1
00:00:02,080 --> 00:00:06,360
Speaker 1: Hello Internet, I'm Robert Evans, hosted Behind the Bastards, and

2
00:00:06,400 --> 00:00:09,360
Speaker 1: I still don't know how to introduce my podcast now

3
00:00:09,400 --> 00:00:12,799
Speaker 1: that we're transitioning to a new introduction. But that doesn't

4
00:00:12,840 --> 00:00:17,200
Speaker 1: matter because today we have a rip roaring episode about

5
00:00:17,200 --> 00:00:20,640
Speaker 1: a terrible person from history and helping me to tell

6
00:00:20,680 --> 00:00:24,279
Speaker 1: that tale. Will be my guest today, Courtney Kozak, co

7
00:00:24,440 --> 00:00:28,160
Speaker 1: host of the Private Parts Unknown podcast, which is also

8
00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:33,159
Speaker 1: co hosted by Sophia Alexandria, are our frequent guest. Uh, Courtney,

9
00:00:33,159 --> 00:00:36,360
Speaker 1: how are you feeling today? I'm excited to be here, Robert,

10
00:00:36,400 --> 00:00:44,360
Speaker 1: thank you for having me indulging my bastard worship. Now

11
00:00:44,440 --> 00:00:47,480
Speaker 1: what bastards do you mostly worship? You know, I got

12
00:00:47,479 --> 00:00:49,720
Speaker 1: into it. I think I got into it through the

13
00:00:49,800 --> 00:00:55,200
Speaker 1: standard gateway of a good old Hitler worship. Good old Hitler. Yeah,

14
00:00:55,320 --> 00:00:58,920
Speaker 1: we all love us a Hitler. Yeah. Yeah, And then

15
00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:04,520
Speaker 1: I mostly worship through your show. That's my Yeah. Well

16
00:01:04,520 --> 00:01:07,200
Speaker 1: who's okay? Well who's been? If who's who's been your

17
00:01:07,240 --> 00:01:11,480
Speaker 1: favorite bastard we've covered recently? You know, I am so

18
00:01:11,560 --> 00:01:17,360
Speaker 1: freaked out about climate change? So what was? Yes, Yeah,

19
00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:19,640
Speaker 1: that was. He's a real piece of ship. He is

20
00:01:20,319 --> 00:01:24,000
Speaker 1: he's ruining us. Well, today we have a lighthearted episode, um,

21
00:01:24,080 --> 00:01:26,840
Speaker 1: because I think things are getting real serious and I

22
00:01:26,840 --> 00:01:29,360
Speaker 1: think we all need to relax. So today we're going

23
00:01:29,400 --> 00:01:32,679
Speaker 1: to talk about a hangman um who was a terrible

24
00:01:32,760 --> 00:01:37,119
Speaker 1: hangman um, but the people he was hanging were all Nazis.

25
00:01:37,720 --> 00:01:41,399
Speaker 1: So even though he definitely qualifies as kind of a bastard,

26
00:01:41,959 --> 00:01:45,480
Speaker 1: the victims are Nazis. So we're okay, like this like

27
00:01:45,520 --> 00:01:51,040
Speaker 1: a Dexter, Yeah, totally, yeah, if Dexter was like known

28
00:01:51,080 --> 00:01:58,040
Speaker 1: by his incompetence rather than his hypercompetence, totally. Yeah. I

29
00:01:58,040 --> 00:02:00,440
Speaker 1: don't think this guy meant to do most to well,

30
00:02:00,560 --> 00:02:02,480
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's debatable. We'll see how you feel.

31
00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:04,640
Speaker 1: I was going to ask you, what do you think

32
00:02:04,720 --> 00:02:09,120
Speaker 1: is the most common thread between all the bastards? Is

33
00:02:09,120 --> 00:02:16,200
Speaker 1: it psychopathy? I think I think it's relentless self confidence.

34
00:02:17,120 --> 00:02:21,120
Speaker 1: Ah yeah, that makes I think all of the worst

35
00:02:21,160 --> 00:02:24,200
Speaker 1: people in history, that's the driving factor is they really

36
00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:29,400
Speaker 1: believe in themselves. Damn it, we're really fostering that in

37
00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:33,000
Speaker 1: our current system, like everybody gets a first place metal.

38
00:02:33,440 --> 00:02:36,960
Speaker 1: I you know, yeah, maybe, I don't know. I do

39
00:02:37,080 --> 00:02:39,800
Speaker 1: think that that is one of the one of the

40
00:02:39,840 --> 00:02:45,920
Speaker 1: One of the consequences of are are focusing on people's

41
00:02:45,919 --> 00:02:48,120
Speaker 1: self esteem is that all of the worst people in

42
00:02:48,200 --> 00:02:52,079
Speaker 1: history had had great self esteem. Um. You know, Hitler

43
00:02:52,160 --> 00:02:54,040
Speaker 1: was a guy who really believed in himself and his

44
00:02:54,080 --> 00:02:57,000
Speaker 1: ability to change the world. It's like if you you

45
00:02:57,000 --> 00:02:59,280
Speaker 1: look at all of those like like new age memes

46
00:02:59,280 --> 00:03:02,920
Speaker 1: that get spread on Twitter about like visualizing your future

47
00:03:03,080 --> 00:03:05,440
Speaker 1: and like making it happen, and like how you can

48
00:03:05,600 --> 00:03:07,600
Speaker 1: you can accomplish anything if you set your mind to it.

49
00:03:07,639 --> 00:03:10,240
Speaker 1: And it's like that's great when you're thinking about like

50
00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:12,880
Speaker 1: your friend who wants to like open up her own

51
00:03:13,280 --> 00:03:18,440
Speaker 1: like h or whatever, yoga studio, who wants to start

52
00:03:18,440 --> 00:03:24,800
Speaker 1: a bar, But like there's also Hitler's out there, yeah, um,

53
00:03:24,840 --> 00:03:28,800
Speaker 1: and they have great follow through. Um. But you know,

54
00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:34,240
Speaker 1: our story today starts when the follow through, uh stops

55
00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:40,119
Speaker 1: following through on May seven, when General Alfred Yodel, representing

56
00:03:40,160 --> 00:03:43,279
Speaker 1: the German High Command, presented the Allies with the unconditional

57
00:03:43,320 --> 00:03:46,560
Speaker 1: surrender of his nation and its armed forces. So we

58
00:03:46,600 --> 00:03:49,960
Speaker 1: are we are starting at the end of Nazism today,

59
00:03:50,600 --> 00:03:54,200
Speaker 1: which is a nice little change of pace. H Yeah,

60
00:03:54,560 --> 00:03:58,040
Speaker 1: what year is it? Yeah? Never came back forty five

61
00:03:58,200 --> 00:04:01,080
Speaker 1: May seven. That was the end of the war in

62
00:04:01,080 --> 00:04:06,040
Speaker 1: in Europe. Yeah, officially so. In the wake of Germany's defeat,

63
00:04:06,080 --> 00:04:08,240
Speaker 1: many of its top Nazis where, of course, while beyond

64
00:04:08,280 --> 00:04:11,360
Speaker 1: the reach of justice. Adolf Hitler had of course shot himself.

65
00:04:11,680 --> 00:04:14,280
Speaker 1: Joseph Gebels had blown himself and his wife up with

66
00:04:14,320 --> 00:04:17,799
Speaker 1: a grenade. Heinrich Himler had been captured, but had chosen

67
00:04:17,839 --> 00:04:20,120
Speaker 1: to eat poison rather than face up to his crimes.

68
00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:23,640
Speaker 1: But a lot of high ranking Nazis had been caught.

69
00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:27,880
Speaker 1: There was Herman Gerring, who was the head of the

70
00:04:27,960 --> 00:04:31,039
Speaker 1: Liftwaffe and like the former like second in command to

71
00:04:31,320 --> 00:04:34,600
Speaker 1: uh to Adolf Hitler, um he got taken alive. Also

72
00:04:34,680 --> 00:04:37,640
Speaker 1: taken was Julius Striker, editor of Dear Schirmer and the

73
00:04:37,640 --> 00:04:41,039
Speaker 1: man most responsible for shaping the party's early propaganda efforts.

74
00:04:41,360 --> 00:04:43,880
Speaker 1: We don't talk about Striker a lot because, like Gebels

75
00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:47,039
Speaker 1: became a big name. But Striker was like kind of

76
00:04:47,080 --> 00:04:49,640
Speaker 1: the Steve Bannon of the Third Reich, Like he was

77
00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:52,680
Speaker 1: the first like propaganda head who like really got like

78
00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:55,200
Speaker 1: their messaging and shipped on point. And they kind of

79
00:04:55,279 --> 00:04:57,200
Speaker 1: dumped him once they got into power because he was

80
00:04:57,240 --> 00:05:00,279
Speaker 1: a huge asshole. Um, but he was. He was real

81
00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:03,120
Speaker 1: critical figure and like the Night of Long Knives and

82
00:05:03,440 --> 00:05:05,840
Speaker 1: helping to ignite a lot of anti Jewish hatred. So

83
00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:08,719
Speaker 1: people wanted him, Like it's good that he got captured,

84
00:05:08,760 --> 00:05:10,640
Speaker 1: even though he was kind of out of the picture

85
00:05:10,680 --> 00:05:12,560
Speaker 1: for most of the forties in a real way. So

86
00:05:12,720 --> 00:05:15,000
Speaker 1: you still pay the price if you're a bastard early

87
00:05:15,040 --> 00:05:17,360
Speaker 1: on and you get out of there. Yeah, I think

88
00:05:17,400 --> 00:05:20,000
Speaker 1: so you wouldn't we would you want a guy Like

89
00:05:20,040 --> 00:05:22,560
Speaker 1: if someone like in nineteen forty five was like, hey man,

90
00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:25,720
Speaker 1: I stopped being a Nazi in nineteen forty Uh, Like

91
00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:29,640
Speaker 1: you wouldn't be like, well, all right, you missed the

92
00:05:29,640 --> 00:05:32,279
Speaker 1: worst year. You get a pass. I would love to

93
00:05:32,320 --> 00:05:34,560
Speaker 1: give people a pass, you know what I mean. If

94
00:05:34,600 --> 00:05:37,760
Speaker 1: it's like, if you'll just stop being an asshole, we'll

95
00:05:37,839 --> 00:05:41,039
Speaker 1: let you We'll let you go. I mean there's a

96
00:05:41,080 --> 00:05:43,960
Speaker 1: point at which that's okay. Like, uh, if you're a

97
00:05:43,960 --> 00:05:47,359
Speaker 1: guy who like marches around with a Nazi organization for

98
00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:49,440
Speaker 1: a while a couple of years, but you don't like

99
00:05:49,920 --> 00:05:52,839
Speaker 1: participate in any attacks, you don't like sell anybody any guns,

100
00:05:52,839 --> 00:05:55,080
Speaker 1: you don't kill anybody, and you're like, oh, this is

101
00:05:55,080 --> 00:05:57,400
Speaker 1: fucked up and you leave Like fine, I don't, I don't.

102
00:05:57,480 --> 00:06:01,520
Speaker 1: I don't want you to uh be like murdered or anything.

