On the 16th October 1946 inside of the gymnasium
of Nuremberg Prison, the condemned remnants of Hitler’s government and Nazi hierarchy
were led out one by one for their executions.

Amongst the men who were executed were Joachim
von Ribbentrop, the former Nazi foreign minister, Ernst Kaltenbrunner a ruthless SS executioner
and overseer, and also Julius Streicher who was one of the most virulent beasts and supports
of Adolf Hitler.

There was one man who was missing who did
not go through the gallows inside of the execution chamber and that was Hermann Goring.

Goring the Head of the Luftwaffe, and possibly
the most high profile defendant of the Nuremberg Trials had died in the hours before his execution,
as he had consumed a cyanide capsule evading the hangman.

The man who carried out the executions John
C Woods has gained a reputation for being a botching executioner who made a mess of
the proceedings as the condemned were not killed instantly as they plunged through the
drop, but also some hit their heads on the trapdoor as they went through.

However the Nazis were allowed last words
and final statements which were issued on the scaffold and these were heard by priests
and witnesses inside of the rooms.

Some of these phrases were more repentant
than others, and some of the condemned uttered disgusting phrases that showed they were going
to their deaths as ardent a Nazi as they once were.

Welcome to TheUntoldpast, join us today as
we look at the last words of the nuremberg executions and as always to support our channel
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The executions of those condemned Nazis of
the Nuremberg Trials, as in the most senior Nazi war criminals occurred as mentioned inside
the small gymnasium found inside Nuremberg Prison’s courtyard.

There were specifically three gallows which
had been made in the room.

Two of these were to be used by executioner
John C Woods simultaneously so that he could execute them quicker.

The third gallows was to serve as a spare
incase something went wrong, but the whole executions of the nuremberg trials were carried
out within 2 hours.

They were considered botched as there was
a number of problems.

Some of the men took longer than anticipated
to die as the drop did not snap their necks, with the executioner Woods miscalculating
the drop required to do this.

Also some of the men were left bloodied as
they hit their heads as they fell through the trapdoor.

But also inside of the execution chamber were
a number of witnesses who saw the proceedings.

The final words of the condemned were recorded
as they either entered the chamber or as they uttered these on the scaffold.

The men were accompanied by American military
policemen who helped them up the steps of the gallows and recorded final words before
the executioner made his preparations.

Joachim von Ribbentrop was the first of the
men executed after the body of Hermann Goring was showed to the witnesses.

He was the former Minister of Foreign Affairs,
and many believed he was rather incompetent.

He was involved before the war in brokering
a number of pacts with Mussolini’s Italy and also the Soviets, however after 1941 his
influence inside of government declined as the Nazis were at war.

But at the end of the war he was convicted
of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and specifically in his role in starting the
war.

He was the first led towards the gallows and
it was said of his execution, ‘Von Ribbentrop entered the execution chamber at 1:11 a.

m.

Nuremberg time.

He was stopped immediately inside the door
by two Army sergeants who closed in on each side of him and held his arms, while another
sergeant who had followed him in removed manacles from his hands and replaced them with a leather
strap.

It was planned originally to permit the condemned
men to walk from their cells to the execution chamber with their hands free, but all were
manacled immediately following Goering’s suicide.

Von Ribbentrop was able to maintain his apparent
stoicism to the last.

He walked steadily toward the scaffold between
his two guards, but he did not answer at first when an officer standing at the foot of the
gallows went through the formality of asking his name.

When the query was repeated he almost shouted,
‘Joachim von Ribbentrop!’ and then mounted the steps without any sign of hesitation.

When he was turned around on the platform
to face the witnesses, he seemed to clench his teeth and raise his head with the old
arrogance.

When asked whether he had any final message
he said, ‘God protect Germany,’ in German, and then added, ‘May I say something else?’ Joachim von Ribbentrop was allowed to utter
further words, and his final words were recorded as ‘God have mercy on my soul, my final
wish is that Germany should recover her unity and that, for the sake of peace, there should
be an understanding between East and West.

I wish peace to the world.

” But von Ribbentrop was then sent crashing
through the trapdoor at 1:30am.

Following him was Wilhelm Keitel, the most
senior member of the Military and Hitler’s chief of the Oberkommando Der Wehrmacht.

Keitel was considered a lacky of Hitler’s
and he was someone who would do anything to appease Hitler.

Keitel was seen as a major war criminal and
someone who was a main aggressor in the German War effort.

Keitel emerged in the execution chamber two
minutes after Ribbentrop’s trap had been sprung, and his body was hidden behind the
first scaffold.

