Did Woods botch the Nazi hangings deliberately?
Roman Werpachowski
Woods deliberately caused hanged Nazis to suffer longer than
necessary?
RW
Beachcomber
autobiography) was highly critical of the American "Cowboy Style
Noose" hangings of German War criminals and suggested that he could
have done it better. As far as is known, Mr. Pierrepoint had a 100%
record of success in his career and was not noted for any botched
executions. He personally executed a number of lesser Nazi war
criminals (concentration camp guards and the like). The death
sentences of the major politcal Nazis were carried out by the
Americans.
The suggestion is, by following a detailed "drop table" and using an
eyelit noose instead of the American Cowboy style noose, the prisoner
will die instantly of a broken neck instead of being strangled to
death.
It is interesting to note that pictures of the recent execution of
Saddam used a huge (thick) rope and an American style noose
Ian MacLure
news:1176580814....@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com:
> How much credibility should be given to the accusations that John C.
> Woods deliberately caused hanged Nazis to suffer longer than
> necessary?
Never ascribe to malice what is explicable by mere incompetence.
Woods was reportedly not very bright. Probably thought he knew
better than the professionals.
Mind you given what the Nazis were guilty of I cannot be all
that sypathetic about their "suffering".
IBM
Hugo S. Cunningham
wrote:
>Albert Pierrepoint, the famous British Executioner, (in his
>autobiography) was highly critical of the American "Cowboy Style
>Noose" hangings of German War criminals and suggested that he could
>have done it better. As far as is known, Mr. Pierrepoint had a 100%
>record of success in his career and was not noted for any botched
>executions. He personally executed a number of lesser Nazi war
>criminals (concentration camp guards and the like). The death
>sentences of the major politcal Nazis were carried out by the
>Americans.
>
>The suggestion is, by following a detailed "drop table" and using an
>eyelit noose instead of the American Cowboy style noose, the prisoner
>will die instantly of a broken neck instead of being strangled to
>death.
[...]
I read somewhere that the German style of hanging, even *before* the
Nazis took over, was to kick the victim off a stool so that he would
choke and strangle to death unpleasantly.
Of course I don't intend that to excuse US brutality at Nuremberg;
supposedly we were meant to be better than them, at least when it
would cost us nothing.
--Hugo S. Cunningham
Roman Werpachowski
> Albert Pierrepoint, the famous British Executioner, (in his
> autobiography) was highly critical of the American "Cowboy Style
> Noose" hangings of German War criminals and suggested that he could
> have done it better.
This I know, but Pierrepoint didn't claim that Woods deliberately
chose a worse method, did he?
As far as I know, Woods hanged the Nazis in the same way as the US
Army hanged its servicemen. If this was true, one could not expect
Woods to knowingly attempt to give the Nazis *better* treatment that
he gave to US soldiers he hanged. But if this wasn't a normal US
procedure, than why did he follow it in Nuremberg? And what procedure
did he really us?
Another question: what does "Keitel died after 24 minutes" (if I
remember correctly) really mean? Did he struggle for 24 minutes or was
he pronounced dead after 24 minutes? In thos times, doctors waited for
the heart to stop beating before pronouncing death. This would mean
that the period of agony was much shorter, as the brain often dies
much quicker than the heart.
RW
Andrew Clark
> Mind you given what the Nazis were guilty of I cannot be all
> that sypathetic about their "suffering".
That's precisely, almost verbatim, what Nazis said about Jews, communists,
liberals, habitual criminals, mentally-disabled adults, children born with
deformities...
Michael Kuettner
news:1176626400....@d57g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
http://www.shoa.de/content/view/251/184/
It wasn't Keitel, it was Ribbentrop. It weren't 24 minutes, it were 15
minutes.
The problem were of a technical nature : Too little drop (the neck wasn't
broken),
the trapdoor was too small, etc.
http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/zeitgeschichte/0,1518,459977,00.html
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
Beachcomber
I've read that the American servicemen executed in Britain, were
fitted with the British noose (no multiple loops), but whereas a
British execution was fast and efficient, the Americans insisted on
reading the prisoner his death warrant and this could take many
minutes, thus prolonging the stress on all involved.
If this was true, this was accurately depicted in the opening scene of
the movie "The Dirty Dozen". There were also at least one or two real
hangings in France by the Americans on their own soldiers in Normandy,
mostly for rape and/or murder.
I don't recall Pierrepoint criticizing Woods directly (perhaps it was
the professional courtesy among hangmen - he was said to be a very
polite and thoughtful man), but he did remark that that particular
execution (that of the main Nuremberg principals) was botched with one
or two of the individuals.
Pierrepoint was an interesting man, very proud of his work. Later he
claimed a distaste for capital punishment. Many people are unaware
that, for a period of a few years, he served as Queen Elizabeth II's
head executioner.
Ian MacLure
news:H8udnf6SptaI6r_b...@giganews.com:
No, my remark is predicated on what the individuals in question
did not on who they were.
Big difference.
And since you brought up the Nazi thing you lose. ( Whats the
principle called? ).
Stephen Graham
> And since you brought up the Nazi thing you lose. ( Whats the
> principle called? ).
That would be a misapplication of Godwin's Law. ("As an online
discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis
or Hitler approaches one.")