103
00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:04,440
Speaker 1: But like at the point at which the Holocaust happens,

104
00:06:04,480 --> 00:06:07,320
Speaker 1: I feel like the guys who you know, weren't as

105
00:06:07,360 --> 00:06:10,719
Speaker 1: active later in the Reich like still fuck you, dude,

106
00:06:10,720 --> 00:06:13,960
Speaker 1: Like yeah, you can still pay with your life. And

107
00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:15,960
Speaker 1: you know there was an element of this that was

108
00:06:17,200 --> 00:06:20,440
Speaker 1: they led a lot of top Nazis off. Actually, like

109
00:06:20,640 --> 00:06:24,200
Speaker 1: the prosecute, even of the Nazis that we caught or

110
00:06:24,240 --> 00:06:29,680
Speaker 1: who survived the war. Um, the prosecution wasn't particularly thorough. Um. Famously,

111
00:06:29,680 --> 00:06:33,520
Speaker 1: Adolf Eichmann, who was the main logistical mind behind the Holocaust,

112
00:06:33,560 --> 00:06:36,240
Speaker 1: fled to South America. He was eventually caught and tried,

113
00:06:36,320 --> 00:06:41,760
Speaker 1: but not for years later. Dr Mangela, the infamous doctor Death, escaped. Um.

114
00:06:41,800 --> 00:06:45,120
Speaker 1: But like also like like those are kind of more

115
00:06:45,160 --> 00:06:49,039
Speaker 1: famous cases. Um. Have you ever heard of the Eisset scrouping? No?

116
00:06:50,360 --> 00:06:53,760
Speaker 1: I just read about some guy though that had escaped

117
00:06:54,160 --> 00:06:57,479
Speaker 1: and was living in Ohio. Did you read about this?

118
00:06:57,520 --> 00:07:00,200
Speaker 1: It was a news story couple weeks ago. But he's

119
00:07:00,240 --> 00:07:04,040
Speaker 1: been living like a regular life in Ohio for like years,

120
00:07:04,960 --> 00:07:07,360
Speaker 1: wasn't he a Nazi? Yeah, yeah, I think it was

121
00:07:07,400 --> 00:07:10,000
Speaker 1: a concentration camp guard. Usually when you hear about those

122
00:07:10,040 --> 00:07:11,960
Speaker 1: guys who made it to a super old age, they

123
00:07:11,960 --> 00:07:16,440
Speaker 1: were either concentration cap guards or insets grouping dudes, and

124
00:07:16,480 --> 00:07:19,800
Speaker 1: those were like mobile German military units during the invasion

125
00:07:19,840 --> 00:07:22,440
Speaker 1: of Russia who just like shot hundreds of tens, like

126
00:07:22,480 --> 00:07:24,920
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of people in single actions to death,

127
00:07:24,960 --> 00:07:28,200
Speaker 1: like they were the first stage of the Holocaust, and

128
00:07:28,320 --> 00:07:30,960
Speaker 1: the vast majority of like we captured those guys, we

129
00:07:31,000 --> 00:07:33,480
Speaker 1: had documentation on what they did, and we just let

130
00:07:33,480 --> 00:07:35,120
Speaker 1: most of them go, and a lot of them were

131
00:07:35,160 --> 00:07:38,680
Speaker 1: able to immigrate later. Like there's some really crazy stories.

132
00:07:38,680 --> 00:07:41,400
Speaker 1: There were even like one or two s S members

133
00:07:41,720 --> 00:07:44,360
Speaker 1: who later joined the US military, Like one of them

134
00:07:44,360 --> 00:07:47,960
Speaker 1: died fighting in Vietnam. Like it's we didn't prosecute most

135
00:07:48,000 --> 00:07:51,880
Speaker 1: of these guys. Hilarious. Yeah, So when you get a

136
00:07:51,880 --> 00:07:56,240
Speaker 1: guy like Striker like arrested and tried, like you can say, like, well,

137
00:07:56,280 --> 00:07:59,080
Speaker 1: he wasn't really a part of the later parties efforts,

138
00:07:59,120 --> 00:08:01,720
Speaker 1: but also like suck him. You gotta get rid of

139
00:08:01,720 --> 00:08:03,760
Speaker 1: all these people, like you hat, you gotta punish him

140
00:08:03,760 --> 00:08:06,720
Speaker 1: when you can Um, and it was kind of random,

141
00:08:06,800 --> 00:08:09,640
Speaker 1: like they chose not to arrest and punish more of

142
00:08:09,640 --> 00:08:12,480
Speaker 1: the Einsetz group. And because they only had so many

143
00:08:12,600 --> 00:08:15,720
Speaker 1: chairs in the courtroom in Nuremberg, and they didn't want

144
00:08:15,720 --> 00:08:19,280
Speaker 1: to like get more chairs, They're like, we need a

145
00:08:19,320 --> 00:08:23,160
Speaker 1: stadium for all these guys. Yeah, it was a little

146
00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:24,720
Speaker 1: It wasn't just like they wouldn't want to drag in

147
00:08:24,800 --> 00:08:26,960
Speaker 1: more chairs. It was like the court was only made

148
00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:29,400
Speaker 1: to hold so many defendants, so they limited the number

149
00:08:29,400 --> 00:08:32,640
Speaker 1: of people they tried. But it's ridiculous, like you build

150
00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:37,800
Speaker 1: a bigger court. It's World War two. So also captured

151
00:08:37,840 --> 00:08:41,600
Speaker 1: was Field Marshal William Kitel, Hitler's yes man General Um.

152
00:08:41,720 --> 00:08:44,360
Speaker 1: During the invasion of Poland, Kitel had issued criminal orders

153
00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:46,720
Speaker 1: that had allowed the arrest and execution of Jews and

154
00:08:46,720 --> 00:08:51,000
Speaker 1: other civilian noncombatants. While Kitel was not an enthusiastic backer

155
00:08:51,040 --> 00:08:53,720
Speaker 1: of the Holocaust, he gave orders that required the Wehrmach

156
00:08:53,760 --> 00:08:56,600
Speaker 1: to the German military to aid in the extermination of

157
00:08:56,679 --> 00:08:59,000
Speaker 1: Jews captured in the Eastern Front and send them to

158
00:08:59,040 --> 00:09:01,480
Speaker 1: death camps. So he's like a perfect example of the

159
00:09:01,520 --> 00:09:04,559
Speaker 1: fundamental moral cowardice at the heart of the German military.

160
00:09:04,800 --> 00:09:06,600
Speaker 1: He was not a guy who would have been a

161
00:09:06,679 --> 00:09:08,880
Speaker 1: Nazi if he hadn't have had to be in But

162
00:09:08,920 --> 00:09:11,400
Speaker 1: he was a Nazi because it was good for his

163
00:09:11,520 --> 00:09:14,560
Speaker 1: career and he didn't want to have his soldiers wipe

164
00:09:14,559 --> 00:09:17,200
Speaker 1: out innocent people. But he also didn't care enough about

165
00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:19,400
Speaker 1: it to stop it from happening, and he gave them

166
00:09:19,480 --> 00:09:23,600
Speaker 1: orders to do so because he was that was his job.

167
00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:26,120
Speaker 1: He thought thought it was justified by that. So he's

168
00:09:26,160 --> 00:09:28,200
Speaker 1: a piece of ship, but in a different way than

169
00:09:28,240 --> 00:09:31,520
Speaker 1: like one of the Nazis who's like rapidly champing at

170
00:09:31,520 --> 00:09:34,440
Speaker 1: the bit to kill, you know, Jewish people. Like. In

171
00:09:34,480 --> 00:09:36,760
Speaker 1: some ways, he's even worse because at least that Nazi

172
00:09:36,880 --> 00:09:41,360
Speaker 1: like believes in something right. And Kai tells like, I'm

173
00:09:41,360 --> 00:09:44,439
Speaker 1: just not gonna I'm not gonna fight this because I

174
00:09:44,440 --> 00:09:46,800
Speaker 1: I think my job as a German general is more important.

175
00:09:46,840 --> 00:09:48,839
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's a complicated moral issue. But he's

176
00:09:48,840 --> 00:09:51,640
Speaker 1: a piece of ship for sure. But our our guy,

177
00:09:51,760 --> 00:09:56,520
Speaker 1: our main guy, is our is the Steve Bannon comparison, right, Well,

178
00:09:56,559 --> 00:09:58,719
Speaker 1: he's he's he's one of them. He's definitely the one

179
00:09:58,800 --> 00:10:02,160
Speaker 1: I think is most copable of the guys who get

180
00:10:02,240 --> 00:10:04,920
Speaker 1: the two who are most copable in genocide of the

181
00:10:04,960 --> 00:10:08,640
Speaker 1: people who are tried at Nuremberg are Julius Stryker and

182
00:10:08,640 --> 00:10:10,520
Speaker 1: and Hermann Gerring. When you're talking about like the guys

183
00:10:10,520 --> 00:10:12,520
Speaker 1: at the top level of the of the party who

184
00:10:12,520 --> 00:10:15,160
Speaker 1: are who are responsible? Now, there were other guys too.

185
00:10:15,240 --> 00:10:18,040
Speaker 1: Like one of the people captured was Ernst Calton Brenner. Uh.

186
00:10:18,080 --> 00:10:20,600
Speaker 1: He's the man who had succeeded Reinhardt Hydrick, who was

187
00:10:20,880 --> 00:10:23,920
Speaker 1: the architect of the Holocaust. Hydrick was assassinated in like

188
00:10:23,960 --> 00:10:26,960
Speaker 1: forty two, but he planned the Holocaust uh And Calton

189
00:10:27,000 --> 00:10:29,640
Speaker 1: Brenner was the guy who took his job afterwards as

190
00:10:29,679 --> 00:10:31,920
Speaker 1: head of the Reich Security Main Office, so he was

191
00:10:31,960 --> 00:10:35,520
Speaker 1: a major architect of the Holocaust. UM. Another was Hans

192
00:10:35,559 --> 00:10:38,440
Speaker 1: Frank uh an o G Nazi, a former member of

193
00:10:38,440 --> 00:10:41,160
Speaker 1: the Tool Occult Society and the governor of Poland under

194
00:10:41,200 --> 00:10:45,080
Speaker 1: the Nazi regime. Uh Frank had been basically like the

195
00:10:45,120 --> 00:10:48,520
Speaker 1: guy who had helped to organize the execution of Poland's

196
00:10:48,559 --> 00:10:50,800
Speaker 1: Jewish population because he was in charge of Poland once

197
00:10:50,800 --> 00:10:54,719
Speaker 1: the Nazis took over. So he's a big bad guy too. UM.

198
00:10:54,760 --> 00:10:57,920
Speaker 1: And then you've got Joachim von Ribbentrop, who was Hitler's

199
00:10:57,960 --> 00:11:00,960
Speaker 1: diplomatic emissary and like the guy in charge of his

200
00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:04,400
Speaker 1: plan to kind of try to navigate international diplomacy to

201
00:11:04,440 --> 00:11:07,240
Speaker 1: get what the Nazis wanted before the war started. So

202
00:11:07,360 --> 00:11:09,120
Speaker 1: like a lot of bad guys. In short, like you

203
00:11:09,200 --> 00:11:11,960
Speaker 1: got a lot of really shitty dudes who need to

204
00:11:11,960 --> 00:11:14,880
Speaker 1: be punished, and you know, you miss most of the

205
00:11:14,920 --> 00:11:17,400
Speaker 1: heavy hitters, but like it's still a pretty solid docket

206
00:11:17,400 --> 00:11:21,840
Speaker 1: of people who need to be punished, right, Yeah, yeah,

207
00:11:22,240 --> 00:11:25,199
Speaker 1: let's how Yeah, wasn't there a lot of you said

208
00:11:25,280 --> 00:11:28,800
Speaker 1: some one of the guys fled to South America? Didn't

209
00:11:28,840 --> 00:11:33,720
Speaker 1: a lot of them go? Yeah? Yeah, a lot of

210
00:11:33,720 --> 00:11:37,840
Speaker 1: them went to Brazil, to Argentina, um Bolivia, and in fact,

211
00:11:37,880 --> 00:11:40,720
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, um ernst Rome, who was the head of

212
00:11:40,760 --> 00:11:44,240
Speaker 1: the brown Shirts before the Nazis came to power. He

213
00:11:44,280 --> 00:11:46,840
Speaker 1: was executed by Hitler shortly after they came to power

214
00:11:46,840 --> 00:11:49,559
Speaker 1: because he was like seen as kind of an unstable guy.

