"Sgt. John C. Woods, the US Army's official executioner, was given the "honor" of hanging the . . . martyrs. He had been the Army's chief executioner for 15 years and was reputedly the expert in his grisly profession.
In the prison's gymnasium, three gallows were erected because the deaths were intended to be slow and torturous, perhaps in keeping with the Talmud-mandated fate of all real and imagined enemies of the Jews.
(Sgt. Woods) used a short rope that prevented instantaneous death from a broken neck instead insuring a slow death by strangulation. He built the trap door too small so that their facial features would be mutilated during the fall. Woods would later boast to the US Army's Stars and Stripes newspaper that he enjoyed the task, saying that ". . . hanging those Nazis was the best thing I ever did."
Early that morning, the condemned were told to change into their court suits for execution. Streicher refused and guards forcibly dressed him. On the upper floors, Hess heard the commotion and shouted: "Bravo, Streicher!"
- Foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was brought out first with hands bound behind him to make his drop more cumbersome. At 1:14 a.m., Woods pulled the lever and Ribbentrop dropped and 18 minutes passed before the doctors finally pronounced him dead.
- Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel went to the second gallows as Ribbentrop was still strangling on the first. It took the brave Keitel 24 minutes to die.
- SS General Ernst Kaltenbrunner was directed to the third gallows, as the two previous victims were still strangling. It took 13 minutes for his excruciating death.
- Minister Alfred Rosenberg followed, taking 10 minutes to die.
- Hans Frank was next, dying after 10.5 torturous minutes.
- Wilhelm Frick strangled at the end of the rope for 12 minutes.
- Streicher is said to have entered the (gymnasium) in "blazing defiance." When asked his name, he refused to answer. While climbing the stairs, he was the only martyr to shout "Heil Hitler!"
- Upon reaching the platform, he spat in Wood's face and said: "The Bolsheviks will hang you one day." He was the only one not given time for a final statement - they wanted to begin the slow strangulation of Streicher as quickly as possible. He shouted "Purim festival, 1946!" a reference to the Jewish celebration of their slaughter of 70,000 Gentiles in the Book of Esther. As Woods pulled the hood over his head, Streicher's last earthly words were "I am now by God my father. Adele, my dear wife . . . " Streicher died after a long 14 minute strangulation.
- Fritz Saukel followed, protesting: "I die innocently. The verdict was wrong. God protect Germany and make Germany great again. Let Germany live and God protect my family." It took him 14 minutes to strangle.
- General Alfred Jodl, whose fate disturbed American Army officers, said simply: "I salute you, my Germany." It took him 16 long minutes to die.
- Arthur von Seyss-Inquart was the last to hang at 2:57 A.M., after two long hours of listening to the horror of the slow deaths which began with the hanging of Ribbentrop. (We don't know how long it took him to die.)
- No medical certificate of death was ever issued by a doctor, which in a properly conducted hanging would list the cause of death as a broken neck.
- The vindictiveness of the Allied "victors" was evident even after the men's deaths. Gruesome photos were made and widely published of the . . . dead men. They did not even allow the families to claim the bodies of their loved ones."
In a final twist of Talmudic vengeance, the dead men were all assigned
Jewish names like "Goldberg" etc. and taken to a Munich crematorium
with the Jewish names filled in the forms. They were cremated as "Jews".
Then their ashes were dumped over the railing of a little bridge into the
Isar River so that no monument would ever be built to them - just as Eichmann's
ashes were later taken out to sea and scattered after he was executed and
cremated. It doesn't matter. These 131 minutes - and counting - are the
real monuments engraved in many people's hearts.
Ingrid
Thought for the Day:
'It;s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards."
(Lewis Carroll)