Given that the thread was about Nazis in a group devoted to discussing
World War Two, the irony of trying to claim victory by such means should
be apparent.
Ian MacLure
news:H8udnf6SptaI6r_b...@giganews.com:
> "Ian MacLure" <i...@svpal.org> wrote
You are I gather aware of which jurisdiction the Nazis got some
of their ideas about eugenics from are you not?
IBM
Andrew Clark
> No, my remark is predicated on what the individuals in question
> did not on who they were.
> Big difference.
You obviously have no idea that the Nazis ascribed all sorts of crimes -
actual acts that they had done - to the classes they persecuted. Even the
disabled babies consumed milk and medicines which would better be given to
others - they were 'useless mouths'.
My point is that basic human rights belong to all humans, not just to the
ones you, or anyone else, think deserve them. Otherwise there is no
fundamental moral difference between the bad guys and the good, merely a
sliding scale of badness. That fundamental principle of law is why Britain
after WW2 gave to even the worst Nazi perpetrators the most humane means of
capital punishment.
> And since you brought up the Nazi thing you lose. ( Whats the
> principle called? ).
I have no idea what you are talking about.
Andrew Clark
> You are I gather aware of which jurisdiction the Nazis got some
> of their ideas about eugenics from are you not?
I'm quite well informed about the pre-war eugenic movement and the roots of
Nazi thinking, yes. But as you clearly have some stunning riposte in mind,
why not go ahead with it? But do be aware that I'm not here to defend any
particular nationality...
jussi....@faf.mil.fi
wrote:
> I read somewhere that the German style of hanging, even *before* the Nazis took
> over, was to kick the victim off a stool so that he would choke and strangle to
> death unpleasantly.
You've read false information, then. According to the penal code of
the Wilhelmine Germany and the Weimar Republic, executions were
carried out by decapitation with guillotine, not hanging.
The Third Reich did introduce hanging by strangulation as a method of
execution and used it extensively, especially in the occupied
territories and concentration camps. Still, the guillotine remained as
the primary method of execution in those capital punishments that were
issued in court - cf. the fate of Sophie Scholl and her comrades.
Cheers,
Jalonen
David Thornley
Andrew Clark <acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>"Ian MacLure" <i...@svpal.org> wrote
>
>> No, my remark is predicated on what the individuals in question
>> did not on who they were.
>> Big difference.
>
>You obviously have no idea that the Nazis ascribed all sorts of crimes -
>actual acts that they had done - to the classes they persecuted.
There is a difference between what somebody is said to have done,
what somebody actually did, and what somebody actually did and was
convicted of in a court of law.
>My point is that basic human rights belong to all humans, not just to the
>ones you, or anyone else, think deserve them.
Certainly. However, given that there are people who suffer needlessly,
some cases bother me less than others.
I am much more sympathetic with what happened to the average European
Jew, or the average child in Hamburg or Dresden, than what happened to
any top Nazi.
>sliding scale of badness. That fundamental principle of law is why Britain
>after WW2 gave to even the worst Nazi perpetrators the most humane means of
>capital punishment.
>
That, and the fact that inflicting suffering is also bad for the
inflicter. It may be necessary to kill somebody, but it is best if
they are killed as humanely as possible.
--
David H. Thornley | If you want my opinion, ask.
da...@thornley.net | If you don't, flee.
http://www.thornley.net/~thornley/david/ | O-
Ian MacLure
> "Ian MacLure" <i...@svpal.org> wrote
>
>> No, my remark is predicated on what the individuals in question
>> did not on who they were.
>> Big difference.
>
> You obviously have no idea that the Nazis ascribed all sorts of crimes -
> actual acts that they had done - to the classes they persecuted. Even
> the disabled babies consumed milk and medicines which would better be
> given to others - they were 'useless mouths'.
I'm well aware of that but fail to see the connection between those
victims and the folks the Nuremburg tribunals convicted of every crime
except waging agressive war ( ostensibly because they couldn't think
of anyway of doing it that wouldn't have landfed the Soviets in the
same dock.
> My point is that basic human rights belong to all humans, not just to
> the ones you, or anyone else, think deserve them. Otherwise there is no
> fundamental moral difference between the bad guys and the good, merely a
> sliding scale of badness. That fundamental principle of law is why
> Britain after WW2 gave to even the worst Nazi perpetrators the most
> humane means of capital punishment.
And now we have neo-Nazis running around. No good deed goes unpunished
I fear.
>
>> And since you brought up the Nazi thing you lose. ( Whats the
>> principle called? ).
>
> I have no idea what you are talking about.
Godwin's Law....
And I stand by my statement. I have zero sympathy for their alleged
suffering at the hands of a bumbling executioner.
IBM
Ian MacLure
Nor am I. I'm simply pointing out that when the Nazis went looking for
eugenics in action they went to Canada, Alberta in particular.
IBM
Andrew Clark
> Nor am I. I'm simply pointing out that when the Nazis went looking for
> eugenics in action they went to Canada, Alberta in particular.
Would you like to say what you mean by this, exactly? And cite the source?
Roman Werpachowski
> "Andrew Clark" <acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote innews:RI6dnYD1HJb...@giganews.com:
> > My point is that basic human rights belong to all humans, not just to
> > the ones you, or anyone else, think deserve them. Otherwise there is no
> > fundamental moral difference between the bad guys and the good, merely a
> > sliding scale of badness. That fundamental principle of law is why
> > Britain after WW2 gave to even the worst Nazi perpetrators the most
> > humane means of capital punishment.
>
> And now we have neo-Nazis running around.
Idiots and psychos will always exist.
> No good deed goes unpunished
> I fear.
If the Allies did not give the Nazi leaders a proper trial and
instead, say, burned them at stakes, we'd have far more followers of
the Nazi legend than we do.
RW
brandon
<roman.werpachow...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 15 Kwi, 07:22, inva...@notreal.none (Beachcomber) wrote:
>
> > Albert Pierrepoint, the famous British Executioner, (in his
> > autobiography) was highly critical of the American "Cowboy Style
> > Noose" hangings of German War criminals and suggested that he could
> > have done it better.
>
> This I know, but Pierrepoint didn't claim that Woods deliberately
> chose a worse method, did he?
>
We have to note that quite a few British hangings right upto the
1950's were also botched (perhaps not at the hands of Pierrepoint) but
it was kept secret until the hangmen started writing memoirs decades
later. British excecutions (unlike American) are not allowed to be
witnessed by the press or the general public. If the Nuremberg
hangings were conducted by the British it would have been in total
secrecy like the Belsen hangings conducted by Pierrepoint.
I remember there was an allegation somewhere that insufficient drop of
5 feet was given to all Nuremberg criminals. This does not appear
correct ,otherwise the over 6 feet tall Ribbentrop and Kaltenbrunner
would not have completely vanished into the trap. There was copious
blood flowing from the nose and mouth of Kietel (can be clearly seen
in pictures of the corpses in the internet) one possible reason during
hangings - apart from banging the head on the edge of the trapdoor -
is aneurism in the head or any such medical complaint which old people
have. If the trapdoor were small , one would wonder how Goering would
have fallen through.
Michael Kuettner
news:1176822585....@b58g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 15, 10:29 pm, "Roman Werpachowski"
> <roman.werpachow...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 15 Kwi, 07:22, inva...@notreal.none (Beachcomber) wrote:
>>
>> > Albert Pierrepoint, the famous British Executioner, (in his
>> > autobiography) was highly critical of the American "Cowboy Style
>> > Noose" hangings of German War criminals and suggested that he could
>> > have done it better.
>>
>> This I know, but Pierrepoint didn't claim that Woods deliberately
>> chose a worse method, did he?
>>
>
>
> We have to note that quite a few British hangings right upto the
> 1950's were also botched (perhaps not at the hands of Pierrepoint) but
> it was kept secret until the hangmen started writing memoirs decades
> later. British excecutions (unlike American) are not allowed to be
> witnessed by the press or the general public. If the Nuremberg
> hangings were conducted by the British it would have been in total
> secrecy like the Belsen hangings conducted by Pierrepoint.
>
> I remember there was an allegation somewhere that insufficient drop of
> 5 feet was given to all Nuremberg criminals. This does not appear
> correct ,otherwise the over 6 feet tall Ribbentrop
Ribbentrop needed 15 minutes to die. See my other post.
> and Kaltenbrunner
> would not have completely vanished into the trap. There was copious
> blood flowing from the nose and mouth of Kietel (can be clearly seen
> in pictures of the corpses in the internet) one possible reason during
> hangings - apart from banging the head on the edge of the trapdoor -
> is aneurism in the head or any such medical complaint which old people
> have. If the trapdoor were small , one would wonder how Goering would
> have fallen through.
>
Goering took Zyankali. He poisoned himself.
So what has that got to do with technical failures of the executions ?
Cheers,
Michael Kuettner
Bill Shatzer
> On Apr 15, 10:29 pm, "Roman Werpachowski"
-snip-
> If the trapdoor were small , one would wonder how Goering would
> have fallen through.
Prison life apparently agreed with Goering - he lost some considerable
weight while incarcerated - and got drug-free to boot.
He was never what you would call "thin" but he was considerably more
svelte at the end than the blimpish caricature of the mid-war years.
Cheers,
Andrew Clark
> I remember there was an allegation somewhere that insufficient drop of
> 5 feet was given to all Nuremberg criminals. This does not appear
> correct ,otherwise the over 6 feet tall Ribbentrop and Kaltenbrunner
> would not have completely vanished into the trap.
You are missing the point, I think. The drop distance is the free-fall
distance through which the body falls, not the total distance between the
platform and ground underneath. The importance of the drop distance is that,
in British hanging, the body must achieve enough terminal velocity for the
knot in the noose to break the spinal vertebra, resulting in instant and
painless death. That is why weight of the victim is also important.
If one is simply going to slowly strangle someone, drop distance is
immaterial.
Robert Sveinson
news:Xns9914D0701B...@216.196.97.131...
Not to mention....................
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-09-14-book-usat_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002/05/02/virginia-eugenics.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization
http://www.notdeadyet.org/eughis.html
http://www.commondreams.org/views/072100-106.htm
> IBM
>
Robert Sveinson
news:f02uig$3mm$1...@registered.motzarella.org...>> I remember there was an
>> 5 feet was given to all Nuremberg criminals. This does not appear
>> correct ,otherwise the over 6 feet tall Ribbentrop
>
> Ribbentrop needed 15 minutes to die. See my other post.
With apologies, I do not believe that anyone hanging from a rope by the neck
would last 15 minutes, no matter where the knot is placed.
I have always hoped that when this subject comes up
that some one with a medical background would
interject.
Questions that I would pose would be:
How long can a person remain awake and alive with the windpipe
clamped shut?
How long can a person remain awake and alive with the
arteries and veins in the neck clamped shut?
I live in hope....................................
Robert
Don Phillipson
>
> > Nor am I. I'm simply pointing out that when the Nazis went looking
for
> > eugenics in action they went to Canada, Alberta in particular.
"Andrew Clark" <acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in message
news:rP2dncLVLJE_Gbnb...@giganews.com...
> Would you like to say what you mean by this, exactly? And cite the source?
Poster IM probably had in mind Alberta laws of the
interwar period that allowed the provincial government
to sterilise people judged genetically harmful. This
practice continued up to approx. 1960 and came to
public attention when a resident sued the province
approx. 1985 for her forced sterilisation when resident
at a provincial mental hospital 20+ years earlier.
There was at the time of the trial. abundant condemnation
of this Nazi or eugenic policy. No evidence was ever
offered that the provincial law had been inspired by
Hitlerian Germany or condemned in the 1930s as
unjust by either lawyers or medical men.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Ian MacLure
A Nazi delegation visited the province of Alberta sometime
in the early 30's to look at their eugenics program.
This is hardly a secret. I'm surprised you didn't know.
IBM
Ian MacLure
[snip]
> If the Allies did not give the Nazi leaders a proper trial and
> instead, say, burned them at stakes, we'd have far more followers of
> the Nazi legend than we do.
Burning at the stake and a botched hanging are hardly the same
thing. The former is clearly within the meaning of "cruel and unusual".
The latter is not. Its bad from a professional standpoint but thats
about it.
IBM
Ian MacLure
news:f03sj4$g28$1...@theodyn.ncf.ca:
[snip]
> Poster IM probably had in mind Alberta laws of the
> interwar period that allowed the provincial government
> to sterilise people judged genetically harmful. This
> practice continued up to approx. 1960 and came to
> public attention when a resident sued the province
AFAIK it was still going on as late as 1970 or so.
> approx. 1985 for her forced sterilisation when resident
> at a provincial mental hospital 20+ years earlier.
> There was at the time of the trial. abundant condemnation
> of this Nazi or eugenic policy. No evidence was ever
> offered that the provincial law had been inspired by
> Hitlerian Germany or condemned in the 1930s as
> unjust by either lawyers or medical men.
T'other way around.
It wasn't inspired by the Nazis.
It inspired the Nazis.
IBM
Andrew Clark
> With apologies, I do not believe that anyone hanging from a rope by the
> neck
> would last 15 minutes, no matter where the knot is placed.
Such incidents - in fact, much longer ones - have been widely and reliably
recorded following botched suicide attempts, when the ligature (rope, wire,
cord, etc) does not crush or flatten the windpipe/trachea, but merely
pinches it. If death does eventually ensue, it is usually because the
struggling victim moves to a position in which the trachea is crushed, or
more commonly from secondary causes like cardiac or respiratory failure. It
is almost impossible to cut off the blood circulation within the neck
without manual means being used.
Note that the purpose of the knot in the British gallows noose is to provide
a solid knob against which the vertebra can be braced by the fall, causing a
clean lateral snap. If the drop is insufficient, the knot can actually
preserve life by preventing compression of the trachea.
Andrew Clark
> A Nazi delegation visited the province of Alberta sometime
> in the early 30's to look at their eugenics program.
Alberta, like many places in the West in the late 1920s, had a negative
eugenics programme involving hospitalisation, sterilisation or restrictions
on marriage, yes. It was the mood of the time.
But the Alberta Sexual Sterilisation Act, originally passed in 1928, was
extensively revised in 1937 to substantially reduce the number of people
caught within its terms, following widespread public and official protest.
No more than a few score people were ever sterilised per annum in Alberta
even in this period. In 1942, the scope of the Act was radically reduced, to
restrict forced sterilisation only to very seriously disabled people with
hereditary diseases, and the Canadian Eugenics Society was closed down by
government action in 1941. I am aware too that the Act was *misused* by some
doctors and officials until the 1960s, but this misuse was clearly against
the intent of the legislators. (Source: University of Toronto Law Journal).
Widespread negative eugenics measures were thus something of a short-lived
phenomenon - one decade; by the later 1930s, Canadian and all the other
Western powers were drastically restricting or abolishing their
sterilisation or marriage-prevention programmes, which was all that negative
eugenics had ever amounted to. But at precisely the same time, the late
1930s, the German medical establishment, under Nazi leadership, was
drastically *widening* the terms of their legislation and ruthlessly
implementing a major programme of forced sterilisations, imprisonment,
starvation and withholding of medical care, and actual murder which
eventually affected hundreds of thousands of disabled people and racial
groups. And, of course, the Germans later went beyond mere eugenics to the
physical murder of entire populations on racial grounds.
Incidentally, I cannot resist mentioning one fact, cited by Alberta
legislators in 1937 when revising the Act: the threshold of mental infirmity
set in the 1928 Act for sterilisation to be a possible option was an IQ of
about 50. This would mean that in Canada, a man might be sterilised and
institutionalised as mentally unfit while, across the border, he would be
entitled to join the Marine Corp!