215
00:11:49,600 --> 00:11:51,280
Speaker 1: But he was a big part of the Nazis coming

216
00:11:51,320 --> 00:11:54,160
Speaker 1: to power. He like organized their street fighting movement and

217
00:11:54,200 --> 00:11:57,800
Speaker 1: stuff in the years when they were rising. Um at

218
00:11:57,800 --> 00:12:01,360
Speaker 1: one point he had like a falling out with Hitler

219
00:12:01,600 --> 00:12:03,840
Speaker 1: and he moved to Bolivia for a couple of years

220
00:12:03,840 --> 00:12:07,560
Speaker 1: to train the Bolivian military. Um. So like that there,

221
00:12:07,600 --> 00:12:09,920
Speaker 1: and like there's still echoes of that in the Bolivian

222
00:12:10,320 --> 00:12:13,000
Speaker 1: like government and stuff today. The fact that this like

223
00:12:13,120 --> 00:12:15,880
Speaker 1: Nazi was a major architect of like the security state

224
00:12:15,920 --> 00:12:18,720
Speaker 1: over there's wild that's so funny. It's like they're a

225
00:12:18,720 --> 00:12:20,720
Speaker 1: band and he's like, Okay, I'm gonna go do my

226
00:12:20,760 --> 00:12:23,640
Speaker 1: own thing in Bolivia. Man, this is working out for

227
00:12:23,720 --> 00:12:28,280
Speaker 1: me in Germany. And in fact, Ernst Rome is often

228
00:12:28,320 --> 00:12:33,840
Speaker 1: called the John Lennon of Nazism and he was shot early. Yeah,

229
00:12:33,880 --> 00:12:36,360
Speaker 1: so yeah, it really really actually does check out quite

230
00:12:36,360 --> 00:12:40,480
Speaker 1: a lot. So where we are at the start of this,

231
00:12:42,480 --> 00:12:45,560
Speaker 1: We've arrested a bunch of top Nazis, uh, and no

232
00:12:45,600 --> 00:12:48,360
Speaker 1: one's really sure what to do with them, right, So,

233
00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:52,640
Speaker 1: like it's clear that the Germans have committed war crimes

234
00:12:52,679 --> 00:12:56,920
Speaker 1: on a historical scale, but like what does that mean

235
00:12:57,160 --> 00:13:00,160
Speaker 1: in terms of what kind of actions you take? Like

236
00:13:00,240 --> 00:13:02,600
Speaker 1: people thought that there should be a trial, but how

237
00:13:02,600 --> 00:13:04,920
Speaker 1: do you try them? Whose laws do you try these

238
00:13:04,920 --> 00:13:08,480
Speaker 1: people under? There's no international legal system in a meaningful

239
00:13:08,520 --> 00:13:10,960
Speaker 1: sense of the word at this point certainly not one

240
00:13:11,400 --> 00:13:14,560
Speaker 1: that presents like the underpinnings of how you would try people.

241
00:13:14,840 --> 00:13:17,400
Speaker 1: Do they have rules about war crimes at this time, Yeah,

242
00:13:17,440 --> 00:13:20,240
Speaker 1: but they weren't really enforced and it was never really

243
00:13:20,280 --> 00:13:22,839
Speaker 1: clear what you were supposed to do in a lot

244
00:13:22,840 --> 00:13:25,320
Speaker 1: of cases, Like they had rules against we talked about

245
00:13:25,360 --> 00:13:28,280
Speaker 1: this in a recent episode, the rules against using chemical weapons,

246
00:13:28,320 --> 00:13:30,840
Speaker 1: but then Italy used chemical weapons on Ethiopia and no

247
00:13:30,880 --> 00:13:33,080
Speaker 1: one did anything. It was It's kind of like when

248
00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:36,920
Speaker 1: Obama made his redline on Syria. It's like, we're clear,

249
00:13:36,960 --> 00:13:38,840
Speaker 1: we don't want people doing this, but what do we

250
00:13:38,920 --> 00:13:42,200
Speaker 1: do when they do it? You know? Um, which has

251
00:13:42,240 --> 00:13:44,120
Speaker 1: kind of always been the problem with this sort of thing. So,

252
00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:46,840
Speaker 1: like you've got these guys. You can't try them under

253
00:13:46,840 --> 00:13:49,840
Speaker 1: German laws, obviously because they were not breaking German law,

254
00:13:50,440 --> 00:13:53,280
Speaker 1: right because it was the Nazis. But then do you

255
00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:55,760
Speaker 1: try them under American law? How how do you justify

256
00:13:55,840 --> 00:13:58,200
Speaker 1: that they're not in the United States, they're not in Britain.

257
00:13:58,480 --> 00:14:00,640
Speaker 1: Maybe some of them did some stuff in France, but

258
00:14:00,760 --> 00:14:03,840
Speaker 1: like even that's kind of wonky. Do you try them

259
00:14:03,880 --> 00:14:06,480
Speaker 1: under the laws of the individual nations where they occupied

260
00:14:06,480 --> 00:14:09,280
Speaker 1: and committed their crimes. It's like, it's a really complicated question.

261
00:14:09,320 --> 00:14:11,640
Speaker 1: You can't just do whatever you want, right because the

262
00:14:11,640 --> 00:14:14,120
Speaker 1: problem with the nazis they did whatever the funk they wanted,

263
00:14:14,440 --> 00:14:17,080
Speaker 1: and like, at the end of this war, the Sainer

264
00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:19,600
Speaker 1: heads are trying to be like, we should establish some

265
00:14:19,680 --> 00:14:22,280
Speaker 1: sort of system to stop this. And if you're going

266
00:14:22,320 --> 00:14:25,240
Speaker 1: to not funk that up, the system itself has to

267
00:14:25,280 --> 00:14:27,560
Speaker 1: be as legitimate as you can make it, which means

268
00:14:27,560 --> 00:14:30,000
Speaker 1: you can't like half asset and just be like we'll

269
00:14:30,040 --> 00:14:32,280
Speaker 1: just try them under US law or whatever. Like, you

270
00:14:32,280 --> 00:14:36,240
Speaker 1: can't do that, right. So it's like it's kind of

271
00:14:36,240 --> 00:14:39,080
Speaker 1: a really messy question and it's sort of trying to

272
00:14:39,160 --> 00:14:41,000
Speaker 1: solve it. The four great powers at the end of

273
00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:43,560
Speaker 1: the war, the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain,

274
00:14:43,560 --> 00:14:47,400
Speaker 1: and France met together in London in June of to

275
00:14:47,480 --> 00:14:50,760
Speaker 1: hammer out the framework that would establish an international tribunal

276
00:14:50,800 --> 00:14:53,840
Speaker 1: to try these men. Now, some of the jurisprudence they

277
00:14:53,840 --> 00:14:56,920
Speaker 1: sketched out during this is kind of wonky um. For example,

278
00:14:56,960 --> 00:14:59,520
Speaker 1: it's well established in most nations that you can't write

279
00:14:59,520 --> 00:15:01,920
Speaker 1: a law and then punish people who broke it before

280
00:15:01,960 --> 00:15:04,800
Speaker 1: it was a law. This is called ex post facto justice,

281
00:15:04,840 --> 00:15:08,600
Speaker 1: and it's illegal in most nations, but it kind of

282
00:15:08,640 --> 00:15:11,200
Speaker 1: had to be ex post facto justice because like nobody

283
00:15:11,200 --> 00:15:13,440
Speaker 1: had written laws about some of the ship the Nazis did.

284
00:15:13,440 --> 00:15:14,920
Speaker 1: But you can't just let them get off for the

285
00:15:14,960 --> 00:15:20,080
Speaker 1: Holocaust because nobody was like, don't murder people in gas chambers.

286
00:15:20,120 --> 00:15:23,920
Speaker 1: So it's it's complicated. Like, so they put together a

287
00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:26,960
Speaker 1: charter for this tribunal to try these guys, um, And

288
00:15:27,040 --> 00:15:30,120
Speaker 1: it's specifically outlines that individuals can be punished for their

289
00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:33,200
Speaker 1: membership and what are called criminal organizations, even if the

290
00:15:33,200 --> 00:15:36,920
Speaker 1: criminal nature of that organization was established after their period

291
00:15:36,920 --> 00:15:39,840
Speaker 1: of membership in it, which is what like gets guys

292
00:15:39,880 --> 00:15:43,640
Speaker 1: like Striker and stuff. Um. The charter also establishes that

293
00:15:43,680 --> 00:15:46,840
Speaker 1: individuals could be punished for crimes against humanity even if

294
00:15:46,840 --> 00:15:49,120
Speaker 1: those crimes had not actually been illegal in the nation

295
00:15:49,160 --> 00:15:51,800
Speaker 1: they were committed and at the time. So this is

296
00:15:51,880 --> 00:15:56,560
Speaker 1: kind of like, uh, pretty groundbreaking stuff and it's not

297
00:15:56,640 --> 00:15:58,680
Speaker 1: something we have a really returned to as a species,

298
00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:00,880
Speaker 1: which is kind of a bummer, um, I mean a

299
00:16:00,960 --> 00:16:04,520
Speaker 1: little bit after the Bosnian genocides and stuff. But was

300
00:16:04,560 --> 00:16:07,800
Speaker 1: everybody on board like internationally with like this is how

301
00:16:07,800 --> 00:16:10,920
Speaker 1: it should go down. Yeah, I think for for World

302
00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:13,160
Speaker 1: War in the wake of World War two, I think

303
00:16:13,160 --> 00:16:15,440
Speaker 1: pretty much everybody was on this is one of those

304
00:16:15,520 --> 00:16:18,280
Speaker 1: rare instances where like, I mean, there are some disagreements,

305
00:16:18,320 --> 00:16:20,640
Speaker 1: but or like Russia in the US and Great Britain

306
00:16:20,640 --> 00:16:23,440
Speaker 1: are all kind of like, we gotta there's got to

307
00:16:23,480 --> 00:16:25,840
Speaker 1: be like a big thing that we all do for this,

308
00:16:26,200 --> 00:16:28,000
Speaker 1: like it we can't just like it can't just be

309
00:16:28,080 --> 00:16:32,160
Speaker 1: one country executing its prisoners or whatever, like that's not enough.

