Witnessing World War 2 Executions Was Worse Than You Think JJ

At the end of World War II, there were hundreds of former concentration camp guards, war criminals, and brutal beasts who were led out into courtyards where either the gallows awaited them or some were even condemned on a guillotine or execution pole. Many of the executions which took place to deal with war criminals were carried out in front of full view of thousands of people who looked on as they saw their former overlords plunge through the gallows to their deaths.

People flocked to witness executions as they saw it as some form of vengeance for their suffering during World War II. And many got a small piece of retribution, seeing their former torturers be dispatched ruthlessly. But witnessing the executions of people after World War II was often worse than many people fought for a number of different reasons.

In this video, we look at different sets of executions and see why they were so terrible to have witnessed. At the end of World War II, there was a need by many Allied nations and countries who had been placed under occupation to punish people who had put their population to the sword. This included traitors, but also those who had worked inside of the concentration camps, which had been set up within the borders of a nation by occupying Nazi forces.

Stuttov concentration camp opened up around 30 km to the east of the city of Dansish or Gdansk and it was sheltered in a marshy and wooded area. It opened pretty much as soon as the Germans invaded Poland and people began to be sent there who were rounded up in the local area. Throughout the war, around 110,000 people found themselves locked up within the barbwire fences of around 65,000 died from disease, starvation, execution, poor treatment or enforced evacuations or death marches and disease also ran rampant at Stutoff 2. As the Second World War rolled on,

there was a shortage of labor at the camp and auxiliary guards were brought in. And in 1942, the first female German SS guards arrived at Schutto along with female prisoners. In total, around 300 women worked at the camp, including a number who were later sentenced to death. A gas chamber was established within the camp, as was a crerematoria to deal with the bodies of those who died.

Also, gas fans were brought in to kill even more, and the guards of Stutoff drove many to their deaths. Some former prisoners later stated that entering the camp was a death sentence in itself, and many knew the fate that would greet them. The guards were encouraged to inflict horrific amounts of violence and death upon the prisoners, and they carried out executions in public, too.

As the war turned against the Germans, the concentration camps began to be evacuated as the Allies and the Red Army approached. Stutoff was evacuated with ruthlessness. People were marched to the sea and they were then shot and those who could not keep up with the death march were executed and left at the side of a road.

But many of the guards went on the run and tried to slip back into civilian life. The Polish wanted justice at the end of the conflict as millions of their population had been slaughtered and inside of Gdansk people were hunting for the guards of Stutto. There would be hundreds who never managed to get their day in court, but some did.

The first Stuart trial took place from the 25th of April to the 31st of March, and there were 13 former guards and members of staff inside of Stutoff who were brought in front of the judge. The verdicts themselves indicated the anger. Sentenced to death were 12 of the 13 defendants, including five women. These women were Jenny Wonder Bachmann, Elizabeth Becka, Eva Palades, Wander Cloff, and Gerta Steinhoff.

Each of them became infamous for their brutality. Barkman was known as Mad Jenny, for example, and they all murdered innocent people, sending them to their deaths in the gas chambers. They got involved in selections at the camp, and for this, they had to pay. The executions were scheduled for the 4th of July 1946 and days before five huge sets of gallows had been created to carry out the hangings.

This included a special triple gallows in the center of the sets and each of the gallows must have been around 20 ft high at least. They were made in this way to give the crowd a good view so that everyone could see what was happening. On the day of the executions, it was claimed by the Polish press that around 50,000 people attended the executions on the Biscupia Gawker, a large hilling.

But this figure has been debated, and at least 20,000 were there to witness the executions. The crowd was described as a great crowd, and this was not just a quick proceeding. It was for the Polish a celebration of the end of the war and vengeance, but it also helped draw a line for some under their suffering. The Polish clergy had days before spoken out about a public hanging, and they were right to be critical, as this was a medieval style spectacle.

There were food stores set up, and ice cream was even freely available so that people could eat whil seeing life be taken in front of their very eyes. Some local vendors sold goods and programs to document what the condemned had done, and some even made a significant amount of money from the executions. The method of execution was also decided for spectacle, slow strangulation.

The gallows had been made with no drop at all, meaning that the victims, once the platform they were stood on was removed and the noose was secured around their necks, they would kick and struggle, sometimes for minutes, as their life was literally choked out of them. The struggles of death and the fight could last for around 20 minutes until the body went finally limp and life and air was choked out of them.

The executions were also prolonged and were designed to have been at 12-minute intervals, meaning that those who followed the first execution had to see what was in store for them, and those who went last had to witness executions for almost 2 hours. It was a shocking sight for anyone who watched. Now when the time came, the condemned guards were brought out in front of full view of the gallows to see the spectacle, and they were booed and harassed by the crowd, and guards stood by to ensure that nothing stopped the sentences being

carried out. The women were executed first, as this was seen as courteous. First brought out for her execution was Jenny Wonder Bachmann, and she was helped up onto the back of a truck which was parked under the gallows. Now the execution process itself was rather special and it was unique. The trucks were reversed under the gallows by a driver and they had an open back which acted as a scaffold.

The executioner would place the news around the neck. Then the driver drove off slowly leaving the condemned hanging and swinging. When Parkman was helped up onto the truck, one of the first things people would have seen was that the executioner was actually a former prisoner of some even wore their camp uniforms.

the striped pajamas, and this was seen as a prisoners enacting vengeance upon those who held them in submission. It was revenge. It wasn’t a skilled executioner who secured the noose. There was an executioner on the platform who did give instructions and checked things, but also on the truck was an official who read out the death sentence and reminded the crowd of the crimes of the guards.

