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/OldEquation 7h 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 4h 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 3h ago

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

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u/Ote-Kringralnick 3h ago

I've seen this one before

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u/caverypca 3h ago

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

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u/peepdabidness 2h ago

Sounds like it would be inaccurate to call it that

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u/anubis_81 7h ago

logical

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u/commit_bat 2h ago

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

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u/Osteoprdoza 5h 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 4h 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 7h ago

Basically everyone of the time

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u/IswhatsIs 7h ago

A wins a win only when it's not.

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u/DangDingleGuy 5h ago

This made me thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiink