At the end of World War II, the hunt was on to bring many Third Reich War criminals to justice. As the Allies liberated the concentration camps, former guards were arrested and seized, and former prisoners told of their torture and suffering at the hands of their regime. But the most prominent war crimes trial saw a number of former government members of the Third Reich being brought to the courtrooms.
The Nuremberg trials took place in front of the world’s media and the world was disgusted to hear about the crimes and evils of the Nazi regime and there were 10 men who were then led to the gallows inside of Nuremberg prison. But the executions that were carried out did not go well as a US hangman John C.
Woods made a mess of the proceedings. There were a number of things which went very wrong. The gallows was not fit for purpose. Neither was the executioner, and a number of men encountered longer deaths than was intended. It was thought that the Nuremberg executions would be quick. However, in the case of a number of the Nuremberg defendants, their executions became very botched and lengthy.
In this documentary, we look at five of the most botched Nuremberg executions and see how they did go wrong. To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe. As a young man, Philhelm Kitle was born into a comfortable household and his father held a significant amount of land. But after finishing school, he sought a career inside of the German military.
He started off as an officer cadet inside the Prussian army, but was not allowed to join the cavalry because he was viewed as a commoner, so he had to settle a field artillery regiment. As World War I broke out across Europe, Kiter was fighting in Flanders on the Western Front and in the trenches. But he was seriously injured when the shell fragment hit his arm and he spent a period of time recovering.
But more promotions came as he was made a captain and at the end of the conflict he was a member of the Reichs there, the Treaty of Assai limiting German army which was made up of initially only 100,000 soldiers. But Kitle was a man who also joined right-wing paramilitary groups and he was a fryore member who was not happy with the VHimar government and the aftermath of the first world war.
He helped to organize the frycore and gained a lot of respect for this and he later became a member of the ministry of war in 1929 but when Hitler took control he was serving as a head of the organizational department of the military. Kitle was a man who was a key part of Hitler’s plans and he was someone who was very loyal to Hitler.
Hitler wanted to rearm Germany in secret and build up its military might ready for another world war and Kitle helped in organizing secret projects to build tanks and recruit forces into the army breaking the terms of the Treaty of Assai. He was later in 1939 made a major general and was appointed the chief of the Reich Ministry of Wars armed forces office.
But Hitler in 1938 seized command of the German army and Kiter was then given his highest ranking position, the chief of the ABA commando de Vermach, which made him practically the minister of war. And he was now seen as the most senior soldier in Germany. And he was always at cabinet meetings with Hitler.
But to many inside of Hitler’s government, Wilhelm Kiter was nothing more than a yesman and someone who Hitler had control of. He was a puppet and Kiter would do anything Hitler wanted. and he was actually seen as rather terrible at his job. Kitle was the chief of staff and Hitler’s number two in the armed forces and some even mocked him calling him Litle calling him nothing more than a lackey and Guring even referred to him as a nodding donkey.
Hitler would unleash some brutal tirades aimed at Kitle and it was once said that he has the brains of a movie usher but was made the highest ranking officer in the army because a man is as loyal as a dog. Kitle though was the front of the German army’s efforts during the Second World War and he referred to Hitler as the greatest commander of all time when German forces powered through Poland and then into France.
He was present in the negotiations regarding the French surrender and Hitler would then turn his ideas towards the Soviet Union and he planned Operation Barbarasa in secret and in his mind. Vilham Kitle knew that this was possibly a step too far for the German army in 1941. However, he did not object to it and also refused to hear anyone’s concerns who voiced them.
Hitler had overall say with the German military at the time, but Kiter would, as the war went on, continue to carry out whatever the dictator wanted. When a bomb exploded inside of Hitler’s Wolf headquarters, though Helm Kiter was put to work punishing those members of the military who had plotted the coup. This resulted in the executions of around 5,000 people.
However, at the end of the conflict, he stayed close to Hitler in the Fura bunker and continued to be a part of the daily war briefings. At the end, he did decide to try and flee and he managed to get to Fensburg to join up with the government headed up by the new president of Nazi Germany, Carl Dernitz, following Hitler’s death.
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However, he was arrested days later and he signed the German unconditional surrender. Kiter was then brought to the Nerburgg trials and it was said he had full understanding of the invasion of Poland and also he knew much about the mass slaughter of civilians at the hands of the Einat scripper inside occupied lands.
Kitle’s signature was also on a number of illegal documents which gave permission for soldiers to execute prisoners of war without a trial. Kitle believed it was his job to rid the world of bulcheism and he ordered the executions of communists and signed further decrees allowed the killing of enemy commandos without trial too. Whilst at the Nuremberg trials he was indicted on all four counts and charges and these illegal orders came back to haunt him.
He knew that these were against the rules and laws of war but he said he could not go against Hitler’s wishes. He said at the trial that as these atrocities developed one from the other step by step without any knowledge of the consequences, destiny took its tragic course with fateful consequence. Kitle knew what the sentence would be for him and he would have preferred to have been executed by a firing squad as a member of the military suffering a soldier’s death but this was not allowed and Wilhelm Kitle was to be executed like a common criminal and murderer on
the gallows alongside the other condemned defendants. The Nuremberg executions took place on the 16th of October 1946 and 10 executions took place early in the morning. The man who was carrying these out was John C. Woods, an American executioner who is remembered in history for his botching work, and the Nuremberg execution certainly did not go well.