The crowd would boo and shout like it was medieval theater. The condemned were then helped onto a small stool or a step and the executioner passed the noose over the top of the gallows and then secured the noose around the neck. They didn’t fasten it too tightly and then there was a knock on the top of the cab of the truck.

This was the instruction for the driver to move off and he then slowly drove forward. As the truck moved, panic set in and the condemned knew that they would be left hanging. The bodies were left swinging wildly for a matter of minutes and also the former guards kicked and struggled as the newsises snapped tors around their necks.

The condemned took minutes to go still as mentioned sometimes as long as 20 minutes until death finally occurred. All this happened in view of the next condemned person to be executed and the others meaning it would have been terrifying for them to see. The bodies of the executed were also left up for some time and they were eventually cut down and were placed inside of a wooden coffin.

It’s believed that the bodies were then donated to medical science and may have been used in the study of anatomy by students in a local university. Another thing which was noticeable to those who witnessed was that the stuttoff guards were not hooded, meaning that the crowd saw every facial expression exhibited during the throws of death.

Most of them did seem to accept their fate too and went to the gallows calmly, but one man and two women did put up a fight and struggled with their guards. One of the executioners was also a woman who executed some of the women. She being a former female concentration camp inmate. For those who witnessed the executions of the Schlutoff guards that day, one striking thing would have been that many of the guards were very young, including the women.

Some were in their early 20s, meaning they were even younger when they inflicted such suffering and terror. But the executions were witnessed by dozens of thousands of people, and they were a pivotal moment in retribution at the end of World War II. Poland had suffered a huge amount during the war, and the invasion of the nation saw the whole conflict across Europe break out.

But thousands had been executed, shot, and gassed within the concentration camps set up inside of the nation. To those who saw the public execution, they viewed a tiny piece of justice that day against those who brought their suffering, and they saw that they would be finally punished. Following the German invasion of France in May 1940 and the subsequent fall of Paris in June, the country was divided.

The northern half including Paris fell under direct German military occupation whilst the southern part was nominally governed by the collaborationist Vichi regime. It was under this atmosphere of fear, humiliation and oppression that the French resistance slowly took root comprising desperate groups of communists, gouists, socialists, former soldiers, students, intellectuals and ordinary civilians.

These resistance engaged in sabotage, intelligence gathering for the allies, dissemination of underground newspapers, and assassination of Nazi officials or collaborators. In response, the German occupation authorities often assisted by French collaborators such as the Mise responded with brutal crackdowns, including torture, imprisonment, deportation to concentration camp, and summary execution.

Executions were not just acts of punishment. They were spectacles of terror meant to deter others from joining the resistance. And for those who saw them, willingly or not, the experience was one of horror, helplessness, and haunting trauma. The execution of resistance fighters was often carried out with chilling precision.

In occupied zones, the German military justice system operated summary court marshals known as stangarit drumhead courts. Once arrested, a suspect might be tortured for information, interrogated repeatedly, and then sentenced to death, often within days or even hours. Public executions, particularly in 1941 to 1943, were designed to be theatrical.

Notices were plastered on walls detailing the crimes of the condemned, usually labeled as terrorists or communist saboturs, and announcing their deaths. Posters sometimes bore the names of 10 or 20 men shot in retaliation for a single German officer killed. The methods of execution varied. Firing squads were the most common, conducted in secluded prisons, woods, or fields.

In some cases, the guillotine was used, especially in Vichi Franc’s prisons like Laante or Fren, where civilian courts processed captured resistance. Witnesses could be fellow prisoners, family members, collaborators, or in some rare cases, members of the general public, deliberately brought to observe as in reprisal.

The goal was to make an example, instill dread, and crush the will to resist. To witness a French resistance execution was to encounter a moment of unbearable human drama. For many, the memory never faded. Imagine a prison courtyard in 1942 as described by survivor and resistance member Jean Pierre Venant. He said, “We heard the boots before we saw them.

Then the names were read. Silence. The condemned kiss one another. Some sang a song. When the shots came, I felt as if the soul of France itself had cried out. The condemned often faced death with stunning dignity. According to historian Julian Jackson, some sang nationalists or communist songs as they walked to the wall.

Others recited poetry or shouted viva of France in their final moments. For the Germans, this display of defiance was infuriating. The executioners, often Vermach soldiers, occasionally looked away or seemed visibly shaken. Some French collaborators, by contrast, stood stiff with smuggness, particularly when dealing with communists or Jews.

The psychological toll on French civilians was immense. In Paris, residents would discover execution notices on their way to work, sometimes accompanied by the smell of gunpowder or blood from nearby prisons. These were not anonymous figures to many. Names listed on the posters could belong to their neighbor’s son, a former teacher, or a local baker.

Perhaps the most famous execution of a French resistance member was that of Guy Mo, a 17-year-old communist activist arrested in 1940. Though not involved in violent resistance, he was chosen as a reprisal victim after the assassination of a German officer by French partisans. On the morning of his execution, Mo wrote a final letter to his parents that became a national symbol of martyrdom.

He was shot along with 26 others. He wrote, “I’m going to die. What I ask of you, especially you, my little brother, is to be worthy of us, the 27 who are going to die.” French witnesses were horrified by the boy’s youth. Even some German officers reportedly questioned the morality of executing a minor.

