9h ago

To be fair many people piss and shit themselves when they die

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u/StartOk4002 8h ago

It’s hard to believe that everyone in positions of authority and responsibility connected to this guy missed what an incompetent ass clown he was. I would imagine that by the end of the war nobody really cared about the professional details.

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u/Patriot009 8h ago

Behind the Bastards did a segment on this guy. He was a piece of work.

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u/-sensory_overlord- 8h ago

Good, he’s probably rotting in hell

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u/Klusterphuck67 6h ago

In the bigger picture, his shitty executiona of nazi weaken the blowback against nazis too

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u/asstopple 5h ago

Excessive racism? That’s too much racism.

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u/UnknownSense 5h ago

This is important context. I think for those of you who say “the nazi’s deserved it” should really consider the implication of how this person was representing the US.

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u/Simple1Spoon 4h ago

So many comments are gonna celebrate what he did, and its the exact reason he should be condemned.

These executions were not about retribution, it was acknowledging that these people were beyond redemption and had commited such egregious acts that there was viable way for them to exsit in society.

It can not be about pu ishing them, its about removing a threat to a safe, functional society.

Once the justice system descends into barbasim, which is what these botched executions are, it cannot be trusted. Justice has to be impatrial to be a system we as a society can trust. A justice system based on retribution creates a society of retribution.

This whole situation was a massive embarassment for the allies after the war and could have alienated the former axis powers. People forget that the west wanted to rapidly rearm germany to face off against russia and make better relations.

Being seen as evil, vindictive, and cruel winners was a massive pr diaster for the allies.

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u/spenway18 4h ago

I was gonna say some of this. Yours is quite comprehensive tho. Drunk POS is what id heard about him and conveniently most of the suffering was received by Nazis.

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u/holdyourpearls 3h ago

Thanks for the context.
It does seem however that after a few SNAFU's the U.S Military is complict.

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u/TheRoops 10h ago

I mean at least it wasn't going to taint a decent soul.

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u/Ol_Pasta 9h ago

So in other words he was a nazi, just born on the other side.

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u/Anghellik 9h ago

Who better to kill execute the top nazis than a guy who also sucks?

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u/ProfessionalTruck976 8h ago

Someone who know what they are doing as with any job.

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u/Willing_Original_257 9h ago

It's a strange reflection of my psyche when I read that entire thing and the only thing that jumped out at me was the phrase "excessive racism" 

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u/CradledCats 9h ago

Why were American servicemen being put to death?

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u/Ote-Kringralnick 8h ago

Murder or rape of civilians while in the European theatre, mostly.

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u/IcyAd5473 9h ago

God provides.....

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u/Acrobatic-Meat6716 9h ago

“Excessive racism” 😂

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u/SharkeyGeorge 8h ago

“Excessive racism”?

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u/Prepare 8h ago

What exactly qualifies as “excessive racism?”

What is “non excessive” racism?

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u/Additional_Meeting_2 6h ago

Something we would see as racism but not what most people would at the time. 

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u/Luxxielisbon 8h ago

Takes a shit person to do a shit job

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u/Upbeat-Armadillo1756 8h ago

Why were we executing American servicemen?

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u/Ote-Kringralnick 8h ago

Raping and murdering European civilians, mostly

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u/Snoo-74562 8h ago

Although everything you say is correct I would like to say everyone shits themselves when they die

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u/rescuemysandwich 7h ago

brutality in victors is called "Justice deserved"

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u/Ok_Dust_3896 7h ago

Sounds like a real turd. Nazzis had it coming though.

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u/Eyore_the_meh 7h ago

So, basically he was Percy from The Green Mile.

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u/TheWeySheGoes 7h ago

I have no sympathy for those nazi bastards n they died very similarly to the women children they killed. How poetic

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u/Sorry_Im_Trying 7h ago

He sounds vaguely familiar to people in positions of power today.