The method Woods used was the standard drop method, but he was also having to work with a trap door that was not working well, and it was too small for someone to fall through without hitting the sides, and sometimes a trapoor smashed a condemned on the head as they fell through. Wilhelm Kitle’s execution was one of those that did not go well at all.
He was executed second following Jerkin von Ribbentrop the Nazi foreign minister and he was the first military commander or leader to have been executed under the concept of international law which brought professional soldiers to justice for their war crimes and actions. He walked into the execution chamber 2 minutes after von Ribentrop had plunged through the trap door and the body of the foreign minister was still riving around behind the curtain on the first scaffold and the tight rope could be seen. Kitle when he entered the room
seemed rather relaxed to begin with and witnesses claimed he had his head held high whilst the execution of his assistant secured his hands together and he confidently then strode towards the gallows. He confirmed his identity and then walked up the steps of the gallows almost as if he was expecting to receive some form of salute from the guards.
He did not need the assistance of the American guards and seemed to pride himself on going to his death all by himself. When prompted for any final words, Wilhelm Kitle stated that I call on Almighty God to have mercy on the German people. More than 2 million German soldiers went to their deaths for the fatherland before me.
I now follow my sons all for Germany. After this, John C. Woods then placed a black cap over his head so he could not see what was happening. Then the noose was firmly secured around his neck. Woods positioned Kitle over the trap door. He then released this and Kitle went through the trap door, but things noticeably did not go well.
Kitle’s neck was not snapped by the noose and it took a staggering 24 minutes for him to die. As he fell through the trap door too, the door smashed him on the head and he was left bleeding heavily from behind the curtain and this was not intended. Kitle behind the curtains slowly strung to death and he was convulsing, but Woods then continued with the hangings, leaving Vilhelm Kitle to succumb to his arduous and lengthy fate.
Woods, the executioner, later claimed that I hanged those 10 Nazis, and I’m proud of it. I wasn’t nervous. A fellow can’t afford to have any nerves in this business. I want to put in a good word for those GIs who helped me. They all did swell. I’m trying to get them a promotion. The way I look at this hanging job, somebody has to do it.
I got into it kind of by accident years ago in the States. Woods showed little bother about these botches and was more concerned that he executed the Nazis like Kitle rather than the manner in which he did it. Wilhelm Kitle was a man who appeared to many as a most senior figure of the German army’s command.
However, he was simply a man who was just very loyal to Hitler and who would carry out anything the dictator wanted. He was a soldier who flagrantly knew he was breaking laws and rules of war when he issued illegal orders and he knew that his actions resulted in the executions and slaughter of thousands of people. But inside the execution chamber of Nuremberg prison, he experienced a horrific execution which did not go how it was intended to.
Wilhelmfrick was born in March 1877 and he had a rather normal early life attending school before he went to university and studied law but then he worked for the Bavarian civil service and worked as an attorney for the Munich police. He was considered unfit for service during the first world war but then following the end of the conflict he saw the German revolution of 1918 to 1919 and he was sympathetic to the far right fry.
He was then introduced to Adolf Hitler and Frick was the one that helped Hitler obtain permission to be able to hold a number of political demonstrations and rallies early on inside of Munich. Frick after all was a member of the police and he was high up in the political department and he then became a follower of Hitler and was involved in Hitler’s failed attempt to seize power at Munich.
The beer hall push Frick was trying to suppress the police’s operation and he was then imprisoned after being found guilty of aiding high treason and helping Hitler and was given a suspended sentence. But the biggest effect of this was that Wilhelmfrick lost his position in the police and he was then forced to work other jobs.
But then he became an elected member of the Rashtag and he had been nominated by the farright national socialist freedom movement. But then when the Nazi party was reestablished following Hitler’s release from prison, Frick rejoined the Nazis and he was one of the first 12 deputies elected to the richag who were Nazi members.
Frick continued to rise throughout the ranks of the Nazi party and he held a ministerial level post in government being the first Nazis to do this and he then used his position to replace officials who were communist and social democrats with Nazis putting more Nazis in government paid roles. However, when Hitler was made chancellor by Pal von Hindenborg, Frick became part of his government as Reich Minister of the Interior.
He was the only Reich minister in Hitler’s original government who had a portfolio and he had more experience than others such as Herman Guring, but he did not hold too much power at the time and had no authority over the police to begin with. Germany’s police force was being dealt by the local state and not by the main government. But following the rice fire and the enabling act of 1933, Wilhelm Frrick’s power grew significantly.
Frick used the fire to Nazify the country and he drafted many laws around this and he also drafted the law which banned other political parties making the Nazi party the only legal one in Germany. He was also made a rights lighter the second highest political rank in Germany and he was appointed the Prussian minister of the interior and was given control of the police of Prussia.
But Will Helfrick also had control over local governments and he had a lot of influence inside smaller towns and he was involved heavily in the creation of Nazi racial policies and the laws against the Jews. He implemented many of these policies including the T4 Euphania program which resulted in the executions of dozens of thousands of disabled and mentally ill civilians.