> This is hardly a secret. I'm surprised you didn't know.
Actually, I have no firm evidence that any delegation from Germany ever
visited Canada to study their eugenics programme. Can you cite a good
source?
Andrew Clark
> No evidence was ever
> offered that the provincial law had been inspired by
> Hitlerian Germany or condemned in the 1930s as
> unjust by either lawyers or medical men.
I don't know about the 1985 trial, but there was abundant criticism of the
Act in Canada and Alberta in 1935-37 such that the original 1928 Act was
thoroughly watered-down. And when Canada went to war, repugnance of Nazi
methods was such that the Canadian Eugenics Society was forcibly repressed
in 1941 and the two provincial sterilisation Acts further reduced in their
effects in 1942.
The intent of the legislators, however, appears to have been evaded by some
doctors and officials who misused the Acts until they were exposed, and the
Acts abolished, in the 1960s.
Beachcomber
>> My point is that basic human rights belong to all humans, not just to
>> the ones you, or anyone else, think deserve them. Otherwise there is no
>> fundamental moral difference between the bad guys and the good, merely a
>> sliding scale of badness. That fundamental principle of law is why
>> Britain after WW2 gave to even the worst Nazi perpetrators the most
>> humane means of capital punishment.
>
>
trying to prove to the world. This one time mass exectution of the
top political and military leaders was a monumental act of
retribution. It was designed to demonstrate to the world that the
victorious Allied powers were not going to put up with this behavior
again.
This official account by one of the reporters, KINGSBURY SMITH
describes the events of October 16, 1946
http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/nuremberg/NurembergNews10_16_46.html
>That fundamental principle of law is why
>>> Britain after WW2 gave to even the worst Nazi perpetrators the most
>>> humane means of capital punishment.
I question the use of the word humane. The reason for choosing
hanging is that it is humiliating to the condemned person. This was
especially true for the German Military prisoners who, under different
circumstances, would probably select the more 'honorable' firing
squad, allowed to take lethal poison, or be given the 'German' chance
with a Lugar to blow their own brains out. ( Of course, the Allies
would have never permitted the latter two methods, but the German
military made frequent use of this method with their own members).
Hanging, perhaps like no other method, puts the condemned person on
display, there is an element of spectacle, and witnesses get to see
directly... will this person die bravely or will they cower before the
noose.
Seems like the victorious side always gets to hang the losers. If
Germany had won, one wonders, would Churchill, Eisenhower, Harris,
and Montgomery be the ones put on trial?
Tarjei Vågstøl
> How long can a person remain awake and alive with the
> arteries and veins in the neck clamped shut?
Does this happen when a person is hanged? From what I gather, blood
strangulation (for instance, when caused by an effective headlock)
causes unconsciousness within seconds.
If hanging is able to clamp the arteries shut, the differences between
the american and british methods are irrelevant -- you don't need to
snap the neck, you just need to cut off the blood to the brain.
Regards,
Tarjei
E.F.Schelby
>"Ian MacLure" <i...@svpal.org> wrote:
>> when the Nazis went looking for eugenics in action they went
>> to Canada, Alberta in particular.
>
> Not to mention....................
US sterilizations of native American women into the 70's...
http://www.du.edu/~rprince/Elizabeth.htm
Regards,
ES
Robert Sveinson
> "Andrew Clark" <acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote in
> news:rP2dncLVLJE_Gbnb...@giganews.com:
>
>> "Ian MacLure" <i...@svpal.org> wrote
>>
>>> Nor am I. I'm simply pointing out that when the Nazis went looking
>>> for
>>> eugenics in action they went to Canada, Alberta in particular.
>>
>> Would you like to say what you mean by this, exactly? And cite the
>> source?
>
> A Nazi delegation visited the province of Alberta sometime
> in the early 30's to look at their eugenics program.
A Nazi delegation visited the state of Virginia sometime
in the early 30s to look at their eugenics program.
Links posted earlier!
This is hardly a secret. I'm surprised you didn't know.
Robert
Robert Sveinson
news:f04lk3$3p1$1...@readme.uio.no...
Thank you!
That was the point that I was trying to make.
In my youth while tussling with some friends,
one of them put his arm around my neck from the rear and squeezed slightly
and to everyones shock and surprise I was rendered unconcious
in seconds. It was completely painless. Fortunately when
I passed out the grip was released immediately and we are still friends.
Robert
>
> Regards,
> Tarjei
>
Andrew Clark
I see we have someone else apologising for the Nazis and cowering behind a
fake e-mail address.
> The first sentence is essentially what the Nuremberg Tribunal was
> trying to prove to the world. This one time mass exectution of the
> top political and military leaders was a monumental act of
> retribution. It was designed to demonstrate to the world that the
> victorious Allied powers were not going to put up with this behavior
> again.
The IMT was anything but a mass execution of Nazi criminals. There were only
24 defendants, of which only 22 stood trial (Krupp was not tried in view of
his age and Ley committed suicide before the trial). Of the 22, 12 were
sentenced to death, 3 to life imprisonment and 4 to determinate periods of
imprisonment of 10 to 20 years, and 3 were acquitted outright.
Acquitting three defendants and releasing one without trial is hardly "a
monumental act of retribution".
On the other hand, the sort of language used by this poster is precisely the
same sort of inaccurate smear used by Nazi apologists seeking to conceal the
reality of Nazi crimes behind a smokescreen of alleged Allied revenge and
victor's justice.
> I question the use of the word humane.
I didn't use the word humane: I used the phrase "most humane". Any method of
execution is by its nature inhumane; the long-drop method of hanging was the
least inhumane of the traditional methods available at the time.
> The reason for choosing
> hanging is that it is humiliating to the condemned person.
What complete tosh. Being shuffled out onto a platform and dropped through a
trapdoor is no more humiliating than being strapped to a board and shot
after an elaborate military ritual, or strapped to a board and having one's
head sliced off, or being strapped to a bed and having poison injected into
one's veins, or any of the other methods.
> This was
> especially true for the German Military prisoners who, under different
> circumstances, would probably select the more 'honorable' firing
> squad, allowed to take lethal poison, or be given the 'German' chance
> with a Lugar to blow their own brains out. ( Of course, the Allies
> would have never permitted the latter two methods, but the German
> military made frequent use of this method with their own members).
Laughable apologia. Hitler had the March 1944 plotters slowly strangled in
wire nooses hung from meat hooks, while being filmed for showing in cinemas
across Germany.
> Hanging, perhaps like no other method, puts the condemned person on
> display, there is an element of spectacle, and witnesses get to see
> directly... will this person die bravely or will they cower before the
> noose.
Witnesses get to see the accused die in all methods of capital punishment,
and there is an element of spectacle in them all. This is foolishness.
> Seems like the victorious side always gets to hang the losers.
Which is why half the Nuremberg defendants were not hung at all, I suppose?
Phooey.
> If Germany had won, one wonders, would Churchill, Eisenhower, Harris,
> and Montgomery be the ones put on trial?
If Germany had won, I have no doubt that tens of millions more would have
died at German hands. But that is not the same as saying that Allied war
leaders were war criminals, which what you are rather pathetically trying to
imply.
Don Phillipson
> Burning at the stake and a botched hanging are hardly the same
> thing. The former is clearly within the meaning of "cruel and
unusual".
In 1945-46 the only statutory proscription against "cruel
and unusual punishment" was that in the US Constitution:
but Nazi war criminals were tried at Nuremburg not under
US law but under (a) internatioal and (b) German law.
Tarjei Vågstøl
>> The reason for choosing
>> hanging is that it is humiliating to the condemned person.
> What complete tosh. Being shuffled out onto a platform and dropped through a
> trapdoor is no more humiliating than being strapped to a board and shot
> after an elaborate military ritual, or strapped to a board and having one's
> head sliced off, or being strapped to a bed and having poison injected into
> one's veins, or any of the other methods.
However, the decision to hang the Nazis instead of putting them in front
of a firing squad sent one important message: They were not be
considered soldiers, but /criminals/. I've no doubt that the Nazis felt
/this/ to be humiliating.
>From a purely medical point of view, a well-done hanging is probably
less painful to the victim than being shot.
Regards,
Tarjei
Rich Rostrom
> Andrew Clark wrote:
>>> The reason for choosing
>>> hanging is that it is humiliating to the condemned person.
>> What complete tosh. Being shuffled out onto a platform and dropped through a
>> trapdoor is no more humiliating than being strapped to a board and shot
>> after an elaborate military ritual... or any of the other methods.
>
>...hang[ing] the Nazis instead of putting them in front of a firing
>squad sent one important message: They were not be considered soldiers,
>but /criminals/. I've no doubt that the Nazis felt /this/ to be humiliating.
There is no doubt about this.
Goering repeatedly asked to be "shot
like a soldier" rather than be hanged.
He took poison to avoid the gallows.
This attitude was not confined to Nazis.
In George Bernard Shaw's 1897 play _The Devil's
Disciple_, the protagonist says to General Burgoyne
I think you might have the decency to treat me as
a prisoner of war, and shoot me like a man instead
of hanging me like a dog.
--
| He had a shorter, more scraggly, and even less |
| flattering beard than Yassir Arafat, and Escalante |
| never conceived that such a thing was possible. |
| -- William Goldman, _Heat_ |
Scott M. Kozel
>
> The reason for choosing
> hanging is that it is humiliating to the condemned person. This was
> especially true for the German Military prisoners who, under different
> circumstances, would probably select the more 'honorable' firing
> squad, allowed to take lethal poison, or be given the 'German' chance
> with a Lugar to blow their own brains out. ( Of course, the Allies
> would have never permitted the latter two methods, but the German
> military made frequent use of this method with their own members).
>
> Hanging, perhaps like no other method, puts the condemned person on
> display, there is an element of spectacle, and witnesses get to see
> directly... will this person die bravely or will they cower before the
> noose.
Hanging is much more humiliating and ignominious. That would be the
correct method to utilize in this case when the sentence is death.
Hanging is the age-old preferred way to execute an evil person, because
it carries a special curse from God.
In Deuteronomy 21:23, it says --
His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any
wise bury him that day; for he that is hanged is accursed of God; that
thy land be not defiled, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an
inheritance.
That verse is not only in the Bible, but also in the Torah and the
Koran.
Andrew Clark
> However, the decision to hang the Nazis instead of putting them in front
> of a firing squad sent one important message: They were not be
> considered soldiers, but /criminals/. I've no doubt that the Nazis felt
> /this/ to be humiliating.