310
00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:36,400
Speaker 1: And yeah, so this is like the one time most

311
00:16:36,760 --> 00:16:41,119
Speaker 1: of the world agrees on like an like the execution

312
00:16:41,160 --> 00:16:45,600
Speaker 1: of international justice. Um. And that's kind of cool. Um. Now,

313
00:16:45,800 --> 00:16:49,960
Speaker 1: since uh, the people being prosecuted here a Nazis, it's

314
00:16:49,960 --> 00:16:52,960
Speaker 1: not easy to care about like the fact that some

315
00:16:53,040 --> 00:16:55,400
Speaker 1: of the things they did would be considered illegal in

316
00:16:55,480 --> 00:16:58,280
Speaker 1: like U S courts, like charging people for crimes that

317
00:16:58,320 --> 00:17:01,200
Speaker 1: weren't crimes when they committed them. Um. But it is

318
00:17:01,240 --> 00:17:03,800
Speaker 1: worth noting that some of the precedent behind the Nuremberg

319
00:17:03,840 --> 00:17:07,520
Speaker 1: trial is really unsettling. Um. Charles Weizanski, a federal judge

320
00:17:07,520 --> 00:17:11,240
Speaker 1: in the US, initially led the charge against the Nuremberg trials. Uh.

321
00:17:11,240 --> 00:17:13,120
Speaker 1: He didn't want there to be trials because he worried

322
00:17:13,160 --> 00:17:15,679
Speaker 1: about the precedent they might state and what could be

323
00:17:15,720 --> 00:17:17,960
Speaker 1: done in the future as a result. So, like, if

324
00:17:18,000 --> 00:17:20,679
Speaker 1: we're declaring that you can make something illegal and punish

325
00:17:20,720 --> 00:17:23,480
Speaker 1: people who did it when it wasn't illegal. If we're

326
00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:26,480
Speaker 1: doing that now for the Nazis, sure fun the Nazis,

327
00:17:26,520 --> 00:17:28,600
Speaker 1: But how does that you could do that for anything

328
00:17:28,640 --> 00:17:31,280
Speaker 1: in the future. Um, And like that could end in

329
00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:33,040
Speaker 1: a really dark place. And he has a point, like

330
00:17:33,160 --> 00:17:37,760
Speaker 1: that's concerning right, It's it's something worth thinking about. Aren't

331
00:17:37,760 --> 00:17:40,520
Speaker 1: we still wrestling with this stuff like post nine eleven

332
00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:45,399
Speaker 1: and these exact same questions about when people can be

333
00:17:45,480 --> 00:17:49,200
Speaker 1: tried and whatever. Yeah, I mean now there is something

334
00:17:49,240 --> 00:17:53,000
Speaker 1: of an international legal framework, so it's a little bit easier.

335
00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:56,640
Speaker 1: Like back then it was totally like you know, kind

336
00:17:56,640 --> 00:17:59,560
Speaker 1: of kind of the wild West in terms of international law,

337
00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:02,840
Speaker 1: and now there is something of like a framework set

338
00:18:02,920 --> 00:18:05,840
Speaker 1: up for that. And one of the things that um,

339
00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:08,040
Speaker 1: So like Wizansky, who was the guy who was initially

340
00:18:08,040 --> 00:18:11,240
Speaker 1: against having a Nuremberg trial, he actually changes his mind

341
00:18:11,359 --> 00:18:13,800
Speaker 1: over the course of the trial because the prosecutors do

342
00:18:13,840 --> 00:18:16,719
Speaker 1: such a good job of bringing forward evidence of Nazi

343
00:18:16,760 --> 00:18:20,080
Speaker 1: war crimes, and Wizanski decides that even if the methods

344
00:18:20,160 --> 00:18:23,639
Speaker 1: used to like create this legal framework, we're kind of

345
00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:26,560
Speaker 1: fucked up the principle of international law and needed to

346
00:18:26,600 --> 00:18:29,600
Speaker 1: exist to punish crimes against humanity, and it's worth it. Um,

347
00:18:29,680 --> 00:18:32,119
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read from something he wrote actually in The

348
00:18:32,119 --> 00:18:35,480
Speaker 1: Atlantic in ninety six the reasons for my change that

349
00:18:35,520 --> 00:18:38,200
Speaker 1: the failure of the international community to attach the criminal

350
00:18:38,280 --> 00:18:41,160
Speaker 1: label to such universally condemned conduct would be more likely

351
00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:44,879
Speaker 1: to promote an arbitrary and discriminary action by public authorities

352
00:18:44,880 --> 00:18:48,160
Speaker 1: and to undermine confidence in the proposition that international agreements

353
00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:50,000
Speaker 1: are made to be kept than the failure of the

354
00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:52,640
Speaker 1: international community to abide by the maxim that no act

355
00:18:52,680 --> 00:18:54,840
Speaker 1: can be punished as a crime unless there was an

356
00:18:54,840 --> 00:18:58,359
Speaker 1: advance of that act a specific criminal law. So he's like,

357
00:18:59,200 --> 00:19:01,600
Speaker 1: basically it is it's yes, it's worrisome to try to

358
00:19:01,640 --> 00:19:05,000
Speaker 1: prosecute these people for things that like weren't necessarily crimes before,

359
00:19:05,560 --> 00:19:10,040
Speaker 1: but the consequences of not prosecuting these people, um are worse,

360
00:19:10,240 --> 00:19:12,879
Speaker 1: Like it will enable more bad behavior in the future.

361
00:19:12,920 --> 00:19:14,520
Speaker 1: So this is like a damned if you do, damned

362
00:19:14,520 --> 00:19:17,000
Speaker 1: if you don't situation, but we should do it. Yeah.

363
00:19:17,000 --> 00:19:18,639
Speaker 1: I'm giving a lot of background on this because I

364
00:19:18,640 --> 00:19:23,080
Speaker 1: think it's interesting. Every met the threshold of egregiousness that

365
00:19:23,160 --> 00:19:26,800
Speaker 1: they were like, we we have to do Basically it'd

366
00:19:26,800 --> 00:19:30,280
Speaker 1: be worse to do nothing. Yeah. Now, in total, a

367
00:19:30,400 --> 00:19:34,200
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty five people were indicted in the Nuremberg trial. Um,

368
00:19:34,280 --> 00:19:37,240
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's it's not enough, but it's it's a

369
00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:42,200
Speaker 1: good amount. Um. And like most of those people actually

370
00:19:42,240 --> 00:19:44,520
Speaker 1: weren't sentenced to death, that were sentenced to like periods

371
00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:46,280
Speaker 1: of jail time, and a lot of those sentences were

372
00:19:46,320 --> 00:19:50,440
Speaker 1: actually commuted later. It's kind of a fucked up story. Yeah,

373
00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:53,120
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of top Nazis, people who

374
00:19:53,119 --> 00:19:56,240
Speaker 1: were like literally ordering mass killings, had like their sentences

375
00:19:56,280 --> 00:19:58,760
Speaker 1: committed and went on to die peacefully. Happen to a

376
00:19:58,760 --> 00:20:02,640
Speaker 1: ton of them, ar of all super fucked up. Yeah,

377
00:20:02,680 --> 00:20:05,200
Speaker 1: you know, there's a bunch of reasons that different things

378
00:20:05,240 --> 00:20:09,480
Speaker 1: like that happened. Um, but it it happened a lot. Um.

379
00:20:09,520 --> 00:20:14,800
Speaker 1: But twelve top Nazis were sentenced to die by hanging. Um.

380
00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:17,679
Speaker 1: So there were twelve of these guys that an international

381
00:20:17,720 --> 00:20:21,480
Speaker 1: court said, like, you know, even as like Laxis. We're

382
00:20:21,520 --> 00:20:25,160
Speaker 1: being with punishing the Nazis. You motherfucker's like, we can't

383
00:20:25,280 --> 00:20:28,800
Speaker 1: let you live. Um, So that's good, but this set

384
00:20:28,840 --> 00:20:32,640
Speaker 1: off another question, who's actually going to kill these guys?

385
00:20:32,680 --> 00:20:35,919
Speaker 1: Like who do you bring in to execute one of

386
00:20:35,960 --> 00:20:38,920
Speaker 1: the worst collections of bastards and like the whole history

387
00:20:39,240 --> 00:20:43,320
Speaker 1: of humanity? And the answer, of course is another piece

388
00:20:43,400 --> 00:20:46,679
Speaker 1: of shit. And this brings me to the glorious tale

389
00:20:46,960 --> 00:20:51,719
Speaker 1: of John C. Woods, America's hangman, and that this has

390
00:20:51,720 --> 00:20:54,280
Speaker 1: been our long introduction. Yeah, he's a fun one. He's

391
00:20:54,320 --> 00:20:59,240
Speaker 1: a fun guy. So. John C. Woods was born in Wichita, Kansas,

392
00:20:59,280 --> 00:21:02,560
Speaker 1: on June five, nineteen eleven. We have very little detail

393
00:21:02,600 --> 00:21:05,160
Speaker 1: in his early life. One source I found just says,

394
00:21:05,160 --> 00:21:08,160
Speaker 1: prior to his induction in the army, he lived in Eureka, Kansas.

395
00:21:08,200 --> 00:21:11,240
Speaker 1: He was married with no children. Now I can tell

396
00:21:11,280 --> 00:21:13,560
Speaker 1: you from other reading I've done that his parents separated

397
00:21:13,560 --> 00:21:16,439
Speaker 1: when he was young. One source even says they abandoned

398
00:21:16,520 --> 00:21:19,760
Speaker 1: him and he was raised by his grandparents. Uh, we

399
00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:22,360
Speaker 1: can infer that he didn't have an easy adolescence. When

400
00:21:22,359 --> 00:21:25,240
Speaker 1: he attended Wichita High School, which is now East High

401
00:21:25,240 --> 00:21:28,400
Speaker 1: School in Wichita, h he dropped out after just two

402
00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:32,280
Speaker 1: years and he never graduated. So this is this is

403
00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:35,320
Speaker 1: the guy we have executing our top nazis one of

404
00:21:35,320 --> 00:21:40,240
Speaker 1: America's finest high school dropouts, which really is appropriate. Now

405
00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:44,320
Speaker 1: you know what doesn't drop out of high school? Ads

406
00:21:44,320 --> 00:21:47,920
Speaker 1: in products and services? Yep, yep. All of the products

407
00:21:47,960 --> 00:21:50,880
Speaker 1: and services that support this show our high school graduate.

408
00:21:51,040 --> 00:21:56,439
Speaker 1: None of them are college graduates valid victorian. H Well,

409
00:21:56,480 --> 00:21:58,960
Speaker 1: that's a little much. I don't know we can afford

410
00:21:59,040 --> 00:22:03,160
Speaker 1: valedictorian products. Sofia are any of these products paledictorians? Yeah,

411
00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:09,960
Speaker 1: of course the Well I think Sophie's lying, But didn't

412
00:22:10,119 --> 00:22:12,880
Speaker 1: you know who party say that everybody gets the first

413
00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:19,600
Speaker 1: place model, so everybody. Well, if you trust Sophie, trust

414
00:22:19,640 --> 00:22:22,920
Speaker 1: that these products are all valedictorians, I don't we should

415
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:27,120
Speaker 1: really just roll out to adds at this point, adds products.

416
00:22:34,160 --> 00:22:37,840
Speaker 1: We're back, all right, So we're talking about John C. Woods,

417
00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:43,280
Speaker 1: America's hangman. Now. On December third, nineteen, eighteen year old

418
00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:46,639
Speaker 1: high school dropout John Woods joined the US Navy and

419
00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:49,880
Speaker 1: reported to duty somewhere on the West coast, probably California,

420
00:22:50,040 --> 00:22:52,440
Speaker 1: who was eventually assigned to the U s S. Saratoga,

421
00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:55,560
Speaker 1: but almost immediately went a wall and deserted. He was

422
00:22:55,600 --> 00:22:58,440
Speaker 1: caught by the law in Colorado and sent back to California,

423
00:22:58,520 --> 00:23:01,600
Speaker 1: where he was court martialed. After being convicted, a Navy

424
00:23:01,680 --> 00:23:04,399
Speaker 1: medical officer looked at John and recommended he received a

425
00:23:04,400 --> 00:23:08,959
Speaker 1: medical board examination. On April twenty, nineteen thirty, they released

426
00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:13,359
Speaker 1: this report. The patient, though not intellectually inferior, gives a

427
00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:16,320
Speaker 1: history of repeatedly run encounter to authority both before and

428
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:20,080
Speaker 1: since enlistment. Stigmata of degeneration are present, and the patient

429
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:23,280
Speaker 1: frequently bites his fingernails. He has a benign tumor of

430
00:23:23,320 --> 00:23:26,119
Speaker 1: the of the soft palate, for which he refuses operation.

431
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:29,040
Speaker 1: His commanding officer and division officers state that he shows

432
00:23:29,160 --> 00:23:32,400
Speaker 1: inaptitude and does not respond to instruction. He is obviously

433
00:23:32,400 --> 00:23:34,960
Speaker 1: poor service material. This man has had less than five

434
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:37,800
Speaker 1: months service. His disability is considered to be an inherent

435
00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:40,360
Speaker 1: defect for which the service is in no way responsible.

436
00:23:40,560 --> 00:23:42,959
Speaker 1: He is not considered a menace to himself or others,

437
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:49,160
Speaker 1: So the Navy diagnoses John with constitutional psychopathic inferiority without psychosis.

438
00:23:50,119 --> 00:23:54,800
Speaker 1: This is not a real diagnosis today, um it's kind

439
00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:57,320
Speaker 1: of a nonsense term for like he doesn't want to

440
00:23:57,560 --> 00:24:01,360
Speaker 1: be in the military. Did they just pick him out?

441
00:24:01,600 --> 00:24:04,960
Speaker 1: Were they like, we're gonna know he joined, Yeah, he

442
00:24:05,080 --> 00:24:07,639
Speaker 1: joined the military, but for this assessment where they like,

443
00:24:07,760 --> 00:24:10,120
Speaker 1: things aren't going right, that's why we're going to give

444
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 1: you this assessment. Well, because he yeah, he he runs

445
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:16,399
Speaker 1: away after five months and he's been like a giant

446
00:24:16,440 --> 00:24:18,440
Speaker 1: piece of ship before it. So they're like, what is

447
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 1: wrong with you and you need to take down Yeah. Yeah,

448
00:24:23,520 --> 00:24:25,800
Speaker 1: And what they're saying is he's like he's gross. He

449
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:28,719
Speaker 1: doesn't take care of himself. He has like open sores

450
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 1: all over him body. He's like a like a nasty,

451
00:24:31,680 --> 00:24:34,719
Speaker 1: unshowered mess, and he doesn't do what anyone tells him

452
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:38,440
Speaker 1: to do. Um. And yeah, like they diagnosed him with

453
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:44,200
Speaker 1: constitutional psychopathic inferiority without psychosis UM, which was originally coined

454
00:24:44,200 --> 00:24:47,640
Speaker 1: in Germany in the eighteen eighties to describe irredeemable criminals

455
00:24:47,640 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 1: with antisocial characteristics and in fact, a lot of people

456
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 1: were gassed with this diagnosis under the Nazis UM. But

457
00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:56,680
Speaker 1: we just used it to say this guy shouldn't be

458
00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:59,840
Speaker 1: in the navy anymore. Uh. And John was discharged, So

459
00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:02,639
Speaker 1: that's the end of his Navy career. Um, and you

460
00:25:02,640 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 1: would think that it would be impossible for him to

461
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,240
Speaker 1: rejoin the military when one of the branches has kicked

462
00:25:07,320 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 1: him out by saying he has a psychopathic inferiority. No

463
00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 1: way he gets back in. Oh, of course he gets

464
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:18,560
Speaker 1: back in. Yeah, why not just a different branch. Yeah.

465
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: So Woods uh gets kicked out of the Navy for

466
00:25:21,880 --> 00:25:24,000
Speaker 1: peek a piece of ship. And he spends the next

467
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:26,360
Speaker 1: few years bumping from job to job and doing very

468
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:29,239
Speaker 1: poorly at all of those jobs. Uh. He wound up

469
00:25:29,240 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 1: in a marriage that the sources I found just called

470
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:36,600
Speaker 1: scandalous without any other details. I have no idea what

471
00:25:36,640 --> 00:25:39,560
Speaker 1: he did, um, but it was probably super shady given

472
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:43,000
Speaker 1: everything that comes later. Um. He was arrested at one

473
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 1: point for writing a bad check in a nineteen thirty three.

474
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 1: At the age of twenty two and basically out of options,

475
00:25:48,880 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 1: John Woods joins the Civilian Conservation Corps. You ever heard

476
00:25:52,560 --> 00:25:54,920
Speaker 1: of the c c C. Yeah? I feel like that

477
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:58,720
Speaker 1: was a thing. That's not a thing that people would

478
00:25:58,760 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 1: have joined, like when I was in high school, is it? No? No, no, No,

479
00:26:02,600 --> 00:26:05,200
Speaker 1: I don't like this. I mean I think there's yeah,

480
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: like this was like a big thing. And during the

481
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 1: New Deal in the thirties. Um, so, like you have

482
00:26:10,600 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: the Great Depression, it fox up the country and FDR

483
00:26:14,080 --> 00:26:18,440
Speaker 1: his administration establishes this group of civilians who basically, like,

484
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 1: we hire up all of the jobless young men in

485
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:23,160
Speaker 1: America and we have them go build parks and roads,

486
00:26:24,240 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 1: like a lot of libraries, all kinds of ship libraries,

487
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:30,360
Speaker 1: all kinds of cool ship. It's one of the coolest

488
00:26:30,400 --> 00:26:32,879
Speaker 1: things there government ever did. Uh. And I'm not just

489
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 1: saying that because my grandpa would have starved to death

490
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 1: without it. Um. But John was not a good fit

491
00:26:38,040 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 1: for the c c c U and he was dishonorably

492
00:26:40,880 --> 00:26:44,280
Speaker 1: discharged several weeks later after going a wall and refusing

493
00:26:44,320 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 1: to do his job. So he loves to go a

494
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:49,800
Speaker 1: little bit of a pattern here. He loves to join

495
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 1: quasi military and military organizations and then leave to paychecks

496
00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 1: and I'm out, dude, h yeah, yeah, enough to buy

497
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: some cigarette and I am on the road. Yeah. Now.

498
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 1: After failing at the Civilian Conservation Corps, John spent years

499
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 1: barely making ends meet by working in construction and handling

500
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 1: labor tasks on farms. He briefly worked for boeing as

501
00:27:13,359 --> 00:27:16,160
Speaker 1: a tool and dye maker, but was not particularly good

502
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: at this job, nor was he good at anything else,

503
00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 1: nor was he good at dealing with other human beings.

504
00:27:21,960 --> 00:27:24,760
Speaker 1: People who knew John generally described him as slovenly and

505
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:28,000
Speaker 1: ill kempt. You get the feeling. He did not shower regularly,

506
00:27:28,280 --> 00:27:31,120
Speaker 1: he dressed poorly, and he had a problem with authority

507
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:34,159
Speaker 1: when he registered for selective service, which is like the draft.

508
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:36,440
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty, he was working as a part time

509
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:40,360
Speaker 1: employee at a feed store in Kansas. So not an

510
00:27:40,359 --> 00:27:46,440
Speaker 1: inspiring tale so far for this guy. Now, on December

511
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:50,520
Speaker 1: seven one, Japan made a significant error in judgment and

512
00:27:50,600 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: bombed Pearl Harbor. This led to the U. S getting

513
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:55,399
Speaker 1: into World War Two in pretty short order, and it

514
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:57,640
Speaker 1: led to a bunch of guys getting drafted into that war,

515
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 1: and John C. Woods was one of them. He was

516
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: drafted by the U. S Army UH and assigned to

517
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:06,159
Speaker 1: be a combat engineer, which is not the job you

518
00:28:06,200 --> 00:28:10,239
Speaker 1: want this guy to have. No, No, don't let this

519
00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:16,040
Speaker 1: man build bridges. So yeah, the draft, they were just like,

520
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:20,080
Speaker 1: we'll take we'll take anybody we need, all hands on deck. Yeah,

521
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 1: we will take anybody and like, we're not gonna look

522
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:25,679
Speaker 1: into your background too much. A lot of people who

523
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 1: weren't even eighteen managed to join during the draft. God

524
00:28:31,359 --> 00:28:36,000
Speaker 1: it was yeah, it was a fun time, real fun time. Now. Uh,

525
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:37,920
Speaker 1: he shouldn't have been able to join any branch of

526
00:28:37,920 --> 00:28:40,960
Speaker 1: the Armed Services because he had a dishonorable discharge, But

527
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: the d O D just doesn't seem to have noticed.

528
00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 1: The Department of Defense just like didn't look into it

529
00:28:46,440 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 1: at all. It's it's some cool stuff. Now. In nineteen

530
00:28:49,960 --> 00:28:52,720
Speaker 1: forty three, John was assigned to Company B of the

531
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:57,160
Speaker 1: thirty seven Engineer Combat Battalion and the fifth Engineer Special Brigade,

532
00:28:57,680 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: and he almost certainly took part in the D Day

533
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:04,040
Speaker 1: land things on Omaha Beach in UM. It's hard to

534
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 1: say for sure because the records aren't great and he

535
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: was a huge liar, but most sources seem to suggest

536
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,960
Speaker 1: that he did take part in the Normandy landings UM,

537
00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:16,480
Speaker 1: which is some ship to deal with. UM. Now, there's

538
00:29:16,520 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 1: only one biographer who's ever written about this guy, as

539
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, and his name is French McLean.

540
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:24,160
Speaker 1: He's a former Army officer, and he seems convinced that

541
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 1: John Woods took part in the landings and saw heavy combat,

542
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: and like I saw a lot of his the other

543
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: guys in his unit die really horribly and was was

544
00:29:32,600 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: kind of scarred by this as a result. I'm surprised though,

545
00:29:35,840 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: because he seems like nothing effects, Like he's the perfect

546
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:43,600
Speaker 1: guy to do that kind of combat. Actually right, because

547
00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 1: he's not. He doesn't process things the same way. Yeah maybe,

548
00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:49,479
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think. I don't know that he

549
00:29:49,560 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 1: was sad about his comrades dying as much as he

550
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:55,000
Speaker 1: was didn't want to die himself and was like this

551
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 1: is bullshit, Like getting shot at is some bullshit. Like

552
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 1: I I don't get the feeling that he was traumatized

553
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:04,720
Speaker 1: by losing friends, because I don't think he was very

554
00:30:04,720 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 1: good at making friends. Um, but I get the feeling

555
00:30:08,360 --> 00:30:11,480
Speaker 1: he was like, I don't want to die. Yeah, that's fair,

556
00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:16,320
Speaker 1: that's fair. Yeah, Like he's not a self sacrificing kind

557
00:30:16,360 --> 00:30:18,960
Speaker 1: of dude. So as the U. S. Military and its

558
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 1: allies started to advance through occupied Europe, they faced the

559
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,360
Speaker 1: same problem that armies throughout all time have faced. Some

560
00:30:24,400 --> 00:30:26,240
Speaker 1: of the hundreds and thousands of men fighting their way

561
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 1: across the continent were pieces of ship. Uh. There were rapists, thieves,

562
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:33,800
Speaker 1: and murderers all present in the Allied military that liberated Europe.