It was clear that Hitler trusted and valued Wilhelm Frrick and he was also given a significant amount of responsibility with preparing Germany for a world war. The armament’s campaign and rearming the country and building up the military violated the terms of the treaty of Asai established after World War I. But Frick introduced laws regarding conscription which built up the army to big levels and he also changed laws conscripting Austrians into the German army following the archelus and the annexation of the country into the Third Reich. He was
seen as a key administrator and someone who could do anything Hitler wished. And as a cabinet minister, he was there for all of the briefings during and before the Second World War. He was also given other roles, for example, being an ambassador for various sporting festivals, and he conducted work at many different ceremonies at sporting events.
But there was a slight fall from grace for Wilhelm Frrick. Hitler’s inner circle were constantly jostling for position and for power. They were always trying to get one over the other in terms of looking more favorably in the eye of Hitler. Previously, Frick had come into conflict with Hinrich Kimlar as he tried to limit the use of concentration camps.
Frick tried to limit the amount of people who were being sent to camps such as Dhau for reasons such as their own protective custody. These prisoners were ultimately enemies of the Nazis, and Frick came into conflict with Hinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, over this. But Himmler was his great rival and he came further into conflict with the head of the SS.
When Himmler in 1936 was named the chief of the German police, uniting the SS and the police force. Frick would have guessed as a former policeman, he would have got this job, but he was passed over for Himmler. Himmler was in a sense Frick’s boss, and the police were then relieved of Frick’s control with them being answerable now to Himmler in the SS.
The power struggle between the two continued, but Himmler would get the better of Frick again when Frick was replaced by Himmler as a Reich Minister of the Interior in August 1943. Frick was ultimately sacked and Himler was seen as a man who could perform the brutality that Hitler wanted to with the final solution. But will Hamfrick would stay part of the cabinet and he was listed as a Reich minister without portfolio, meaning he could attend the meetings.
But he had little responsibility with the running of the government and also the Second World War. He continued in cabinet until Hitler’s death. But his replacement as minister of the interior did not make things inside of Nazi Germany more seamless at all. But he was given one last position as a protector of Bohemia Moravia.
This had previously been held by Reinhard Hydrickch who is referred to as a butcher of Prague and he had been assassinated by British so SOE trained Czech resistance officers. But inside of the Czech lands still overseen by the Nazis, Frick continued the brutality and many resistance members were executed in public on his orders and the terror inside the lands continued right up until the end of the war as Prague, the capital city, was one of the final Axis held cities to fall.
He was a man who had proven himself to be a brutal and ruthless commander that would be happy to execute and terrorize the population. However, as the war came to an end, he was arrested. Following his arrest, along with a number of high-ranking Nazis, including Herman Guring, Rudolph Hess, and other ministers such as Jerkin von Ribbentrop, Wilhelmfrick was indicted at the Nuremberg trials.
Frick was charged with all four charges which were participating in a plan for the accomplishment of crimes against peace, planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression, participating in war crimes and crimes against humanity. He refused to testify on his own behalf like Rudolph Hess who was considered at the time possibly mad.
But Frick was convicted of the charges and it was highlighted that in his role as Minister of the Interior that he was responsible for the banning of other political parties and also the Nermberg laws that saw hundreds of thousands of people eventually deported to concentration camps where they were then executed and murdered inside of these camps such as Ashvitz.
Prosecutors proved that he was one of the most senior Nazi figures in the party behind the establishment and creation of the concentration camp system. For his actions, he was sentenced to death on the 1st of October 1946 and he was to be hanged at Nuremberg prison alongside the other condemned defendants of the Nuremberg trial.
The defendants who were condemned were to be hanged on a large gallows which was made inside the gymnasium of the prison and it was controversial execution at John C. Woods who performed the hangings. He was a man who was said to have been a poor executioner with a number of the executions going wrong and Wilhelm Frrick’s execution was one which was botched by Woods.
He was executed sixth behind Hans Frank. It was said of his execution that the sixth man to leave his prison cell and walk with handcuff wrists to the death house was 69year-old Wilhelm Frick. He entered the execution chamber at 2:05 a.m. 6 minutes after Rosenborg had been pronounced dead. He seemed the least ready of any so far and stumbled on the 13th step of the gallows.
His only words were, “Long live eternal Germany.” before he was hooded and dropped through the trap. However, it’s believed that Wilhelm Frick’s execution took a significant amount of time and may have taken a number of minutes. The time of death was pronounced at 2:20 a.m., which was 15 minutes after he entered the chamber. However, as the trap door was released, Frick smashed into the side of the trap door and his head began to bleed profusely with a bad wound sustained on the back of his head.
After his body was cut down, it was laid on top of his coffin. And images show Frick’s remains covered in blood, and his suit also that he was wearing had a significant amount of blood smeared all over it. Belhfrick was one of the longest standing members of Hitler’s cabinet, and he was a man who was close to Hitler.
He was a man who instigated many of the brutal policies and laws that brought great misery across Nazi Germany. But at the end of the war, he was considered a man who was to be punished with death for his crimes. But his execution was performed by a botching American hangman. And after his death, his remains were cremated were then scattered in the river Isar along with the remains of other Nazis who were hanged after the Nuremberg trial.
Julius Striker was born on the 12th of February 1885 inside of the Kingdom of Bavaria and he worked as a school teacher in his early life. He was married and had two sons but in 1914 as the first world war broke out in Europe he joined the German army. He was well decorated receiving the iron cross first and second class and he was also commissioned as an officer but his behavior in the military was known at times to have been rather poor.
As the end of the conflict came around, Striker was demobilized and he returned to civilian life, resuming his teaching career. But around the year 1919, something happened and he became incredibly anti-semitic and discriminatory towards certain members of the German population at the time. He became very influenced by other similar thinkers and striker first got involved in political activism becoming a member of the Deutsch Valasha Schutz and Trutzbund a nationalist organization that came around in opposition to communism. These groups became notorious
in their virulent ideas and ideologies and Striker remained in the group for years. But in September 1922, he then formally joined the Nazi party, a fledgling political party based in Bavaria where Striker was from. He had witnessed Adolf Hitler speak and from that moment on he had some form of obsession with the man who would later become the Furer.
Specifically, Striker said about the moment he first saw Hitler that, and I quote, “It was on a winter’s day in 1922. I sat alone in a large hall of the Burger Brow House. Suspense was in the air. Everyone seemed tense with excitement. With anticipation, then suddenly a shout, “Hitler is coming.
” Thousands of men and women jumped to their feet as if propelled by mysterious power. They shouted, “H Hitler! Hitler!” and he then stood on the podium. Then I knew that in this Adolf Hitler was someone extraordinary. He was one who could wrestle out the German spirit and the German heart, the power to break the chains of slavery. Yes.
Yes. This man spoke as a messenger from heaven at a time when the gates of hell were opening to pull everything down. And when he finally finished and while the crowd raised the roof with singing of the Deutsland song, I rushed to the stage. From that moment on, Julius Striker was devoted to serve Hitler in whatever way he could.
He formed in May 1923 the anti-Semitic sensationalist newspaper known as Durma. And in this he would for many years terrify the public with depictions of people who were being persecuted which would propagate the views of the Nazis and lead to persecution inside of Germany. He was also present at the beer hall push. Hitler’s failed revolution and marched on the front row of this.
Striker was suspended from teaching but his loyalty to Hitler continued to grow and the pair became very good friends. Hitler throughout his life and time as dictator would actually back striker over others and remained very loyal to him. But dashurma his newspaper continued to rise and grow into a national publication and striker was also in control of a number of regional positions within the Nazi party.
He was extreme in what he wrote and published. But Hitler even allowed Durma to be posted for public reading inside special display cases in German cities and towns. In July 1932, Striker became a deputy of the Richtag. And after the Nazis seizure of power, he ordered a boycott of Jewish businesses and was even known as the king of Nuremberg or the beast of Franconia.
Striker was someone not to be messed with, especially as he was a gowner, a Nazi regional leader. He even had the Grand Synagogue of Nuremberg destroyed in 1938 as he deemed it architecturally offensive. Despite being a prominent member of the Nazi party in the early days, as the Second World War came around, his power decreased and waned over time.
Hitler still was loyal to Striker, but his behavior was seen as incredibly irresponsible and possibly damaging to other members of the Nazi government because he was referred to as the worst of the anti-semmites. He was somewhat embarrassing in the eyes of the other Nazi members of government and he did have a number of enemies within Hitler’s inner circle including the incredibly influential and powerful Reich’s marshal Herman Guring.
Guring in particular became a figure of ridicule inside of Durma for Striker and he published scandalous untruth stories claiming that Guring’s daughter was conceived by artificial insemination and he was not the true father of his daughter Edar. Guring understandably was furious at this and he went straight to Hitler with other members of the Nazi party and accused Striker of many things including even walking through the streets of Nuremberg cracking a bull whip at people.
For this he was sent to trial in front of the Supreme Party Court and Striker was judged to have been unsuitable for leadership and in February 1940 Julius Striker was stripped of his party offices and he was then sent into the shadows. He continued to quietly publish his newspaper Dur Sturma and Hitler despite his fall from grace remained a close and loyal friend to him.
But as the Second World War came to an end, Udius Striker was arrested and he had decided not to take his own life, but to instead try his hand at surviving a death sentence in front of a courtroom full of judges. He had been captured in Austria by American forces and alongside many other former high-ranking Nazis, Julius Striker was taken to the Nuremberg trials to answer for the crimes of the Nazi party and for the Holocaust.
He tried to claim that he had been tortured and mistreated by Allied soldiers following his capture and it was found that he had the lowest IQ of all of the Nuremberg defendants. He was not involved in the Second World War and he also did not take part in the planning of the Holocaust despite being an outspoken advocate of it.
For this he was found guilty of the final charge of crimes against humanity with his outspoken rhetoric and publishing bringing about the suffering of so many people. The majority of the evidence against him came from his own newspaper and in speeches he had made across Germany. And he was deemed someone who was incredibly incendury and who could whip up a crowd to persecute others.
And he was seen as guilty as those who even ordered the extermination of the Jews. The judgment against him stated that, and I quote, “For his 25 years of speaking, writing, and preaching hatred of the Jews, Striker was widely known as Jubet number one. in his speeches and articles week after week, month after month, he infected the German mind with a virus of anti-semitism and incited the German people to active persecution.
Striker’s incitement to murder and extermination at the time when Jews in the east were being killed under the most horrible conditions clearly constitutes persecution on political and racial grounds in connection with war crimes as defined by the charter and constitutes a crime against humanity. He was, as mentioned, sentenced to death for his crimes.