He was not as tense, and Keitel remained proud
with his head held high as he was taken towards the gallows.

His final words were, ‘”I call on God Almighty
to have mercy on the German people.

More than two million German soldiers went
to their death for the fatherland before me.

I follow now my sons—all for Germany.

” After this, Keitel crashed through the trapdoor
after the noose was secure and a black cap had been placed over his head.

Up next was Ernst Kaltenbrunner, a high ranking
member of the SS.

He served as the Chief of the Reich Security
Main Office and oversaw the Gestapo, Kripo and SD, and was responsible for a significant
part of the genocide conducted by the SS.

He was the highest ranking member of the SS
who was brought to trial, and as he was led up the scaffold he was recorded as saying,
‘”I have loved my German people and my fatherland with a warm heart.

I have done my duty by the laws of my people
and I am sorry my people were led this time by men who were not soldiers and that crimes
were committed of which I had no knowledge.

Germany, good luck.

” He was one of the Nazis of Nuremberg who seemed
to go to his death with solemnity and he wished for a greater Germany one day.

Next up was Alfred Rosenberg, a Nazi theorist
and ideologist who crafted a lot of the Nazi policies that caused such terror and persecution.

He was one of the main authors of the persecution
of the jews policies, as well as other ideas such as Lebensraum.

He was tried of all four counts and was also
linked to being a planner in the Invasion of Norway, but his final words on the scaffold
were possibly the most underwhelming.

When he was asked if he had anything to say,
he replied with simply ‘No’ and this was it.

Hans Frank when he entered the execution chamber
smiled, and he seemed nervous as he approached the scaffold.

He had converted to Catholicism in prison,
and he was a man who served as the Head of the General Government in occupied Poland,
and he instilled a reign of terror into the nation, and oversaw four extermination camps.

On the scaffold his final words were stated
to have been, ‘I am thankful for the kind treatment during my captivity, and I ask God
to accept me with mercy.

’ Wilhelm Frick was sixth to go through the
trapdoor, and he was the Minister of Interior in Adolf Hitler’s cabinet, and he was involved
in creating many of the laws in Germany including the Nuremberg laws that persecuted Jews.

His final words on the scaffold were short,
and he said ‘Long Live eternal Germany,’ Julius Streicher emerged in the execution
chamber 7th of the condemned Nazis and he was brought in struggling and shouting antisemitic
vitriol.

He may have even offered a final Hitler salute
towards the witnesses, and he was the horrific editor of Der Sturmer newspaper.

His final words were ‘Adele my dear wife,’
but he struggled and put up more of a fight than the other Nazis.

Fritz Sauckel emerged after Streicher, and
he claimed on the scaffold that, ‘I am dying innocent, the sentence is wrong.

God protect Germany and make Germany Great
again, Long live Germany, god protect my family.

’ Sauckel was involved in Labour deployment
and slave labour programmes, and he would in his final moments protest his innocent
but of course this did nothing and very little to actually spare him from the gallows as
John C Woods secured the noose around his neck.

He believed he had been condemned by the victors
of the war.

Alfred Jodl was the penultimate man to be
brought to the gallows.

He wore a black coat of his Wehrmacht uniform
which had been hurriedly put on, and Jodl was very nervous as he made his way into the
execution chamber.

He was haggard as he walked, and he was then
helped up the steps and his final words were ‘My greetings to you, my Germany,’ before
he plunged through the gallows.

But the final execution that was carried out
was upon Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the Chancellor of Austria before the Anschluss.

He held a number of different positions inside
of the Third Reich, and he was also made the Reichskommisar of the occupied Netherlands.

He was responsible for instigating a reign
of terror inside of the land, and he subjected many people to forced labour and thousands
were deported to concentration camps where they were slaughtered.

As he was helped up the scaffold, Seyss-Inquart
seemed to be rather reflective on his execution and impending doom.

He stated as his final words, ‘”I hope that
this execution is the last act of the tragedy of the Second World War and that the lesson
taken from this world war will be that peace and understanding should exist between peoples.

I believe in Germany.

” Within a couple of hours, the 10 executed
men of the Nuremberg Trials had been killed and they were then placed inside of coffins
ready to be cremated.

These were the final remnants of Hitler’s
government, and in the years after there would be others who were brought to trials and were
executed.

Nuremberg was the most high profile set of
executions.

Many of the men who were sent through the
trapdoor were reflective on their time in government, and some believed that they had
been victims of a miscarriage of justice and that they were being condemned for their role
on the losing side of the Second World War, being put to death for Allied propaganda rather
than their actions and crimes.

But their last words were the final thoughts
of some of the Second World War’s most barbaric war criminals.

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