563
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: Um And again like this is the same as any

564
00:30:36,400 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 1: other war in history, but in this case the US

565
00:30:39,120 --> 00:30:42,560
Speaker 1: was extra concerned about optics because the Nazis has been

566
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: really brutal occupiers and we were fighting a pr war

567
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:48,640
Speaker 1: as well. Allied command wanted to make it very clear

568
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:51,280
Speaker 1: that we weren't the same as the Nazis and that

569
00:30:51,360 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 1: our soldiers would not be treated the same. So like

570
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 1: if they committed crimes on subject populations, we weren't just

571
00:30:57,480 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 1: going to let them get away with it. Um. So

572
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 1: this meant that American criminals, like soldiers who raped French

573
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: women after D Day had to be punished like immediately

574
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 1: and severely. Um. And not long after D Day, several

575
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:13,640
Speaker 1: American soldiers were convicted via court martial for the rapes

576
00:31:13,680 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 1: of a number of French women and they were sentenced

577
00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: to hang. Now, the only problem was that we didn't

578
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:22,520
Speaker 1: really have any hangman set up to do the job.

579
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 1: It wasn't really something we'd planned for super well. Um,

580
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:29,720
Speaker 1: And very few men, even in an army full of

581
00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:32,680
Speaker 1: combat veterans, are actually turned out to be willing to

582
00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 1: like hang a person, Like it's kind of hard to

583
00:31:36,000 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 1: find people who are willing to do that job. They

584
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:40,959
Speaker 1: had loads of guns with them, why were they like

585
00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: the most humane thing? Or like the way that we

586
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 1: have to deal with this is by some super old

587
00:31:48,040 --> 00:31:53,680
Speaker 1: school methods. Yeah, there's actually kind of neat reasoning to that, um,

588
00:31:53,760 --> 00:31:58,400
Speaker 1: which is that you you execute soldiers by firing squad.

589
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:02,680
Speaker 1: And the idea is that when a soldier has committed

590
00:32:02,680 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 1: a crime like rape on a civilian, they don't get

591
00:32:05,880 --> 00:32:07,719
Speaker 1: to be a soldier anymore, and so they don't get

592
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: to die like a soldier anymore. Um, And I think

593
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 1: that was the reasoning, is like what these guys did

594
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:15,080
Speaker 1: is so fucked up, we're not going to give them

595
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:18,560
Speaker 1: the honor of being shot. Um, Like, there were guys

596
00:32:18,560 --> 00:32:21,880
Speaker 1: we executed by firing squad for like lesser offenses and stuff.

597
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 1: But like you don't get that if you rape a

598
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: civilian woman, like we're just gonna hang you, which you know,

599
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:32,200
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's kind of nice reasoning. I like

600
00:32:32,280 --> 00:32:35,600
Speaker 1: the reasoning. It just requires so much infrastructure. It does,

601
00:32:35,840 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 1: it does, and they had not prepared for it, which

602
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 1: is like something the military is pretty common. They they

603
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:44,520
Speaker 1: rarely prepare for a lot of the things they wind

604
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:47,840
Speaker 1: up needing to do, so like they need a hangman,

605
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:50,680
Speaker 1: And almost nobody winds up willing to take the gig,

606
00:32:51,120 --> 00:32:53,080
Speaker 1: even if it means getting out of the line of

607
00:32:53,120 --> 00:32:57,000
Speaker 1: battle and avoiding combat. But John C. Woods was super

608
00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:00,440
Speaker 1: ready to not do any more combat. And when he like,

609
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 1: he was like, oh yeah, fuck this ship. And so

610
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 1: when he heard the army was looking for a hangman,

611
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 1: he jumped at the opportunity. Now he was not the

612
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 1: only person of volunteer, uh, and so he distinguished himself

613
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 1: from the small crowd of applicants by claiming to have

614
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 1: helped execute people by hanging back in the United States,

615
00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,560
Speaker 1: Woods claimed that he'd hung two people in Texas and

616
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:31,600
Speaker 1: two more in Oklahoma, absolutely right on his hangman's resume. Yeah,

617
00:33:31,600 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 1: it's like that time I pretended to speak French so

618
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:37,560
Speaker 1: I could get this podcasting gig. Is that real? Oh

619
00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:45,720
Speaker 1: don't tell Jack that, Sophie, now yeah, uh so, yeah,

620
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:48,440
Speaker 1: would's claimed to have hung several people in the past. Um,

621
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:50,640
Speaker 1: and the judge advocate who was like the you know

622
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:53,240
Speaker 1: that that's who like handles military justice and they're the

623
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:55,440
Speaker 1: people who were like doing the hiring in this case,

624
00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:59,040
Speaker 1: recommended that we check this out and like verified that

625
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 1: he'd actually exit cute to people before, but nobody actually

626
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 1: did anything. Um McLean, The author of a book called

627
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 1: American Hangman, which is again the only biography on John Woods,

628
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: says the army doesn't check to find out. I'm sure

629
00:34:12,600 --> 00:34:15,200
Speaker 1: there was the thought, how complicated could a hanging be?

630
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 1: So like the like the people in charge of like,

631
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:20,359
Speaker 1: we should at least make sure this guy knows what

632
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:22,880
Speaker 1: he's doing, But then they don't because it's too hard,

633
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:25,840
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, what the worst that could happen?

634
00:34:25,960 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 1: Like if he wants the job that bad? It's just

635
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,799
Speaker 1: hanging people that this is pre Google too. It's like

636
00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:34,200
Speaker 1: you couldn't be sure that he could figure out a

637
00:34:34,280 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 1: hanging now, it's like if you left someone in a

638
00:34:36,239 --> 00:34:38,160
Speaker 1: room for thirty minutes, if you can probably tell you

639
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 1: how to hang someone, but that's crazy, yeah yeah. And

640
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 1: and the fact that he doesn't have Google to tell

641
00:34:44,160 --> 00:34:46,800
Speaker 1: him how to hang people correctly will be a factor

642
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:52,040
Speaker 1: in this story later because he's never good at it. Um,

643
00:34:52,080 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you could, like he did hang

644
00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:56,720
Speaker 1: all the people he was supposed to. Well, we'll see,

645
00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:00,279
Speaker 1: Like it's a complicated determining whether or not someone's good

646
00:35:00,280 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 1: at hanging. Now, um, the army decided he was as

647
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,839
Speaker 1: good as they were going to get, and they hired him. Now.

648
00:35:08,040 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 1: McLean has some interesting opinions on Wood's motivation for taking

649
00:35:11,239 --> 00:35:13,160
Speaker 1: the job. He says he did not get wounded on

650
00:35:13,160 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: Omaha Beach, but he saw a bunch of guys get killed.

651
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:16,719
Speaker 1: I'm sure he thought, I do not want to go

652
00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:19,640
Speaker 1: through that experience again. He was right on the border

653
00:35:19,640 --> 00:35:21,880
Speaker 1: with Germany and about to cross the Ryan River. He

654
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:24,560
Speaker 1: probably thought he'd get hammered again. He volunteers to get

655
00:35:24,560 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 1: out of the combat Engineers. He's accepted and promoted from

656
00:35:27,040 --> 00:35:29,400
Speaker 1: private to master sergeant, and his pay goes from fifty

657
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:31,799
Speaker 1: to a hundred and thirty eight dollars a month. So,

658
00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 1: in other words, like, uh, like this guy is part

659
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:38,640
Speaker 1: of like because no one else is, like, so few

660
00:35:38,680 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: people are willing to do the hangman's job. He gets

661
00:35:41,080 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 1: like immediately a massive promotion like basically like within the

662
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 1: enlisted ranks, going from private to master sergeant is almost

663
00:35:49,120 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 1: going as high as you can possibly go, and triples

664
00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: his income and he triples his income. Yeah, it's a

665
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:58,520
Speaker 1: great gig, Like, and he doesn't get shot at anymore. Like,

666
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 1: if you're a sociopath who doesn't care about like anything

667
00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:06,440
Speaker 1: but your own benefit, this is a great move for

668
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 1: John C. Woods. Like he fucking nails it here. And

669
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:14,520
Speaker 1: Frank McLean, who is himself a retired Army colonel, describes

670
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,200
Speaker 1: Woods as a psychopath who light his way into the

671
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:21,080
Speaker 1: hangman's job and only became the army's hangman to avoid combat.

672
00:36:21,200 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 1: So like everyone who looks into this is like, this

673
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 1: guy is a piece of ship and he's doing this

674
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:30,319
Speaker 1: so he doesn't have to fight. The good reasons to

675
00:36:30,360 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 1: be a hangman though, or I don't know, Yeah, I don't.

676
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 1: I'm gonna guess very few people I would describe as

677
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:41,360
Speaker 1: like pleasant human beings have done the job of hangman.

678
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:46,439
Speaker 1: Yeah that's fair. Yeah, and it's probably hard to hire

679
00:36:46,480 --> 00:36:50,719
Speaker 1: anyone who doesn't suck for that job. Um. Apologies to

680
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 1: all the hangman in the audience. I know there's a

681
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:57,319
Speaker 1: lot of you, um, But yeah, that's so. For the

682
00:36:57,320 --> 00:36:59,480
Speaker 1: rest of World War Two, John C. Woods was a

683
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:02,160
Speaker 1: hangman and he executed a little over thirty U S.

684
00:37:02,200 --> 00:37:05,400
Speaker 1: Soldiers for a variety of crimes. Now, he was not

685
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,000
Speaker 1: very good at this job. And I'm gonna quote from

686
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 1: an article in the UK Sunday Express quote his inexperience

687
00:37:11,680 --> 00:37:15,080
Speaker 1: led many condemned men to painfully long deaths. Woods didn't

688
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: weigh or measure his victims, and in his early career,

689
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:20,719
Speaker 1: didn't stretch the rope beforehand so that it wouldn't lengthen underweight.

690
00:37:20,960 --> 00:37:23,319
Speaker 1: He didn't tie a traditional hangman's noose, but use a

691
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 1: cowboy noose he'd seen in the movies with thirteen knots

692
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:33,479
Speaker 1: that he claimed he'd invented. Oh my god, So these

693
00:37:33,480 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 1: guys would just some of them would just not even

694
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 1: be at the right height, right, no strangling. Yeah, you're

695
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:44,160
Speaker 1: supposed to break the neck quickly. It's supposed to be

696
00:37:44,160 --> 00:37:46,720
Speaker 1: a pretty quick way. But a lot of John's patients

697
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:50,359
Speaker 1: take a long time to die because he doesn't do

698
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:52,080
Speaker 1: the things you're supposed to do to the rope to

699
00:37:52,120 --> 00:37:54,680
Speaker 1: make sure it's going to be the proper level of tautness.