And in the early hours of the 16th of October, 1946, he was taken into Nuremberg prison’s execution chamber for his date with American executioner and hangman John C. Woods. Woods was making a mess of the proceedings, and by using an ill-fitted gallows and his own mistakes, the Nuremberg Nazis were taking many minutes to die.
Death should have been relatively instantaneous, but this was far from the case. The gallows also did not allow the condemned to fall through well and the trap door even smashed some of them on the head as they went crashing through. Striker’s execution was witnessed by a number inside of the chamber, and it was stated of his execution by an eyewitness that Julius Striker made his melodramatic appearance at 2:12 a.m.
While his manacles were being removed, and his bare hands bound, this ugly dwarfish little man, wearing a Fredbear suit, and a well-worn bluish shirt, buttoned to the neck, but without a tie. He was notorious during his days of power for his flashy dress, glanced at the free wooden scaffolds rising menacingly in front of him.
Then he glanced around the room, his eyes resting momentarily upon the small group of witnesses. By the time his hands were tied securely behind his back, two guards, one on each arm, directed him to number one gallows on the left of the entrance. He walked steadily the six ft to the first wooden step, but his face was twitching.
As the guard stopped him at the bottom of the steps for identification formalities, he uttered his piercing scream, “Hile Hitler.” The shriek sent a shiver down my back. As its echo died away, an American colonel standing by the step said sharply, “Ask the man his name.” In response to the interpreter’s query, Striker shouted, “You know my name well.
” The interpreter repeated his request and the condemned man yelled, “Us Striker.” As he reached the platform, Striker cried out, “Now it goes to God.” He was pushed the last two steps to the mortal spot beneath the hangman’s rope. The rope was being held back against a wooden rail by the hangman.
Striker was swung suddenly to face the witnesses and glared at them. Suddenly, he screamed, “Purim Fest 1946. Purim is a Jewish holiday celebrated in the spring commemorating the execution of Haman, ancient persecutor of the Jews described in the Old Testament. The American officer standing at the scaffold said, “Ask the man if he has any last words.
” When the interpreter had translated, Striker shouted, “The Boleviks will hang you one day.” When the black hood was raised over his head, Striker’s muffled voice could be heard to say, “Adel, my dear wife.” At that instant, the trap opened with a loud bang. He went down kicking. When the rope snapped tort with the body swinging wildly, groans could be heard from within the concealed interior of the scaffold.
Finally, the hangman, who had descended from the gallows platform, lifted the black canvas curtain and went inside. Something happened that put a stop to the groans and brought the rope to a standill. After it was over, I was not in the mood to ask what he did, but I assumed that he grabbed the swinging body and pulled down on it.
We were all of the opinion that Striker had been strangled. So Julius Striker had gone through the gallows and had not been instantly killed. The executioner then went behind the curtain of the gallows and pulled down on his body with John C. Woods finishing him off. His remains were then cremated and the ashes of one of the most virulent and brutal Nazis was scattered in the Eizar River.
Alfred Yoseph Ferdinand Yodel was born on the 10th of May 1890 in Bavaria. As a child, it’s assumed he had a rather normal family life and he attended a school in which was linked to the military and it was clear that Yoda would have a career from this in the army. He was from a rather affluent family with his uncle being a psychologist at the prestigious University of Vienna and his younger brother would also go on to become a general in the army.
As the First World War broke out, he was pressed into service on the Western Front serving in a battery unit. He was there at the very start of the conflict and despite being wounded in action, he was rewarded with the Iron Cross second class. Yodel then returned to the front lines but was transferred in 1917 across to the Eastern Front and served here but then returned west.
He won the Iron Cross first class and following the end of the first world war he remained within the military. After the treaty of Asai was signed, Germany was allowed an army of no more than 100,000 soldiers greatly minimizing the strength and numbers of the army. Alfred Yodel was one of the lucky ones remaining as a soldier in the then labeled Reichkes fair and within this he was a greatly respected and welloughtoff soldier.
Alfred Yodel first saw Adolf Hitler in 1923 when his power was virtually nothing. 3 years earlier Adolf Hitler become the Nazi party’s leading public speaker and propagandist. And as time went on he then increased his strangle hold over the Nazi party becoming the leader. It was in 1923 when Hitler attempted to take control of Munich and subsequently be declared the president of Germany in the Munich beer hall punch.
Yodel met Hitler before and he became attracted to the Nazi ideologies and became a staunch supporter. As the 1920s continued and Hitler was released from prison, Yodel continued to help the group gain support, but he also continued his own rise through the ranks of the military. By 1935, he had risen to the rank of major general.
He met with Hitler before the Second World War broke out, and he must have impressed Hitler with his experience in the battlefield. Because of this, he was initially assigned as a commander of the 344th division after the Arcelus of Austria in which Austria was absorbed into the German Empire. After this, Yoda was then picked by Hitler to serve as the chief of operations staff for the obcomando de Vermach, the OKW.
The OKW was a high command of the armed forces and oversaw the army, navy, and air force. As the conflict continued, it had responsibility for the Second World War on all theaters except the fight against the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front. Alfred Yodel found himself as a deputy to the chief of the OKW, Wilhelm Kit, a man regarded by many as a yes man for Hitler and also found himself as a chief of operations staff.