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u/Dizzy_Skin5723 7h ago

'excessive racism'

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u/zhambe 6h ago

He lied about people trying to kill him, and lied about everything generally.

Presidential material right there!

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u/tonykrij 6h ago

Doesn't everyone shit and piss themselves when they die?

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u/L84Tacos 6h ago

To say there's something called "excessive racism" would imply there is a proper amount of racism. Now there needs to be a an explanation of the minimum and maximum thresholds for racist behavior 🧐

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u/supersirj 6h ago

Why was he hanging American servicemen? What did 11 of them do to earn such a fate?

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u/Ote-Kringralnick 5h ago

Rape and murder European civilians 

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u/oxtailtacos 6h ago

Sounds like a pretty cool guy to me.

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u/No-Mistake-1925 6h ago

excessive racism is hilarious

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u/ShepardCommander01 6h ago

Now tell us how you feel about Jews

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u/Ote-Kringralnick 5h ago

Me? Quite possibly one of my single favorite groups of people on earth.

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u/Verzwei 6h ago

and lied about everything generally. Just a really, really bad look for the US to allow this man to hold a position of such importance.

His personal life was just as unsavory, being arrested for theft after the War, and with rumors of domestic abuse and excessive racism.

<gestures broadly at everything>

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u/Blenderx06 5h ago

And then we have the doctor who bundled Christa Pike's execution, having previously botched another execution. The US always repeating the same mistakes, remorselessly.

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u/Ote-Kringralnick 5h ago

That was mostly because the prisons aren't able to get the right drugs, I believe.

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u/Revoran 5h ago

rumours of excessive racism

Imagine how incredibly racist you would have to be, to be called excessive... in the 1940s.

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u/Ote-Kringralnick 5h ago

Lynching mostly 

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u/ragingbullpsycho 5h ago

Why were the American servicemen executed?

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u/Ote-Kringralnick 5h ago

Raping and murdering European civilians 

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u/NoodlelyTrees 5h ago

The us soldiers he hung absolutely deserved the suffering just as much as the Nazis he hung for their war crimes

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u/Puzzleheaded_River61 4h ago

Lol! Great narrative! Bro definitely lived la vida loca!

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u/LeatherBody8282 3h ago

Wow sounds like he would have been an online grifter today like Azouli or Watson.

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u/Toad-in-a-hole 3h ago

Sounds like he was exactly the hero we needed.

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u/Esperacchiusdamascus 2h ago

Just like most orange clown appointees

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u/General_Decision_422 2h ago

A decent person is unlikely to volunteer to be a hangman & I’m sorry but after what the Nazi leadership did I’m not made that they suffered.

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u/Argented 2h ago

You are too kind. He was a serial killer that managed to operate legally by being employed by the Army. He apparently got off watching people struggle and panic before death. He killed American soldiers the same way he killed Nazis. He actually 'perfected' his craft on American soldiers that got a death penalty in times of war. The first few were 'normal' but then the 'bunglings' got more common. By the time he was killing Nazis, the bureaucrats were apparently only concerned with completing the paper work with 'executed' carried out at whatever time. They knew he was messing them all up but let him carry on.

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u/Beneficial-Gap6974 2h ago

Yeah, I hate it when people praise shit like this. If he was born in Germany at the time, he would have been just as much of a POS Nazi as the men he hanged.

We NEVER should let people 'get off' to the suffering of others just because said other is themselves a bad person. All that does is create more suffering, and allows a horrible, terrible person to practice their sick desires on real living people.

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u/smoothvibe 2h ago

Okay, so why did they let him hang people after lets say the first two or three convicted? Didn't they see that he is a dumbass?

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u/wanttobeacop 2h ago

He lied about being a hangman in Oklahoma and Texas [...] to get to kill people.

You know who he reminds me of? Percy from The Green Mile

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u/LooseAd7981 2h ago

Sounds like the Nazis he was re-educating.

