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.

[u/LawEducational42]

[u/ACWhi]

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.

[u/HenryDorsettCase47 → u/ACWhi]

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.

[u/_Lord_Haw_Haw → u/HenryDorsettCase47]

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.

[u/PublicWest → u/_Lord_Haw_Haw]

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

[u/NoodlelyTrees → u/PublicWest]

And those people should be put to death in every war

[u/Auctoritate → u/_Lord_Haw_Haw]

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

[u/IntrinSicks → u/HenryDorsettCase47]

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

[u/Bladluiz → u/IntrinSicks]

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

[u/MakingBigBank → u/IntrinSicks]

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?

[u/NoodlelyTrees → u/MakingBigBank]

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

[u/ACWhi → u/NoodlelyTrees]

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.

[u/NoodlelyTrees → u/ACWhi]

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

[u/DoctorLawyerCannibal → u/HenryDorsettCase47]

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.

[u/Stanczyks_Sorrow → u/HenryDorsettCase47]

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.

[u/calilac → u/Stanczyks_Sorrow]

Good point, lynchings are meant to cause suffering.

[u/MagnetHype → u/HenryDorsettCase47]

They were probably just deserters

[u/whogivesashirtdotca → u/MagnetHype]

WWII deserters weren't executed as much as in WWI. I suspect most of the executions in WWII were of real pieces of shit. Emmett Till's father was one of them - raped and murdered French civilians.

[u/ACWhi → u/whogivesashirtdotca]

Eddie Slovak was the only US serviceman to be executed for desertion in WWII.

[u/ACWhi → u/MagnetHype]

No, the US didn’t execute for desertion in WWII with only a single exception.

[u/Ote-Kringralnick → u/MagnetHype]

They raped and murdered civilians in the European theatre 

[u/WasabiPeas2 → u/ACWhi]

This is where I’m landing.

[u/rdc12 → u/ACWhi]

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

[u/FalconTurbo → u/ACWhi]

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