He gained this job shortly before the invasion of Poland took place and he was integral to the planning of the war and different invasions and operations with Hitler seeing him as competent and effective. The OKW ran military operations on the western front in Italy and in North Africa, but there was a degree of fragmentation between other groups such as the Luwaffa who established their own command.
The OKW would be led by Kitle, who reported to Hitler himself throughout the whole of World War II. Alfred Yodo acted as a leader and a chief of staff during the invasions of Norway and Denmark, making key strategic decisions in regards to these specific operations. Throughout the war, Yoda was confident about the German army and was convinced that the Germans would defeat Britain during the battle for Britain and believed an invasion would then take place.
One of the biggest elements facing Yodel at the Nuremberg trials after the war was the fact he signed two military orders which were against the rules of war were unjust and were criminal. Firstly, Yodel signed the commissar order on the 6th of June 1941 just before the outbreak of operation Barbarasa. This order stated that any Soviet political commisar identified amongst captured enemy soldiers would be executed instantly.
This order stated that all prisoners boleevised or influenced by boleism should also be killed. Hitler who gave the order wished to rid Europe of communism and bulcheism the key enemies of Nazism. He knew when he issued this that it was illegal, but said that any soldier who carried out an execution or killing would be absolved by Hitler’s Nazi party and would not be held accountable.
It stated that immediate and severe measures must be taken. They are therefore when captured in battle as a matter of routine to be dispatched by firearms indicating that they should be shot. The commisar order also stated that anyone with a red star with a golden hammer or sickle on the sleeves should be killed, showing the German army how to identify these specific people.
Because of the commisar order, thousands of Soviet soldiers who should have been listed as prisoners of war and treated with certain allowances were shot dead when they should have been placed under custody. The other order Yodel signed was the commando order signed on the 28th of October 1942. This stated that German armed forces should execute and kill all allied commandos found in Europe and Africa without trial if they are in uniform or not and even if they attempt to surrender.
This was allegedly issued by the OKW to combat the fact the Allies were allegedly violating the Geneva Convention and that commandos had been ordered to kill German prisoners. The secret order was carried out and said that any commander or officer who refused to carry it out would be punishable under German military law. It resulted in dozens of illegal executions and war crimes.
Yodel signing these orders virtually signed his own death sentence after the war was over with both the illegal documents resulting in lots of war crimes. As the conflict continued, he spent time at Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s Rastenborg headquarters in East Prussia and continued to be promoted during the 20th of July plot to assassinate Hitler when Claus von Stafenberg bombed the wolf slay.
Yoda was present in the room when the briefcase bomb went off and was injured suffering a concussion. As the war turned against the Germans following the Normandy invasion and the battle of Stalingrad, the enemies of the Nazis pushed the Germans back and defeat was inevitable for Germany. Hitler, whilst Berlin was crumbling around him, shot himself, but instructions were then carried out, appointing Grand Admiral Carl Dernitz as his successor as a president of Germany.
It’s clear DITS must have respected Yodel as when he formed his government in Fensburg, Yoda was there and was awarded the Knights Cross by Ditz. Yodel probably thought that he had a role in restoring Germany after World War II and he signed the German surrender on the 7th of May 1945 as a representative of Durnets.
And then a week later when Wilhelm Kitle, his superior was arrested, Yoda became the chief of the OKW, which was basically pointless with the curtains closing on World War II. Yoda was arrested with the rest of the Fensburg government by the British and was taken to a prisoner of war camp before he was brought to Nuremberg to face war crimes trials.
Alfred Yoda was accused of conspiracy to commit crimes against peace, planning, initiating, and waging wars of aggression, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. All four of the charges. He was seen as a high-ranking member of the military, and the charges brought before him specifically related to the two illegal orders, the commissar and the commando orders that Yodel signed, saying that those who would be regarded as prisoners of war should be just shot when captured.
He was also accused of being complicit in other atrocities and was presented with evidence about mass shootings of Soviet prisoners of war. He said that the only prisoners shot were those who did not want to walk. More evidence emerged with him being accused of being involved in the unlawful deportation of Jews and others and also in ordering executions and being complicit in these.
His signature was found on an order that sent Danish citizens and Jews to concentration camps and this was also used against him. Yodel pleaded not guilty. However, was found guilty of all four of the charges put forward against him. Because of this, he was sentenced to death and was to be executed in the gymnasium of Nuremberg prison by a botching executioner, John C. Woods.
On the 16th of October 1946, these executions were carried out. The Nuremberg executions were noted for not going as straightforwardly as they could have done as the executioner performed his role poorly. Firstly, the trap door was too small and many who fell through smashed their heads on the side causing bleeding.
Also, John Cwoods did not use the same methods as other executioners and many executions took a number of minutes for the condemned to be killed, slowly strangling to death. In some cases, it took between 14 and 28 minutes for the condemned to die, and John C. Woods was noted for even pulling down on one body as a neck had not been broken, strangling a Nazi to death.
Alfred Yoda was the 10th of 11 defendants to be executed, however, was executed actually ninth as Herman Guring had taken his life the evening before. He was led into the gymnasium and was flanked by US soldiers. Inside the gym was a gallows that had been made to perform the deaths, and Yoda was brought in following Fritz Sal’s death.
He was brought into the room shortly before 10 to 3:00 a.m. in the morning, and he was led up the stairs of the gallows. He was then handed over to John C. Woods, who then asked him for any last words, and Yodel stated, “My greetings to you, my Germany.” The hood was then placed over his head and he was shuffled over the trapoor before the door was released and Yodel plunged straight through it.