700
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:57,040
Speaker 1: And he's like using a knot he saw in a

701
00:37:57,120 --> 00:37:59,799
Speaker 1: movie and the thirteen knots that he made up on

702
00:37:59,840 --> 00:38:03,799
Speaker 1: his own. He's just he's like, I'm a pioneer of

703
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:06,879
Speaker 1: this technique. Oh my god. Yeah, but people have been

704
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 1: hanging each other for thousands of years, Like we have

705
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:14,680
Speaker 1: the not technology pretty solid at this point. But this

706
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:16,600
Speaker 1: gets back to what you asked a little earlier. What

707
00:38:16,719 --> 00:38:18,640
Speaker 1: I think unites all of these guys, and it is

708
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:21,480
Speaker 1: that reckless self confidence, this guy being like, I don't

709
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:27,840
Speaker 1: need to read on how to hang a guy there

710
00:38:27,960 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 1: to oversee him. It was, but like, well, also, like

711
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:35,919
Speaker 1: how many people have seen a proper hanging go down?

712
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:40,719
Speaker 1: But can't you tell if you're like that guy was tally.

713
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:45,960
Speaker 1: It's a crowded war, like a lot's going on. This

714
00:38:46,000 --> 00:38:50,359
Speaker 1: is nobody's number one priority. Sure he does kind of

715
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:55,480
Speaker 1: slide through the cracks for a while. Now. June is

716
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:57,319
Speaker 1: the first time John C. Woods winds up in the

717
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:00,640
Speaker 1: media spotlight. That's because three Germans have billions had been

718
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:03,200
Speaker 1: sentenced to die for the murder of Second Lieutenant Lester

719
00:39:03,320 --> 00:39:06,480
Speaker 1: Rouss of the U. S. Army Air Corps. Newspapers from

720
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: this time report that Woods had been a veteran executioner

721
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:11,800
Speaker 1: before the war and that he had executed several hundred people.

722
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 1: All of this was a lie um, But as soon

723
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:16,240
Speaker 1: as the news starts talking to Woods, he starts claiming

724
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 1: that he's on his like three hundred execution um when

725
00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:22,040
Speaker 1: it's really like he's done maybe a dozen or so.

726
00:39:22,120 --> 00:39:26,759
Speaker 1: At this point he knows how to do it. Yeah. So,

727
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: by the time the war ended, Woods had executed thirty

728
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:31,400
Speaker 1: four Americans, which is more than a third of the U. S.

729
00:39:31,440 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 1: Soldiers executed in Europe and North Africa during the war.

730
00:39:35,280 --> 00:39:38,280
Speaker 1: Once the war ended, though, is when his hanging career

731
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:42,799
Speaker 1: really took off. See, the international community needed someone to

732
00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:45,840
Speaker 1: execute all the top Nazis convicted in Nuremberg. It was

733
00:39:45,880 --> 00:39:47,839
Speaker 1: not a job for the faint hearted, since there were

734
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:49,920
Speaker 1: still quite a few Nazis hanging out in Europe and

735
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:52,480
Speaker 1: the chance of being murdered by one was far from zero.

736
00:39:52,960 --> 00:39:55,480
Speaker 1: Lucky for the Allies, John C. Woods did not care

737
00:39:55,520 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 1: about that. In fact, he didn't seem to think much

738
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: at all about the consequences of taking on this job. Well.

739
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:03,319
Speaker 1: John had almost certainly been lying about his past as

740
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: an executioner. The almost two years he's spent on the

741
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:08,520
Speaker 1: job before the Nuremberg trials seems to have inculcated in

742
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 1: him a deep love of the craft, and as a result,

743
00:40:11,719 --> 00:40:15,120
Speaker 1: he not only performed the executions, he designed and built

744
00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:18,040
Speaker 1: the gallows that the third Reich surviving war criminals would

745
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:21,359
Speaker 1: be hung from. So that's he's like he's graduated. Now

746
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:24,239
Speaker 1: he's like making the scaffold ing and everything. Is he

747
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 1: getting better? Is he actually better at his job? No? No,

748
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:31,600
Speaker 1: I mean better probably, But he does not build these

749
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 1: gallows well, um McLean And several sources I found claimed

750
00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 1: that Woods deliberately made the trap doors of the gallows

751
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 1: too small so that the condemned men would hit their

752
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:45,879
Speaker 1: heads on the way down, which the Nazis deserved it.

753
00:40:46,040 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 1: But it is it's like, yeah, it's it's one of

754
00:40:50,960 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 1: those things. He's absolutely a piece of ship. But also

755
00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:57,200
Speaker 1: like I'm not mad, Like I'm not mad. Someone got

756
00:40:57,280 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 1: him one last dig at the Nazis totally um. Now,

757
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 1: I should note that this is not like, um a

758
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 1: percent agreed on, like John Woods is somebody that like,

759
00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 1: there's actually surprising number of historians who study Hangman, and

760
00:41:11,640 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 1: those kinds of nerds debate about this guy quite a lot. Um.

761
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:19,000
Speaker 1: Some will claim that like the fact that his trapdoors

762
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:22,279
Speaker 1: were too small was simple accidental incompetence. Some will say

763
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:26,800
Speaker 1: that it was purposeful Um. I'm not a gallows expert. Um,

764
00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:28,719
Speaker 1: but I just want to note that this is like

765
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:33,080
Speaker 1: there's debate over as to why the trapdoors were too small. Now,

766
00:41:33,120 --> 00:41:35,160
Speaker 1: after a fair amount of digging online, I was able

767
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: to find a book which is available online for free.

768
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,799
Speaker 1: It's released in the Creative Comments, called A Hangman at

769
00:41:40,800 --> 00:41:44,800
Speaker 1: War by Richard Clark Troutcott Wits. Uh. It seems pretty

770
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:48,760
Speaker 1: well researched. Um, But I don't know how to determine

771
00:41:48,800 --> 00:41:51,759
Speaker 1: trouvi atitz Is competence to talk about stuff like this,

772
00:41:51,800 --> 00:41:54,799
Speaker 1: But it seems pretty well researched. Uh. And trevi at

773
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:58,280
Speaker 1: Vitz defends woods as competence as a hangman and gallows designer.

774
00:41:58,800 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 1: His book claims that woods at really built a special

775
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 1: new sort of trap door for the gallows, specifically because

776
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:06,600
Speaker 1: he'd noticed in his other executions that condemned men were

777
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:09,479
Speaker 1: hitting their faces on the way down. But if that's

778
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:11,840
Speaker 1: the case, then he fucked it up because several of

779
00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:14,799
Speaker 1: the Nazis Woods executed smashed their faces open on his

780
00:42:14,800 --> 00:42:17,840
Speaker 1: shitty trap door on their way down. So while trout

781
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:19,960
Speaker 1: at Vits seems to defend him on this, I think

782
00:42:20,000 --> 00:42:22,600
Speaker 1: I side with McLean and that it was probably either

783
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:25,440
Speaker 1: him fucking up or him purposefully fucking up the gallows

784
00:42:25,440 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 1: because he didn't like Nazis. It's it's it's a complicated case.

785
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:32,200
Speaker 1: I don't know who's right about this. I should note

786
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:34,880
Speaker 1: that trout itt its his book still definitely paints a

787
00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:38,360
Speaker 1: picture of John C. Woods as a sociopath. Uh. In

788
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:40,880
Speaker 1: the section about the execution of three war criminals in

789
00:42:40,960 --> 00:42:44,759
Speaker 1: June ninety, he notes this life ran a five page

790
00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:47,360
Speaker 1: report on the trials and executions with thirty photos and

791
00:42:47,360 --> 00:42:50,920
Speaker 1: the caption referring to backs execution. Life claimed after this

792
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 1: hanging as after the other ones, the hangman wept, a

793
00:42:53,719 --> 00:42:56,239
Speaker 1: statement which no one will find credible whoever looked into

794
00:42:56,239 --> 00:42:59,239
Speaker 1: Woods his career and character for a single minute. So

795
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 1: even this guy's big defender is like, no, he didn't

796
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 1: give a shit about people. Um, it's interesting that life

797
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 1: needed uh, I don't know, lie and make it seem

798
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: like he was he felt bad about hanging people some

799
00:43:14,840 --> 00:43:18,279
Speaker 1: sort of hero. Yeah, yeah, like they just it was.

800
00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:20,640
Speaker 1: It was such a gross thing to watch a hanging

801
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 1: that you need to inject some humanity into the event,

802
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:25,839
Speaker 1: even if the guy doing it clearly is doing it

803
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:28,040
Speaker 1: just to not get shot at and doesn't give a

804
00:43:28,040 --> 00:43:32,239
Speaker 1: fuck about the fact that he's killing somebody. Interesting. But

805
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:34,359
Speaker 1: after the war, he's just doing it for the money, right,

806
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:37,600
Speaker 1: I mean he's still in the military. Yeah, but yeah,

807
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:43,240
Speaker 1: it's better money. So you know what's also better money,

808
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 1: products and services. That's right, that's right. And these products

809
00:43:49,200 --> 00:43:54,440
Speaker 1: and services, I think if they could would also build

810
00:43:54,680 --> 00:43:58,399
Speaker 1: deliberately shoddy gallows to make the hanging of Nazi war

811
00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:05,239
Speaker 1: criminals less pleasant. Let me support that. Yeah, here we go.

812
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:15,120
Speaker 1: All right, we're back. So we're talking about John C.

813
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:17,440
Speaker 1: Woods real piece of ship, and I want to talk

814
00:44:17,480 --> 00:44:20,600
Speaker 1: a little bit about his personality, um before we get

815
00:44:20,680 --> 00:44:24,560
Speaker 1: into his actual execution of the Nazi high command. Um. Now,

816
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:26,920
Speaker 1: one of our most prolific sources on the personality of

817
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 1: John C. Woods was Herman Obermeyer, a journalist and a

818
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:33,720
Speaker 1: publisher who, during the war was a military clerk. Uh.

819
00:44:33,960 --> 00:44:36,040
Speaker 1: He had a number of interactions with Woods, and he

820
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:38,839
Speaker 1: seems to have hated him, and he said this after

821
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 1: the war. Quote, John Woods was a short, muscular sort

822
00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:43,799
Speaker 1: of man, and I would describe him as kind of

823
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 1: the world's flotsam. He talked the language of the hoboes

824
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:49,160
Speaker 1: and flotsams and the people who do these kinds of jobs.

825
00:44:49,400 --> 00:44:51,879
Speaker 1: He was I think an honest craftsman who took pride

826
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 1: in his job, and he thought it was a very

827
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 1: good job. He had thirty executions a year maybe, and

828
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 1: the rest of the time the army treated him very

829
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:00,279
Speaker 1: well because he had a skill that nobody else had

830
00:45:00,280 --> 00:45:02,320
Speaker 1: in the army. So he was allowed to be drunk

831
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:04,400
Speaker 1: the rest of the time and do whatever he wanted,

832
00:45:04,440 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: so long as he showed up for these things and

833
00:45:06,040 --> 00:45:10,479
Speaker 1: performed them. Well, that's hilarious. He does have like sort

834
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:16,920
Speaker 1: of a Popeye Mr Clean vibe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, nobody

835
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: wants to do this, so let's give him extra money

836
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:21,879
Speaker 1: and let him be drunk all the time. Yeah, oh

837
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:25,439
Speaker 1: my god. Uh. That is kind of the reasoning that

838
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: I heart radio has for me. But I only rarely

839
00:45:31,160 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 1: execute people now, at least once woods is drinking led

840
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 1: to him sucking up and showing up late to in execution.