There is such a high degree of hypocrisy in any of the IMT defendants not
regarding themselves as criminals that the matter of humiliation hardly
applies. They *were* criminals by German civil and international law, they
were tried in a civil court and received the normal civil penalties.
Neither is there any legal case.
Firstly, the penalty of execution by shooting was a traditional military one
imposed by courts martial. The IMT was not a courts martial and those
defendants who were serving members of the German armed forces were not on
trial as soldiers or for crimes encompassed by German military law. In
precisely the same way, German soldiers tried by German civil courts for
civil crimes had been hanged or guillotined since 1921.
Secondly, there was not in fact any right in German military law for a
person convicted by court martial to claim death by firing squad anyway. The
method of execution was at the discretion of the courts martial; since 1921,
the Reichsheer had hanged soldiers just as often as it shot them; and Nazi
courts martial had imposed all sorts of odd methods of execution including
the aforesaid strangling with piano wire.
This whole business of "they ought to have been shot as soldiers" is just
apologia (not that this poster is necessarily an apologist).
Michele Armellini
news:ZFrVh.91672$Pi4....@newsfe14.lga...
> >
> > A Nazi delegation visited the province of Alberta sometime
> > in the early 30's to look at their eugenics program.
>
> A Nazi delegation visited the state of Virginia sometime
> in the early 30s to look at their eugenics program.
Fine. But I think the line is getting blurred here. It would be useful to
keep in mind that there is a difference between:
a) sterilizing people who are considered (or whose genes are considered) for
some reason undesirable, and
b) sterilizing mentally disabled women who may be not even able to take care
of themselves, let alone taking care of and rearing children. Especially at
a time when the choice in contraceptive methods was not as wide as today,
and all of those methods required some degree of mental ability.
Since I'm not informed about the Alberta or Virginia programs, I don't know
for sure how much the two issues above weighed in, but I wouldn't be
surprised if point b) had its weight.
Having stated that, the difference between those two points pales in
comparison with the difference between the following two points:
c) sterilizing,
d) murdering.
Talking about sterilization eugenics programs in Virginia or Alberta and
Nazi eugenics programs in Germany in the same breath, sentence, article or
post will always be an implicit lie, unless we always specify that the
Germans went farther than c): they applied option d). The Germans murdered
those who they thought were not fit.
In both cases, of course, it was not so much a matter of eugenics but rather
a matter of bad science supporting political positions and the social
security and state spending policies depending from those political
positions.
But in the case of sterilization programs, one applying them or supporting
them could at least claim he was primarily concerned with the long-term
effects, the gene pool of his country. In the case of the Nazi murder
program, the point was much more getting rid of useless mouths, right then.
brandon
<acl...@nospamstarcott.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> "brandon" <brandon_z2...@yahoo.com> wrote
>
> > I remember there was an allegation somewhere that insufficient drop of
> > 5 feet was given to all Nuremberg criminals. This does not appear
> > correct ,otherwise the over 6 feet tall Ribbentrop and Kaltenbrunner
> > would not have completely vanished into the trap.
>
> You are missing the point, I think. The drop distance is the free-fall
> distance through which the body falls, not the total distance between the
> platform and ground underneath.
I understand what you have correctly observed - the freefall drop -
which is exactly what I am talking about and is measured as the
distance travelled by the head (or any point of the body) between its
position before the drop and after. When I say prisoner completely
vanished into the trap obviously the head has travelled at least a
distance equal to his height to reach the level of the platform.
Pierrpointe used to verify the drop (post-execution) by measuring the
distance from the platform to the feet of the hanging prisoner. There
he is actually calculating the distance travelled by the prisoners
feet. This distance used to be a few inches greater than the given
drop due to stretching of the neck.
Since we dont have the exact record of the drop given to Nazi war
criminals, this way we can at least guess a minimum value of the drop
given to each prisoner, being represented by his height.
Roman Werpachowski
> Seems like the victorious side always gets to hang the losers.
So who was hanged after WW I?
Roman
Beachcomber
>
>
There was a "Hang the Kaiser" movement, mostly in the UK, I believe.
Nothing ever came of it.
However, Kaiser Wilhelm lived in exile in Holland until his death in
1941 and Hitler tried very hard to see that he was ignored.
It seems like the post WWI allies were more interested in war
reparations instead of war crimes.
Roman Werpachowski
> However, the decision to hang the Nazis instead of putting them in front
> of a firing squad sent one important message: They were not be
> considered soldiers, but /criminals/. I've no doubt that the Nazis felt
> /this/ to be humiliating.
So they were humiliated by being considered criminals? It was their
problem, then.
>
> >From a purely medical point of view, a well-done hanging is probably
>
> less painful to the victim than being shot.
A well-done shot is probably not painful too.
Roman
Roman Werpachowski
> >So who was hanged after WW I?
>
> There was a "Hang the Kaiser" movement, mostly in the UK, I believe.
> Nothing ever came of it.
So your claim "the victors always get to hang the losers" is not true.
Case closed, thank you very much.
> It seems like the post WWI allies were more interested in war
> reparations instead of war crimes.
And you see no link between the two?
RW
Tarjei Vågstøl
> So they were humiliated by being considered criminals? It was their
> problem, then.