Judging by the fact that Arthur says Quart was executed 9 minutes after Yodel, we can consider that Yodel’s execution was one of the more straightforward ones performed that day with no bleeding being visible on his body or wounds from the trapoor. Alfred Yoda was incredibly powerful during World War II and was known for being a prominent member of the Nazi high command.
He was a respected military general and leader and along with Kitle wished to carry out Hitler’s demands to invade different lands and build up a huge empire. It was Yodel himself who signed his own death warrant being complicit in the signing of the commando and commisar orders. And this evidence could not be denied.
When he was brought to Nuremberg, the evidence against him was incredibly damning, and later trials would prove that the commisar order was carried out with brutality. A further trial carried out the year later sentenced a number of Vermach officers to prison time for shooting Red Army soldiers and PS.
Alfred Yoda was a key instrument in the Nazi war effort and in Hitler’s plans to take different lands and inflict such misery and suffering onto people living there. Jükin von Ribbonrop was born in April 1893 inside the Kingdom of Prussia. He attended courses at Germany’s most powerful fortress as a young man and became fluent in French and English.
He was however referred to as the most stupid in his class, full of vanity and very pushy by his teacher. His family moved to different countries, but Ribbonrop was then sent to Britain to improve his English, and he even traveled to Canada to work for an engineering firm there. But as the First World War broke out, he left Canada and lived briefly inside of America before returning to Europe, and he enlisted in the German army.
He served on both the Eastern and Western Front and was awarded the Iron Cross as he was wounded. He became a staff officer in Turkey and after the hostilities ceased, he married his wife Anna. But in 1928, Jükin von Ribentrop first met Adolf Hitler and he was working as a businessman at the time. He was a champagne salesman and was seen as someone who could get the same price for German champagne as he could for French champagne, which was of course much more valuable.
This chance meeting with Hitler began his political career. And in May 1932, he joined the Nazi party officially. He was to begin with an emissery for the chancellor of Germany, France von Pppen. And through political manipulations, he rose through the ranks and affections in the eyes of the new Nazis.
The old Nazis didn’t like him, and he was said to have been the Nazi almost all of the other leading Nazis hated. and Hitler’s propaganda chief, Joseph Gerbles, claimed in his diary that von Ribentrop brought his name, he married his money, and swindled his way into office. He did have access to Hitler at any time and could meet with him freely, and he became Hitler’s favorite adviser on foreign policy.
Others have claimed that he knew nothing and was just a lackey who pleased Hitler. For example, it was said when Hitler said gray, Rimrop said black, black, black. He always said three times more and he was more radical. I listened to what Hitler said one day when Ribbonrop wasn’t present. With Ribbentrop, it is so easy.
He’s always so radical. Meanwhile, all the other people I have, they come here. They have problems. They are afraid. They think we should take care. And then I have to blow them up to get strong. And Ribentrop was blowing up the whole day. And I had to do nothing. I had to break. Much better. Whatever Hitler said, Ribbonrop would agree and go stronger, saying more radical action needed doing.
And this led to him becoming the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Policy later. He had been named the Special Commissioner for Disarmament. And in this, his job was to show the world that Germany wanted to limit their army and arms productions, all while secretly they were building them up and building up supplies for a later World War.
In 1936, he was appointed the ambassador to the United Kingdom with orders from Hitler to negotiate an alliance between the Germans and the British. He presented himself to King Edward VII, who was very impressed. And in London, he lived a very lavish life, staying in the best hotels and mixing in the circles of the royal family.
He would even later during one incident give King George V 6th a Nazi salute which almost knocked the king over who was attempting to shake Ribrop’s hand. But he was considered a bully and someone who was ice cold in meetings and he later came to hate Britain with his appointment in 1938 to the position of foreign minister.
Von Ribbentrop’s role in the Nazi government was vital and it showed that foreign policy was becoming more and more radical and was moving towards war and Ribrop supported this. To begin with he tried to convince a number of nations to ally themselves with the Nazis but he was a key player in the beginning of the Second World War. He pushed for the beginning of the hostilities quicker than they came.
And he ensured that Hitler viewed Britain as the main enemy of the Reich. And his greatest diplomatic coup was an even convincing Stalin to sign the Molotov Ribbon Pact, a non-aggression treaty between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. This stated that there would be no fighting between the two for 10 years and it brought the Nazis some vital time in building up their arms to later go and fight on the Eastern front.
Rimmanrop also spoke to Hitler at length about invading Poland and he believed that the French and English would not go to war if the Nazis invaded Poland. Of course, this is not what happened and Rimatrop following the outbreak of World War II spent a lot of time traveling with Hitler in Poland and then visiting Moscow.
Even inside of Italy and Bonito Mussolini’s government, he was disliked and viewed as untrustworthy. Mussolini would later enter the war on the side of the Nazis, but Rimmanrop to begin with was also against the Nazis attacking the Soviet Union. This may have been because he viewed an invasion of the Union as an attack on his diplomatic successes, but he viewed Britain as the greater enemy.
He was involved in the Holocaust and he tried to persuade leaders of Nazi puppet states to deport Jewish people to Nazi extermination centers. But as the war went on, von Ribbonrop’s influence declined. The Nazis were at war with many different countries, meaning he was not needed to negotiate anything of significance, and they had diplomatic relations with only a small percentage of the nations that they formerly had.