The Aish Rouge execution involved a group of 23 immigrants, many of them Jews, led by Misak Minutian, who had conducted an armed campaign against the Germans. They were captured by the Gestapo and executed at Fort M Valerian. The Germans created a propaganda poster showing the men’s photos and crimes.

La liberation para ar the crime liberation by the army of crime trying to frame the resistance as foreign and criminal. The execution was done quietly, but the propaganda poster turned the men into martyrs. Some witnesses climbed up trees and did witness their killing. In the summer of 1944, German forces crushed a major resistance uprising in the Vakor Plateau.

Following the assault, dozens of captured fighters, some in uniform, some wounded, were executed on the spot or after cursory trials. A witness from Vaso Evore recalled they were lined up near the town square. Some had their hands tied, others limped. There were no last rights, no speeches, just orders barked in German and then shots.

We were made to watch. These executions were retaliatory and communal, an effort to erase hope. Catholic clergy were sometimes allowed to accompany the condemned. Priests like Father Jax de Jesus or Abbistock became witnesses to resistance martyrdom. Their memoirs later offered vivid human portrayals of the moments before death.

Trembling hands holding rosaries, whispered final prayers, last requests for letters to be sent to mothers. The French underground press also bore witness even if indirectly. Secret newspapers such as combat liberation often printed eulogies for executive resistance smuggled out stories from prisons and ensured the names of the dead were remembered.

These publications sometimes included artistic renditions or imagined reconstructions of executions to stir patriotism and outrage. The effects of these executions rippled far beyond the moment. Families of the dead were often harassed or ostracized under Vichi laws. Children of the executed face stigma and grief was at the same time these deaths also galvanized actions for many who witness them especially young French citizens.

These acts of brutality became the spark of resistance in the postwar years. Sites of executions such as the prison at Fren became places of national memory. Plaques and monuments listed the names of the shot. Streets and schools were renamed after the martyrs. To witness a French resistance execution during World War II was to see both the darkest and most luminous sides of humanity.

On one side stood an inhumane system of control and repression, mechanical, ruthless, and determined to crush a human spirit. On the other stood ordinary men and women who, knowing death awaited them, still found the courage to speak, to sing, and to defy. Such moments were often witnessed in silence, in secret, or under juress, but they were not forgotten.

They lived on in memory, in whispers, in clandestine notes, and eventually in the stone and bronze of memorials. These executions were intended to suppress a people, but in the long arc of history, they serve to unite and inspire a nation. He was actually executed inside the walls of his former camp on a specially built gallows.

Rudolph Hurst was the man who built Ashvitz from the ground up and he created a site in which over 1 million people would be slaughtered inside the barbwire fences. It was hers who introduced the gas chambers to the camp, and he also oversaw executions himself on the death wall, a harrowing firing range next to the torture block. But Rudolph Hurse, at the end of the war, was captured, and he was brought to a courtroom to answer for the terrifying crimes he had been involved in.

He was, after all, the longest serving comedant of Ashvitz, and some of his victims petitioned to have him executed inside of the former camp. But there were hundreds that day who saw Rudolph her slowly strangled to death on the gallows. But this was an execution which for many of them was much more harrowing than they thought when they first entered the camp.

But why was this? Rudolfph Hurst had very few if any redeeming qualities. As a teenager, he was the youngest NCO in the German army. But after the conflict of the First World War, he was sent to prison as he was involved in the murder of a local school teacher. This man had been slaughtered by Hurse and his cronies, and he had been ordered to do this by Martin Borman, the future private secretary of Adolf Hitler.

He then met a lady named Hedvik Hensel following his release and they married. But then he embarked on a career and life inside of the Nazi party. Rudolph Hurst became noticed by head of the SS Hinrich Kimla and the pair then became close friends. But within the SS he became a prominent figure within the death’s heads unit those people who staffed the concentration camps.

To begin with, he worked at Daau and was promoted. But then inside Saxenhausen, Hurst oversaw the execution squads and was the one who gave the firing squad the order to fire, personally finishing people off with his pistol and giving them a coupra gunshot. He was later dispatched to research and write a report on the establishment of a concentration camp within the conquered territory of western Poland.

And this report spoke of the favorable And this report spoke of the favorable location. It was built around a former army barracks and Hurst was given the go-ahead to build the concentration camp and he was made the comedant of the site. This camp of course would become Achvitz. He wanted to make a camp which focused on mass murder, having thousands executed every week, and he wanted to make a site which slaughtered the most people in the quickest time.

Hurse introduced the gas chambers to Ashvitz and oversaw personally the first trials of gas at the camp within the basement of block 11, the torture block. But punishment and terror was found around every corner at the camp. And he deployed a fearsome guard staff who are encouraged to brutalize and beat inmates to keep them in submission and then carry out public executions within the camp’s roll call yards.

Also, Rudolph Hurst was involved in overseeing his guards during selections as prisoners who were brought to the camp were then gassed within the gas chambers within a matter of minutes. He later claimed about this that and I quote, “Technically, it wasn’t so hard. It would it would not have been hard to have exterminated even greater numbers.

The killing itself took the least time. You could dispose of 2,000 heads in half an hour, but it was the burning that took all the time. The killing was easy. You didn’t even need guards to drive them into the chambers. They just went in expecting to take showers and instead of water, we turned on poison gas.

The whole thing went very quickly. Inside Ashvitz, he also allowed sadistic medical experiments conducted by doctors such as the angel of death, Yseph Mangala. But he was sacked as a comedant in November 1943, as it was claimed he had an affair with a prisoner of the camp who also then fell pregnant. Whilst at Ashvitz, his family lived next door in a large villa, and it was known that he could separate his destructive work and family life rather well.

He did return to Ashvitz to oversee Operation Hurse, obviously named after him, in which 430,000 Hungarian Jews were killed at the camp in just 56 days, an act of mass slaughter that stretched Avitz to its limits. H then spent the last few months of the Second World War at Ravensbrook, an all female camp before he went into hiding, posing as a gardener inside the town of Gautrupal under a false name.

His wife and children had been arrested by the British and were interrogated as to where he truly was, and eventually they gave over the information required. Rudolph Hurst was captured in 1946 and his arrest was rough as he was beaten badly by the British as they wanted to inflict some vengeance. He was then brought to the Nuremberg trials acting as a defense witness and he claimed that and I quote, “I commanded Ashvitz until the 1st of December 1943 and estimate that at least 2 and a half million victims were executed and exterminated

there by gassing and burning and at least another half million succumb to starvation and disease making a total of around 3 million dead. This figure represents about 70 to 80% of all persons sent to Ashvitz as prisoners. the remainder having been selected and used for slave labor in the concentration camp industries.

He later revised his death tolls to around 1 million. But on the 25th of May 1946, he was handed over to the Polish authorities and specifically the Supreme National Tribunal to stand trial for his crimes. Rudolfph Hurst’s trial took place in March 1947, and he was sentenced to death weeks after it began.

He claimed in prison awaiting his execution that, and I quote, “My conscience compels me to make the following declaration. In the solitude of my prison cell, I have come to bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against humanity. As comedant of Achvitz, I was responsible for carrying out part of the cruel plans of the Third Reich for human destruction.

In so doing, I have inflicted terrible wounds on humanity. I caused unspeakable suffering for the Polish people in particular. I am to pay for this with my life. Whilst he was awaiting execution, former prisoners of Ashvitz petitioned for the execution to actually take place inside of Ashvitz, the former camp that Hurse oversaw.

The judges allowed this special execution to occur as it would for some act as a form of closure to their treatment during World War II. Specifically, he was to hang on the gallows, and this was built by German prisoners of war, and it was made from wood and was fitted with a trap door for him to fall through.

This has been confirmed by the existence of some photographs showing Hurse having gone through the scaffold structure. Now, for many, the execution inside of Ashvitz was very triggering. They had been invited to witness Hurst’s execution, and most of these were former prisoners of the camp. They walked through the site to take position in the main square of Ashvitz one, a place which for them symbolized death and terror.

On the 16th of April 1946, Hurst was executed on the gallows. He was brought to the camp at around 8:00 a.m. and was then sent to the camp’s jail within block 11, where he drank a cup of coffee. Shortly before 10:00 a.m., he was led towards his execution, and he paraded throughout the camp’s main street, and his hands had been secured behind his back.

He then stood back when he arrived at the gallows, and looked at the structure, which would take his life. The method of execution was slow strangulation, and there was no big drop, which was aimed to snap his neck, bringing death instantly. There was just a slow struggle as he fought for his life. The executioner, who was hooded, to prevent his identity being confirmed, helped Rudolfph Hurse onto the gallows, and then an official read the death sentence.

A priest heard Hurst’s final words, and the executioner then helped him onto a stool underneath the crossbeam, and then the noose was secured around his neck. The hangman then had to readjust the news as hers had moved his head. But at 10:08 a.m., the stall was removed, and the small trap door was then released. Hurse was left strung up on the gallows by his neck, and he kicked and struggled significantly as the life was choked out of him.

For the witnesses, around 200 of them stood by watching. Seeing someone die in front of them, despite the man’s reputation, may have been harrowing, and Hurse was kicking for minutes. He struggled, but then his body went limp. He was not confirmed dead until 13 long minutes later. Now the execution was not quick. There was no instant snapping of the neck.

Just a slow strangling of a man who had caused so much suffering. The reminder of death inside of the camp of Ashvitz for those who witness the execution may have been too terrifying also as they went back through the gates of a camp which caused them so much trauma and suffering. Today the gallows which was only ever used that day still remains inside the camp and Rudolph Hurst was the last person in history who was ever executed inside the walls of Ashvitz.

Lansburg prison in Bavaria was a site of terror even during World War II. Before it was a place where many experienced fortress imprisonment or confinement, a style of light imprisonment in which criminals were allowed to walk around the site, relax in their cells comfortably, write books and have visitors.

It was this sort of treatment that Adolf Hitler had following his attempted coup in Munich. And he spent 264 days locked up in Lansburg. And it was there where he wrote his book Minecom, which he dictated to Rudolph Hess and other Nazis who were locked up alongside him. During World War II, Lansburg took on a darker role, and it was where many foreign political prisoners were locked up and held.

At least 210 inmates died due to results of the beatings and treatment administered by the guards, by their torture, and also executions that took place. It was somewhere where Hitler trusted that his greatest political prisoners or prized captives would be safe. He had experience of Lansburg firsthand, but as the end of the Second World War came during the occupation of Germany by the Allies, Lansburg was designated as war criminal prison number one.

And it was here where many convicted Nazi war criminals were locked up. The American Army military police personnel ran the site and many who were locked up had been condemned to death at rapid trials such as the Dhaka trials in which their crimes were heard in front of a courtroom. Now the executions at Lansburg were not immediate.

They sometimes took months maybe even years following the death sentence being given out for the execution to then occur. This was due to the paperwork and numerous clemency hearings each of the defendants had. In the 5 and a half years after the end of the Second World War, Lansburg prison was a place of execution for 252 condemned war criminals.

Most of them were executed by gallows. Some were shot, but this was less common. The deadliest streak for executions took place in May 1946, a year after the end of the war, as 28 former Dhau concentration camp guards were sent crashing through the gallows for their torture and punishment of prisoners within a matter of days. At each execution, there would be dozens of military police and guards who were there to stand witness and to ensure that each of the men met their end with some degree of dignity.

The condemned would be informed a day or two before the execution took place that their time on earth was coming to an end, and they would spend this time getting their affairs in order. There were priests or chaplain appointed to help the process of preparing for death, and some of the condemned turned to God in their final days.

Now, inside of the courtyard of Lansburg were a number of wooden gallows. It’s debated whether two or three were used, but it’s most commonly accepted that there were two wooden structures used for executions. These both had 13 steps on them and led onto a platform that was fitted with a trap door. Above the trap door sat a cross beam held up by two vertical pieces of wood, and the trap door was opened by a lever which was pushed by the executioner who stood on the platform.

When the execution time came, the condemned were flanked by dozens of guards and a priest, and they were then led from their cells to the scaffold, where there were many military policemen stood around. At the bottom of the stairs, the men had their identities confirmed, and then they were helped up the stairs.

Some had their arms bound behind their backs before they began the ascent onto the scaffold, and they were then went on the platform handed over to the executioner. American army photographers took a final morbid photograph of the men stood often over the trap door and then the executioner pinioned their legs to ensure that the men did not kick when going through the trap door.

A variety of American executioners worked at Lansburg including the infamous botching Nuremberg hangman John C. Woods who it is considered botched some of the executions of the former guards of Dhau on the Lansburg gallows. Now the method of execution deployed was the standard drop, the American standard drop. And this meant that regardless of height and weight of the defendants, all of them fell roughly the same height and drop.

And it was hoped that the necks would be snapped. But often this was not the case and death would be prolonged. The executioner then secured a black hood over the condemn’s head before he adjusted the noose around the neck, and then when ready, the trap door was sprung. The condemn then dropped through the scaffold and into the concealed structure below, and the noose would swing lightly on the cross beam and then come to arrest.

The witnesses did not see the final moments, but often heard cracks or snaps as necks were successfully snapped. Men who suffered this fate included Carl Brandt, Hitler’s physician and escort doctor, a man who signed off on the planned extermination of thousands in the action T4 euthanasia program. Carl Gart who was Hinrich Himmler the head of the SS’s doctor and who conducted barbaric experiments within concentration camps.

There was also Martin Gotfield vice the former comedant of Dhao and many other war criminals. Also executed were a number of German civilians who had murdered captured American airmen or soldiers during the war. Now as mentioned people were brought in to witness the executions. The final set of them occurred in Lansburg within the early hours of the 7th of June 1951 before the prison was handed back over to the Germans.

Those sent through the gallows included terrifying Einsteat’s group of commanders Otto Erlandor Pal Global and Vera Brown. Regarding these executions, one witness documented what happened and stated, and I quote, “Two soldiers wearing neatly pressed olive drab uniforms are first to arrive in the loft. They’re followed by the chaplain wearing a white tunic and reading from his prayer book.

Behind him is Pal Global whose SS unit was involved in 16 instances of mass murder including the killing of 33,000 in a massacre alone. Then two GI guards on armed follow. Blurbal is dressed for death. He wears black shirt, black trousers, leather belt and sandals. His wrists are tied behind him.

He is clean shaven and looks older than his 57 years. I study his photograph, compare it with the man. His face is that of a storekeeper or a teacher. I look for signs of a desperate hater, the ruthless killer, but don’t find any. The routine carefully prepared in advance is followed to the letter. Graham calls out, “Attention!” All in the room stand.

Warrant officer Britt then places a prisoner on the trap door. He straps prisoner’s ankles and steps back. The official cameraman photographed the prisoner after one of the GI assistants places a name plate across the condemned man’s chest. The GI interpreter asks, “Have you any last words?” The prisoner replies, “Yaval 0 hours and 2 minutes.

There is no wavering in voice or manner, never a sign of fear.” Blurbal speaks in a detached remote voice. He says, “Whatever I have done, I did as a soldier who obeyed orders. I have committed no crime. I will be vindicated by God and history.” God have mercy on those who murder me. A minute later, the chaplain reads a prayer.

He closes with a soft amen. Britt throws a black hood over Blurb’s head. There is a slight fluff in the air pocket. Brit adjusts a noose over the man’s hooded head. The rope doesn’t fit correctly. Britt removes it, places it back on the man’s head for a second time, tightens it with the knot at the nape of the neck. Blurbal’s muffled voice is heard, but what he says is a mystery to those of us in the second circle.

Brit steps back, glances at Graeme. Graham nods. Britt springs the trap. There is a slight crackle. The rope dangles slightly, then suddenly is very still. I recoil back into my seat. The lieutenant colonel seated next to me whispers. There, but for the grace of God, go I. His pipe is fragrant. We wait.

My eyes are fixed on the rope. I’m quite sick now. My hands are as cold as ice. Brit is falling with the second noose. He is amazingly efficient and cold-blooded. The sergeant aid is looking into the pit where architect blurbal is hanging. How silent it has become. The sergeant pulls up the body whilst from the floor below someone disentangles a rope. We hear a murmur.

Then the soft voice of the medical officer. The cameraman’s flash goes off in a sudden stab of light. Then there is another sound, the sound of the cover being nailed onto the coffin. After the executions had taken place, the families of the dead were asked if they would like to receive or retrieve their loved ones bodies.