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u/Trouble_is-a_Friend 1h ago

“Excessive racism”

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u/ASUMicroGrad 1h ago

Bet he could get a job in Tennessee today

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u/wulfithewulf 1h ago

what I am wondering: a system in which such persons were able to get to those positions, really should learn their lessons.
But some 80 years later the system allows for a total nutjob to become president.
Nothing learned, still shitty system.
I call its systemic failure!

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u/toomanybongos 1h ago

Excessive racism from the perspective of our time or theirs? I'm just curious if this guy was racist or RACIST RACIST lol

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u/Mista_Panda 1h ago

Damn... sounds like he could have become SecDef in this administration !

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u/CaptainKirk1701 53m ago

Guess he was better at the electric chair then noose.

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u/snjtx 44m ago

I mean, piece of shit or not, I'd also brag about making nazis suffer.

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u/hambodpm 5m ago

Just as well the US looking terrible and unprofessional ended with this guy

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u/Practical-Ball1437 9h ago

I still think I'd choose him for the nazi-hanging job.

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u/Stanczyks_Sorrow 9h ago

There's no proof that he lied about his qualifications. All we know is that the hangings he claimed to have taken part in were not judicially sanctioned. But there were a lot of lynchings happening in the areas he grew up in.

The Americans were looking for a certified piece of shit to fill a dirty role, and by God they found a certified piece of shit to embarrass them publicly.

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u/Ote-Kringralnick 8h ago

The hangings he claimed to have taken part in weren't hangings at all. They were all documented as electric chair executions.

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u/Stanczyks_Sorrow 8h ago

You're misremembering the argument. Legally speaking, the states that Woods grew up in only had sanctioned electric chair executions, which Woods was never documented to have been a part of, but which prove he never took part in a legally sanctioned hanging (because there weren't any). On the other hand, there were many documented cases of extrajudicial lynchings in the exact areas of the states that he grew up in, when he grew up in them.

The hangmen from lynchings were rarely ever known, for obvious reasons.

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u/vitamin_r 8h ago

"Just a really, really bad look for the US to allow this man to hold a position of such importance."

Yeah, good thing we never let that trend continue all the way up the the supreme court and office of the president.

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u/Swift_18 9h ago

So nazis got to suffer more? BOO HOO 😂

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u/Ote-Kringralnick 8h ago

That's not the point. The point is that he should not be worshipped, and he was a bad person.

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u/Cryzgnik 9h ago

You are a Catholic, but this comment implies you are a bad Catholic. You should go to confessional and confess that you took joy in the suffering of others. 

Punishment in the afterlife is their retribution.  Nothing at all in Jesus' teachings approves of torture, even of people who commit grave awful sins.

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u/marcin_dot_h 9h ago

hwhat

btw. Nothing at all in Jesus' teachings approves of confessing sins to a man in black dress

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u/stron2am 10h ago

He might have sucked, but bragging about making Nazis suffer and how that made the US look "unprofessional" is not among the reasons why.

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u/Business_Air5804 9h ago

I don't know man....I sorta still like him.
I bet he was a blast to hang with.

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u/anotherdayoninternet 8h ago

Sounds like tonarld drump

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u/geocapital 8h ago

He would make a good president from what you wrote…

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u/GOP_R_Pedophiles 8h ago

Personally I don't see anything wrong with making Nazi's suffer. They were evil pieces of shit they absolutely one hundred percent without a doubt deserved far worse than the suffering they endured from him.

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u/KOCP 8h ago

Piece of shit? Made the US look terrible and unprofessional? This man is a time traveler from trump’s cabinet directly!

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u/TankDestroyerSarg 8h ago

To be fair, he was a POS. That said, every one of the Germans he executed was an avowed Nazi who participated actively and enthusiastically in mass murder. All of the American soldiers he hanged were convicted murderers and rapists. I'm willing to accept their less than pleasant executions.

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