Hitler also began to avoid him and thought he was tiresome. But on the 20th of July 1944, a bomb would explode inside of Hitler’s Wolf Flair headquarters, injuring him. and many of Ribbonrop’s former diplomats were involved in the coup attempt and assassination attempt on Hitler. He didn’t know about the plot, but the involvement of members of his foreign ministry reflected badly upon him, but he did work with the SS to purge and execute those in the foreign office who had been involved in the coup. Guring in
the hours following threatened to smack Ribbon with his marshall’s baton, referring to him as a dirty little champagne salesman. He was present at the final birthday of Adolf Hitler in Berlin on the 20th of April 1945. But 3 days later, he tried to meet with Hitler, but was rebuffed, saying the dictator, who was holed up inside of his bunker, whilst the city was beginning to crumble, had better and more important things to do.
After Hitler died inside of his bunker, Rimmondrop tried to find a new job inside of the new government of the Reich under Carl Ditz. He went into hiding under a false name in Hamburg, but he was arrested by a Frenchman who had joined the Belgian SAS. On his person was a letter addressed to Winston Churchill, but he was then brought to the Nuremberg trials as a defendant.
He was convicted of all four counts: crimes against peace, deliberately planning a war of aggression, committing war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It was even said he was involved in the annexation of Austria into the Nazi Reich and was also a key player in the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland. He was also implicated in the final solution encouraging countries in the Axis alliance to speed up their deportations of Jews to the death camps.
Von Ribbentrop was also said to have been encouraging the murder of Allied airmen and have been responsible for a number of atrocities in the conflict. He tried to claim that Hitler made all the important decisions and he still remained loyal to Hitler whilst behind bars. He was for his crimes sentenced to death and was seen as one of the major aggressors of the Second World War, a conflict which led to the deaths of millions.
He was scheduled initially to be the second Nazi executed in the Nuremberg executions, but Herman Guring, the former Reich Marshall, took his life hours before he was to be sent through the gallows. Because of this, Jükin von Ribbonrop was bumped up to the first position. The first man to be hanged at the Nuremberg executions inside the gymnasium of Nuremberg prison.
The execution of that day was John C. Woods, a bungling and botching executioner who would make a significant mess of the proceedings. There were many issues with the executions. Firstly, the gallows was not fit for purpose. The trap door was too small, allowing the condemned to not pass through the structure properly to snap their necks instantly, and Woods did not use a long drop, but the standard drop method to execute the men.
Also, the trap door had a tendency to not latch when it opened, meaning it smashed the defendants on the head, leading to them becoming bloodied following the trap being opened. Woods also miscalculated things and it’s not known how much if any he prepared for the proceedings and he probably didn’t do anything special at all.
With regards to the execution process, it was stated that the 10 once great men in Hitler’s Reich that was to have lasted a thousand years walked up the 13 steps of the gallows to a platform 8 ft high which was also 8 ft square. Ropes were suspended from a cross beam supported on two posts. A new one was used for each man.
When the trap was sprung, the victim dropped from sight in the interior of the scaffolding. The bottom of it was boarded up with wood on three sides and shielded by a dark canvas curtain on the fourth, so that no one saw the death struggles of the men, dangling with broken necks. Jükin von Ribbonrop’s execution was witnessed by some who had gathered inside the execution chamber.
It was said by one witness of his execution that von Ribentrop entered the execution chamber at 11 minutes past 1:00 a.m. Nuremberg time. He was stopped immediately inside the door by two army sergeants who closed in on each side of him and held his arms while another sergeant who had followed him in removed the manacles from his hands and replaced them with a leather strap.
It was planned originally to permit the condemned men to walk from their cells to the execution chamber with their hands free, but all were manacled following Guring’s death. Von Ribbentrop was able to maintain his apparent stoicism to the last. He walked steadily towards a scaffold between his two guards, but he did not answer at first when an officer standing at the foot of the gallows went through the formality of asking his name.
When the query was repeated, he almost shouted, “Yurkin von ribbon trop” and then mounted the steps without any sign of hesitation. When he was turned around on the platform to face the witnesses, he seemed to clench his teeth and raise his head with the old arrogance. When asked whether he had any final message, he said, “God protect Germany.
” in German, and then added, “May I say something else?” The interpreter nodded, and the former diplomatic wizard of Nazidom spoke his last words in loud, firm tones. My last wish is that Germany realize its entity, and that an understanding be reached between the east and west. I wish peace to the world.
As the black hood was placed in position on his head, von Rimmanrop looked straight ahead. Then the hangman adjusted the rope, pulled the lever, and von Rimmanrop slipped away to his fate. It took 14 minutes for Jükin von Rimmentrop to die in the gallows and he kicked and struggled for some time behind the curtain. This was a very long time for someone to be dangling from the gallows and he slowly slipped away over 14 minutes.
He was the foreign minister of the Nazi party who had maneuvered his way into power skillfully, but he was someone who tried to bully other nations into allying themselves with the Nazis or at least serving them. But inside of the execution chamber of Nuremberg prisons gymnasium, Jükin von Ribbon became the first executed Nuremberg Nazi. Thanks for watching.
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Disclaimer : This content may be created by AI for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