Some did and then had them buried in family plots, but others, because of the shame they had brought, decided not to. Those who were not claimed were buried in a local cemetery, the spurtting cemetery in Lansburg. The local authorities allowed the graves to begin with to be marked with a cross, and a vaulted apex was placed above.

And to begin with, the names of the dead were placed on the cross, and the graves were marked with a small patch of grass and some stones. Some of those buried there included the aforementioned Pow Global, Hitler’s Dr. Carl Brandt, Dr. Fritz Dietrich, who was executed for ordering the killing of seven American prisoners of war and many others who went through the gallows within Lansburg.

Today, these grave sites are unmarked and the name plaques have been removed. There is documentation out there that highlights who is buried where, but the local authorities don’t want the cemetery to become a place of pilgrimage with unwanted visitors attending. Lansburg prison became a place at the end of World War II where almost 300 Nazi war criminals were brought to face their fate on the gallows or at the end of the firing squad.

Within the same windows where Hitler once gazed out, two wooden execution platforms stood, a symbol of justice at the end of the war that he had caused and been responsible for. The executions of Lansburg were militaristic in their nature, and they were performed with ruthless efficiency at times. The International Military Tribunal had begun in November 1945, just months after the end of the Second World War.

24 high-ranking Nazi leaders were indicted, though several would not live to see the end of their trial. Adolf Hitler, Hinrich Himmler, and Joseph Gerbles had taken their own lives in the final days of the Third Reich. Others, such as Martin Borman, were tried in absentia. The trials culminated in October 1946 with a series of sentences, including death by hanging, for a number of the defendants.

The condemned men included some of Hitler’s most loyal followers and key architects of Nazi terror. Herman Guring the commander of the Luwaffer and second only to Hitler. Jükin von Ribbentrop the former foreign minister. Wilhelm Kitle head of the German armed forces. Erns Kenbrunner chief of the Reich security main office. Alfred Renborg the chief Nazi ideologue.

Hans Frank the butcher of Poland. Wilhelm Frrick a senior Nazi minister Julius Striker the infamous publisher of the anti-Semitic newspaper Durma Fritz Salk responsible for force labor programs Arthur Sizen Quart the Reich commissioner of the Netherlands and Alfred Yodel chief of the operation staff of the Vermacht.

Each of these men were found guilty of crimes that shocked the conscience of the world. From orchestrating the Holocaust to initiating wars of aggression that resulted in tens of millions of deaths. The tribunal’s death sentences were not just legal rulings, but historical milestones representing the first time leaders of a modern state were held accountable for such large-scale atrocities.

The executions were scheduled for the early morning of the 16th of October 1946 inside of the gymnasium within Nuremberg prison. A makeshift gallowed chamber was constructed with free scaffolds around 10 ft high made inside the rooms. This was done so the executions could be conducted quicker with simultaneous condemned men going through the different structures.

The man overseeing the proceedings was John C. Woods, the executioner, and in charge was Colonel Bertrren C. Andress, the comedant of the prison. The entire execution process was tightly controlled, and only allowed into the chamber were a number of official witnesses, including journalists, doctors, and guards.

One man who witnessed the executions documented everything, Kingsbury Smith, who was writing on behalf of the American press. He described the scene inside the chamber, stating, “Free black painted wooden scaffolds stood inside the gymnasium, a room approximately 33 ft wide by 80 ft long with plaster walls in which cracks showed.

The gymnasium had been used 3 days before by the American security guards for a basketball game. Two gallows were used alternatively. The third was a spare for use if needed. The men were hanged one at a time, but to get the executions over with quickly, the military police would bring in the man while the prisoner who preceded him was still dangling at the end of the rope.

The 10 once great men in Hitler’s Reich that was to have lasted a thousand years, walked up 13 wooden steps 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. Now, the first man who went through the gallows that day or morning was Jük von Ribentrop, the former foreign minister. The executions followed a similar procedure.

As mentioned, the men were led into the chamber. Their identities were confirmed at the bottom of the gallows and then they were helped up onto the wooden structure up the steps before being asked final words and they were then handed over to the executioner. Of the first execution it was said that von Ribbonrop was able to maintain his apparent stoicism to the last.

He walked steadily towards a scaffold between his two guards but 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, vaugh, 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 messages, he said, “God protect Germany in German,” and then added, “May I say something else?” The interpreter nodded, and the former diplomatic wizard of Naziom spoke his last words in loud, firm tones.

My last wish is that Germany realize its entity, and that an understanding be reached between east and west. I wish peace to the world. As the black hood was placed in position on his head, von Rivatrop looked straight ahead. Then the hangman adjusted the rope, pulled the lever, and von Rimatrop slipped away to his fate.

Now, one of the most infamous parts of the Nuremberg executions is that they did not go to plan at all. Many took some time to be pronounced dead, even over 20 minutes, as they struggled from the moment they went through the trap door. John C. Woods used the American standard drop method rather than the more skilled and reliable British long drop, which was used by men such as Peer Point.

There were claims that he may have even deliberately misaligned the nooes or the knots to prolong the suffering, but the truth was that Woods was not capable of delivering death quickly on the gallows as was expected. He had previously botched things inside other prisons, but for his most high-profile job, he would not display any improvement on his limited skills.