Indeed.
I don't claim that the hangings were "humiliating punishment". But, from
a nazi perspective, the *civil* case against them can be considered the
ultimate form of humiliation. As Andrew Clack pointed out, the method of
execution merely followed from the nature of the case (as it was not a
court martial).
If the defendants had been given the opportunity of being shot [sic],
the entire message sendt by the trials could have been jeopardized.
But, as you put it: "their problem, then."
Tarjei
Beachcomber
<roman.wer...@gmail.com> wrote:
>On 20 Kwi, 07:32, inva...@notreal.none (Beachcomber) wrote:
>> >So who was hanged after WW I?
>>
>> There was a "Hang the Kaiser" movement, mostly in the UK, I believe.
>> Nothing ever came of it.
>
>So your claim "the victors always get to hang the losers" is not true.
>Case closed, thank you very much.
Well, if you want to argue about it. It is commonly acknowledged that
the UK and France 'hung' up Germany to dry at the Peace Conference of
1919, forcing that country to pay unrealistic war reparations until
'The pips squeaked".
Many historians say that the failure to force a realistic and just
settlement at the time lead to the failed Weimar republic and
eventually the Nazi thirst for revenge.
What was it that Foch said after WWI? (I paraphrase) "...Fools!
You've bought peace for 20 years".
>> It seems like the post WWI allies were more interested in war
>> reparations instead of war crimes.
>
>And you see no link between the two?
>
Just as an aside, I've traveled to and seen for myself the places
where the Germans had done horrendous atrocities during that period in
history. Places like Oradour-sur-Glane, Vercors, Dachau and
Lidice... Places where things that were done were so horrible that,
among the dwindling memory of any remaining survivors, there is no
forgiveness. Nor will there be, ever.
You will not find any sympathy for revisionist history from this
writer.
Beachcomber
Stephen Graham
> Well, if you want to argue about it. It is commonly acknowledged that
> the UK and France 'hung' up Germany to dry at the Peace Conference of
> 1919, forcing that country to pay unrealistic war reparations until
> 'The pips squeaked".
Things to bear in mind:
Germany extracted reparations and territory from France following the
Franco-Prussian War.
Germany extracted reparations plus mass amounts of territory from Russia
in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.
The sum imposed for reparations (269 billion marks, reduced during 1921
to 132 billion marks) should be compared to the internal costs of World
War One for Germany, which amounted to approximately 175 billion marks.
Dwilma
> Questions that I would pose would be:
> How long can a person remain awake and alive with the windpipe
> clamped shut?
> How long can a person remain awake and alive with the
> arteries and veins in the neck clamped shut?
Not long. Seconds. In police training, we practiced on each other the
carotid choke hold where we used the forearm and upper arm to cut off
the carotid arteries to black out the subject (The trachea was
hopefully in the crook of the elbow and not damaged. I believe this
technique has been discredited since 1970.) My own unconsciousness
occurred within two or three seconds. A subject being hanged would
black out before strangling I should think.
David Wilma
www.HistoryLink.org
Merry Maid
out more about this man
jussi....@faf.mil.fi
>
> Fine. But I think the line is getting blurred here. It would be useful to
> keep in mind that there is a difference between:
>
> a) sterilizing people who are considered (or whose genes are considered) for
> some reason undesirable, and
>
> b) sterilizing mentally disabled women who may be not even able to take care
> of themselves, let alone taking care of and rearing children. Especially at
> a time when the choice in contraceptive methods was not as wide as today,
> and all of those methods required some degree of mental ability.
c) sterilizing lower-class people because the social democratic
government just doesn't want to spend its revenue and the national
social insurance to pay child allowances to the more useless citizens.
It's disgusting, never mind what the damn reasoning may be and never
mind where it's taking place . When a government starts to cut off or
disable individual citizen's organs, the line is no longer "blurred",
it has already been crossed.
Cheers,
Jalonen
Michele Armellini
news:1177339347.2...@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> On 19 huhti, 18:13, "Michele Armellini" <miarmelnos...@tin.it> wrote:
> >
> > Fine. But I think the line is getting blurred here. It would be useful
to
> > keep in mind that there is a difference between:
> >
> > a) sterilizing people who are considered (or whose genes are considered)
for
> > some reason undesirable, and
> >
> > b) sterilizing mentally disabled women who may be not even able to take
care
> > of themselves, let alone taking care of and rearing children. Especially
at
> > a time when the choice in contraceptive methods was not as wide as
today,
> > and all of those methods required some degree of mental ability.
>
> c) sterilizing lower-class people because the social democratic
> government just doesn't want to spend its revenue and the national
> social insurance to pay child allowances to the more useless citizens.
>
Frankly I don't think this needs to be listed separately from a). The "some
reason" is the expense for the state.
> It's disgusting, never mind what the damn reasoning may be and never
> mind where it's taking place . When a government starts to cut off or
> disable individual citizen's organs, the line is no longer "blurred",
> it has already been crossed.
A state behaving in that way is certainly violating his citizens' most basic
rights. OK.
Now, the point remains that murdering the citizens is a far worse violation.
It may be a matter of opinions; my humble one is that a line between
mandatory surgery preventing reproduction and plain murder still exists.
Just like the penalties are not the same for a murderer and for a felon
whose violent crime caused permanent disablement.