He also was not helped out by the gallows itself. The trap door was far too small, meaning that when someone passed through the structure, they hit the sides, slowing down the velocity of their drop, meaning the neck was less likely to snap, leading to a much longer strangling death. Also, the trap door did not latch when opened and actually swung back and smashed the defendants on the head with men such as Vilhelm Kitle being left bloodied with blood pouring from large cuts on their heads.

And this was all going onto the floor of the execution chamber. After an execution took place, it was said that, and I quote, “Officers and GIs walked around nervously or spoke a few words to one another in hushed voices when Allied correspondents scribbled furiously their notes on this historic, though ghastly event.

In a few minutes, an American army doctor, accompanied by a Russian army doctor, and both carrying stethoscopes, walked into the first scaffold, lifted the curtain and disappeared within. They emerged at 1:30 a.m. and spoke to an American colonel. The colonel swung around and facing official witnesses snapped to attention to say, “The man is dead.

” Two GIs quickly appeared with a stretcher, which was carried up and lifted into the interior of the scaffold. The hangman mounted the gallow steps, took a large commando type knife, out of the sheath, strapped to his side, and cut the rope. Von Ribbonrop’s limp body with the black hood still over his head was removed to the far end of the room and placed behind a black canvas curtain.

This had all taken less than 10 minutes. So to those who witnessed the proceedings of the Nuremberg executions, things were much more brutal and less efficient than was hoped. They saw the former Nazis one by one go through the gallows, and each of them different in their defiance and resignation to the Nazi cause.

Some of the men were more virilent than others. Take Udius Striker for example, the terrible editor of the Nazi newspaper Durma. He went to his death kicking and fighting, screaming, “Hal Hitler in the chamber.” This unnerved the witnesses, and he even told the executioner that the Bolevixs will hang you one day. But what happened with his execution really summed up the botching nature of the proceedings.

It was said that 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 standstill. 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 strangled. So John C. Woods, the executioner, had disappeared behind the curtain and then pulled down on Striker’s body, choking the life out of him, and he was the one whose intervention brought Striker’s life to an end, and it would have been chaos.

Contrast that with the execution of Hans Frank, and it was said of his execution that Hansf Frank was next in the parade of death. He was the only one of the condemned to enter the chamber with a smile on his countenance. Although nervous and swallowing frequently, this man who was converted to Roman Catholicism after his arrest, gave the appearance of being relieved and the prospect of atoning for his evil deeds.

He answered his name quietly, and when asked for any last statement, he replied in a low voice that was almost a whisper, “I am thankful for the kind treatment during my captivity, and I asked God to accept me with mercy.” Frank closed his eyes and swallowed as a black hood went over his head. So there was some calm, but it mostly depended on the condemned and their attitudes towards the proceedings.

One by one, the Nuremberg defendants were executed, and the final Nazi plunged through the trap doors at 2:45 a.m. around an hour and a half after the first. Now, the witnesses had known that one man’s execution would not take place that day, Herman Gurings. He had cheated the hangman by taking his own life in his prison cell just hours before.

But still the decision was made by Colonel Andress to display Guring’s body to show the media that the former Reich marshall and the most senior condemned man was in fact dead. It was said of this that with the bodies of Yodel and Sizing Quart still hanging, awaiting formal pronouncement of death.

The gymnasium doors opened again and guards entered carrying Guring’s body on a stretcher. The guards carrying the stretcher set it down between the first and second gallows. Gurling’s big bare feet stuck out from the bottom end of a cary colored United States Army blanket. One blue silk clad arm was hanging over the side.

The colonel in charge of the proceedings ordered the blanket removed so that witnesses and allied correspondents could see for themselves that Guring was definitely dead. The army did not want any legend to develop that Guring had managed to escape. As the blanket came off, it revealed Guring clad in black silk pajamas with a blue jacket shirt over them, and this was soaking wet.

Apparently, the results of efforts by prison doctors to revive him. For those who witnessed the executions, the event was both a grim necessity and a moment of profound historical importance. It was not merely a matter of retribution, but a declaration of justice on behalf of the countless victims of the Holocaust, the war, and Nazi oppression.

The sight of the men who once wielded immense power now facing the gallows served as a reminder of the consequences of tyranny and inhumity. The Nuremberg executions remain one of the most closely examined events of the postwar era. They’ve been scrutinized for their legal, moral, and historical implications. Some critics argue that the trials and executions were examples of victor’s justice, while others see them as an important first step towards building a system of international law that could prevent future atrocities.

The hangings of October the 16th, 1946 have since become symbolic of the world’s determination to confront evil with accountability. They remind us that even the most powerful individuals cannot escape the consequences of their actions when those actions violate the fundamental principles of humanity. To witness the Nuremberg executions was to see history in its starkkest form, the reckoning of a fallen empire, the punishment of its architects, and the assertion of a new moral order that would shape the postwar world.

Following the launching of Operation Barbarasa on the 22nd of June 1941, the largest land invasion in history was launched. Over 10 million soldiers were involved in it and it opened up the Eastern Front of World War II. It wasn’t thought that Hitler would do this as he was focused allegedly on fighting the British and was preparing a land invasion of Britain.

But Barbarosa saw 3.8 8 million Axis soldiers travel into the Western Soviet Union along a 3,000 km front and they were supported by more than 600,000 horses and 600,000 vehicles including tanks. The Eastern Front saw some of the bloodiest fighting of the whole of the war and the deadliest battles took place in the Soviet Union.

However, the Germans and Nazis had a plan of extermination inside of Soviet lands. The Nazis deliberately put to death and starved over a 3 million Soviet PS and civilians in the hunger plan. But the German army also are followed up by death squads of executioners known as the Einats group. These were soldiers who were given orders to round up civilians and then exterminate them in mass executions.

They forced their victims to dig their own graves in mass pits and they were then forced into these and were shot in terrible scenes. Thousands were shot in bigger massacres on the Eastern Front and some villages were burned to the ground too. Many German forces also looted wherever they went and Hitler had given orders for Soviet Bolsheviks to be exterminated and shot on the spot.

The city of Leningrad had a terrible ordeal throughout World War II. It experienced a siege that lasted 872 days and over 1 million people were starved to death in the city. With this roughly 400,000 people who died in the city were children younger than 14 years old and the Germans and also Finnish blockade cut the city off.

Food supplies dwindled as did fuel and other rations and there was nothing to go around. People even turned to eating their own pets and there were even some disturbing accounts of cannibalism from within Leningrad. The situation was dire and it was made worse as Lwafa bombing aircraft dropped tons and tons of bombs and explosives.

This caused much of the city to be a bombed out ruin. And when the siege was eventually lifted, it would be changed forever. The Soviets found people on the edge who had done anything to survive. And inside of Leningrad, there was a belief that the Germans who had blockaded and caused this siege were the ultimate evil.

With this, there was a lot of anger sought against those Germans who were captured. When the Second World War came to an end, there was a need by Allied nations to bring some form of reprisal and punishment against those Nazis who had committed many crimes. Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator, went on the offensive, and he even had some of his enemies executed in public whilst the war was going on.

He thought it would be a propaganda boost for him. And he was right. The Soviet people wanted the blood of the Germans and in Leningrad inside of a public square there were eight Germans who were executed. Most of the men had committed crimes in a nearby region and they were then taken to Leningrad for their trial.

It was a show trial and the cameras captured it. All of the men had practically been sentenced to death before. The most senior commander on trial was Major General Hinrich Reminger, who had ordered soldiers to commit huge amounts of slaughter, and they specifically burned villages to the ground. Reminger was allegedly linked to the deaths of 8,000 people, including women and children, and witnesses testified against him.

His forces also shot around 200 people in Calamasho, and 200 others were burned alive inside buildings in another settlement. One of the other defendants was Captain Struing Carl who shot 25 Soviets and his men also turned machine guns on their enemies. There were many others including Enel Fritz and Urbal Vable who burned seven villages and other forces under his command shot 80 others.

The other defendants had been involved in the same sort of crimes and for their crimes as mentioned they were all condemned to death. Now, inside of Leningrad, the Soviets made sure that the people had a good view of the execution proceedings, and the people wanted the blood of these men who had burned alive, slaughtered, and massacred their neighbors.

Many of the people who flocked that day on the 5th of January, 1946, to see the public executions of the German soldiers had suffered greatly and had been close to death during the siege. The trial had been extensively covered by the local newspapers, so the public knew about their crimes, and they were informed as to what they had done, meaning they wanted their heads.

Near to Kondravski Market, a huge gallows had been created for the executions. The crowd was in its thousands, and everyone had a good view, as possibly even stands had been built to see what was happening. As the condemned were brought out onto a truck beneath the gallows, people heckled and shouted at the men.

Some of the Germans were calm and they were reserved and accepted their fate. General Heinrich Reminger, the most senior officer, was not calm, and he tried to make a break for it. But the guards ensured he did not escape and restrained him well. The truth is, if Reminger had managed to escape and get out, then he would most probably been torn apart by the crowd, and they would have most probably lynched him.

There was no sympathy at all for him and the others and they were incredibly hated. Once the men were on the gallows and stood underneath it, the proceedings zen got underway and an official announced the crimes of each of the men. The Soviet in charge emphasized the fact that these men had slaughtered women and children.

The men were actually stood under the gallows on the back of the trucks and with them were a number of officials including the executioners. The trucks acted as the platform and would be driven off when the noose was secured, leaving the condemned hanging by the neck. The executioners then secured the nooses around the necks of the men, and the trucks began to slowly drive forward.

This left the Germans suspended by their necks, and they were swinging wildly in front of the crowd of thousands. The method of death was slow strangulation. There was no drop to snap the neck and with this the men were struggling and kicking as the air was being choked out of them.

It was a rough sight seeing the men in the struggles of death and there were even children in the crowd who were witnessing this. They were left hanged until they were killed and then the crowds began to disperse after the struggle was over. After this, a number of armed Soviet guards were ordered to protect the gallows and the remains, and some boys actually threw ice and snow at the hanging bodies and then got away with it.

People filed away after this and got on with the rest of their days, and there was for the people of Leningrad some vengeance and revenge against the regime that had brought them so much suffering and pain during World War II. It is not known for certain how much of the war crimes committed by the condemned Germans were exaggerated by the Soviets, but the trial was done for show and as a show of strength for Joseph Stalin.

He wanted his people feeling vindicated for their struggle during the war and he wanted his enemies put to death. The siege of Leningrad was one of the most devastating events of World War II and people became so desperate they stooped to some of the worst behaviors, but they were necessary for survival.

When the German soldiers were left hanging in front of the crowd, to many it felt like revenge and some form of payback for the terror that had been inflicted upon them. Inside many other Soviet towns and cities, this sort of public execution also took place to show people that their enemies were defeated and were being punished.

But to those who witnessed the executions of the eight German soldiers that day in January 1946, they would never forget the scenes. And they would also never forget how they felt when they saw their enemies dangling from the gallows. Thanks for watching. To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe. And once again, thank you so much for watching.