841
00:45:38,360 --> 00:45:40,400
Speaker 1: His excuse was that he'd been unable to find the

842
00:45:40,480 --> 00:45:44,040
Speaker 1: right kind of rope. Uh. And I'm gonna quote now

843
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 1: from the book Hangman at War. He shuffled into the

844
00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:49,759
Speaker 1: general's room boots unpolished, and instead of chewing him out,

845
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 1: The General jumped up and exclaimed, glad to see you Woods.

846
00:45:52,680 --> 00:45:55,760
Speaker 1: Any other soldier when walking into superior officers room would

847
00:45:55,760 --> 00:45:58,160
Speaker 1: take care that his dress was impeccable, would salute crisply,

848
00:45:58,239 --> 00:46:01,200
Speaker 1: and not expect a more cordial green than Eddies. The

849
00:46:01,320 --> 00:46:04,759
Speaker 1: army gave Woods very special treatment. Indeed, once Obermeyer even

850
00:46:04,760 --> 00:46:06,839
Speaker 1: got a nanny's job to make sure Woods didn't get

851
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:09,560
Speaker 1: drunk and failed to appear at in execution. So like,

852
00:46:09,600 --> 00:46:11,960
Speaker 1: he gets drunk and shows up late to kill somebody,

853
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 1: and he shows up to the General to get disciplined,

854
00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:16,399
Speaker 1: and the General is just like super nice to him

855
00:46:16,400 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 1: because again, nobody wants to do this job, which like

856
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:24,319
Speaker 1: there's almost something inspiring about Like even in like an

857
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:27,799
Speaker 1: organization of hundreds of thousands of trained killers, it's so

858
00:46:27,880 --> 00:46:30,280
Speaker 1: hard to find someone who's willing to kill an unarmed

859
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:32,760
Speaker 1: man that, like, I know, I think this is heartening.

860
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:36,360
Speaker 1: They have to let him be drunk and be a

861
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 1: speci of ship because like no one else will do it. Yeah,

862
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 1: it is kind of hardening. Yeah, like even in like

863
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,440
Speaker 1: at this point, all these guys have seen horrible things,

864
00:46:45,480 --> 00:46:47,719
Speaker 1: like they're still not willing to do what this guy

865
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,880
Speaker 1: does and his previous job. The other guys are like,

866
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:53,680
Speaker 1: I don't want to kill my buddies, and he's like,

867
00:46:53,960 --> 00:46:56,240
Speaker 1: I will be the first to kill an American soldier.

868
00:46:57,520 --> 00:46:59,799
Speaker 1: I don't give a funk, I'll kill anybody. Yeah, let

869
00:46:59,800 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 1: me screw it. Yeah. So um this then this, this, this,

870
00:47:05,680 --> 00:47:11,319
Speaker 1: this drunken hobo like executioner was the man selected to

871
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:14,920
Speaker 1: hang the greatest collection of war criminals ever incarcerated and

872
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 1: sentenced by a court. Uh. Some articles I've read on

873
00:47:19,680 --> 00:47:22,200
Speaker 1: this suggests that the choice of this drunken, dirty hobo

874
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:25,840
Speaker 1: man as executioner was a deliberate move by Allied authorities,

875
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 1: a sort of last middle finger to the leadership Cadra

876
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:31,839
Speaker 1: of the Third Reich, like basically saying like, like, we

877
00:47:32,040 --> 00:47:34,919
Speaker 1: we respect you pieces of ships so little that this

878
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:37,319
Speaker 1: is the guy we're hiring to kill you, Like we

879
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:39,680
Speaker 1: can't even get someone who can come in without liquor

880
00:47:39,719 --> 00:47:42,879
Speaker 1: on their breath to do this job. Like and I'm

881
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 1: not sure. I don't I think that's more sort of

882
00:47:44,760 --> 00:47:48,799
Speaker 1: like wishful thinking than actual probably realistic. Like I think

883
00:47:48,800 --> 00:47:50,480
Speaker 1: that all of the people in the high command are

884
00:47:50,480 --> 00:47:52,800
Speaker 1: probably a little bit too professional for that. They probably

885
00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:57,160
Speaker 1: just didn't have anybody else. Um. But it is worth

886
00:47:57,239 --> 00:47:59,120
Speaker 1: noting that the choice of hanging as a method of

887
00:47:59,120 --> 00:48:01,560
Speaker 1: execution was picked to send a direct message to men

888
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:04,759
Speaker 1: like Herman Gerring and Field Marshal Kitel Um as I

889
00:48:04,760 --> 00:48:08,839
Speaker 1: discussed earlier, like firing squad as the word yeah, because

890
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:11,040
Speaker 1: we talked about this earlier, and you said that the

891
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:15,359
Speaker 1: shooting was more humane, right or more honored. It's what

892
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:17,560
Speaker 1: you do to yeah, it's what you do to soldiers.

893
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:20,560
Speaker 1: Being shot is an honorable way for a soldier to die,

894
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: you know, right, And so for the so for the

895
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:25,719
Speaker 1: American guys that didn't make good on what they were

896
00:48:25,719 --> 00:48:28,160
Speaker 1: supposed to be like as soldiers, that's why we hung

897
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:31,640
Speaker 1: them as civilians. And the same thing for these guys now, yeah,

898
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:34,800
Speaker 1: and these guys like the Nazi generals like Herman Garring

899
00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:37,120
Speaker 1: was a fighter race in World War One. He was

900
00:48:37,160 --> 00:48:39,839
Speaker 1: like the guy who took over Manfred von Richtoven squadron

901
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:43,600
Speaker 1: after the Red Baron died. Um and he was also

902
00:48:43,680 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 1: like obviously in the military hierarchy of the Third Reich,

903
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 1: he was the head of the Liftwaffa UM and in

904
00:48:48,239 --> 00:48:50,799
Speaker 1: Field Marshal Kitel was like the highest ranking or at

905
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:53,280
Speaker 1: least one of the highest ranking German generals left alive.

906
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 1: So as General yodel um, these were military men, and

907
00:48:57,400 --> 00:48:59,799
Speaker 1: like the thing they wanted to protect above everything else

908
00:48:59,880 --> 00:49:04,760
Speaker 1: was their military honor um, and like they protested hugely

909
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:07,279
Speaker 1: against the fact that they were going to be executed

910
00:49:07,320 --> 00:49:10,440
Speaker 1: by hanging. Gurring repeatedly said that he was willing to

911
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:12,960
Speaker 1: be shot, he had no problem with a soldier's death, um,

912
00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:14,759
Speaker 1: but he thought that hanging was the worst thing they

913
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:16,960
Speaker 1: could do to a soldier. And that's how most of

914
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:20,360
Speaker 1: these guys felt. Um. One of the major sources for

915
00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:22,600
Speaker 1: this episode was a book called The Nazi Hunters by

916
00:49:22,640 --> 00:49:26,120
Speaker 1: Andrew Nikorski uh, and it cites a guy named Fritz Sockhell,

917
00:49:26,480 --> 00:49:29,480
Speaker 1: a Nazi who oversaw the slave labor program. So he

918
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:32,920
Speaker 1: was the guy like responsible for organizing like mass slavery

919
00:49:32,960 --> 00:49:35,680
Speaker 1: and like labor gangs that killed tens of thousands of people.

920
00:49:36,320 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 1: Here's how he complained about the court's decision to hang

921
00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:42,319
Speaker 1: him instead of shooting him quote death by hanging. That

922
00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:45,399
Speaker 1: at least I did not deserve the death part, all right,

923
00:49:45,520 --> 00:49:48,800
Speaker 1: but that that I did not deserve Oh my god,

924
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:55,160
Speaker 1: this guy also, fucking guy, how much. Were any of

925
00:49:55,200 --> 00:50:00,320
Speaker 1: them like, yes, what I did was horrible? Or actually,

926
00:50:00,400 --> 00:50:02,520
Speaker 1: are they just quibbling about how they're going to die?

927
00:50:03,600 --> 00:50:05,799
Speaker 1: Some of the A couple of them were Hans Frank,

928
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:09,560
Speaker 1: who was the head of of Poland, of occupied Poland

929
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:14,800
Speaker 1: and like guilty of unspeakable war crimes and and facilitating

930
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:19,440
Speaker 1: the mass extermination of Poland's Jewish population. Um seemed to

931
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:24,200
Speaker 1: honestly deeply regret what he'd done and like fully accepted

932
00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 1: that he needed to be executed. Uh, and like like

933
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:30,120
Speaker 1: like some of them, I don't know, like you can

934
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:32,400
Speaker 1: argue like how real all that was or he was

935
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:34,440
Speaker 1: just trying to like get some sympathy at the end.

936
00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:39,839
Speaker 1: Some of them claimed that like yeah, like I, uh,

937
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:43,040
Speaker 1: something bad should happen to me. I don't know, Like

938
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: I'm hesitant to like go too much detail about Frank

939
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:48,439
Speaker 1: just because he was still a gigantic piece of ship

940
00:50:48,560 --> 00:50:51,440
Speaker 1: and I don't want to give him credit um for

941
00:50:51,560 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 1: like uh acting like slightly less of a piece of

942
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:58,520
Speaker 1: ship right before dying. But guys like Kitel and Yodel

943
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:01,560
Speaker 1: and Garing ore pieces of ship right to the end

944
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:04,399
Speaker 1: and wine like babies about the fact that they're being

945
00:51:04,480 --> 00:51:08,280
Speaker 1: hung after helping to facilitate the conquest of a regime

946
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:10,759
Speaker 1: that gassed millions to death and burnt their corpses. So

947
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:14,880
Speaker 1: um yeah. All of their requests to be shot instead

948
00:51:14,920 --> 00:51:18,040
Speaker 1: of hung were denied, but not all of the eleven

949
00:51:18,080 --> 00:51:21,880
Speaker 1: condemned Nazis survived to meet John Seawoods at the gallows.

950
00:51:22,239 --> 00:51:25,160
Speaker 1: Herman Garring, in a last active defiance, had managed to

951
00:51:25,239 --> 00:51:28,920
Speaker 1: secret a cyanide capsule on his person. He poisoned himself

952
00:51:28,960 --> 00:51:33,279
Speaker 1: and died horribly but privately, avoiding the hangman's noose. So

953
00:51:33,320 --> 00:51:38,920
Speaker 1: that's a bomber. You hate to see it now. The

954
00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:41,880
Speaker 1: remaining condemned Nazis, however, were unable to escape, and they

955
00:51:41,880 --> 00:51:44,120
Speaker 1: all wound up meeting John Seawoods on the morning of

956
00:51:44,120 --> 00:51:48,239
Speaker 1: October six, ninety six. On that day, Woods was, as

957
00:51:48,280 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: Obermeyer puts it, one of the most important men in

958
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:53,560
Speaker 1: the world, and he flaunted that fact by showing up

959
00:51:53,560 --> 00:51:56,600
Speaker 1: with dirty pants, an unpressed jacket, a crumpled hat, and

960
00:51:56,680 --> 00:51:59,799
Speaker 1: reeking of booth. He was clearly unwashed and his teeth

961
00:51:59,840 --> 00:52:02,840
Speaker 1: were unbrushed. This is the man who led tin Nazi

962
00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:10,680
Speaker 1: war criminals to their deaths. Oh my god, just a

963
00:52:10,719 --> 00:52:15,080
Speaker 1: big old piss right on them. Uh. I'm gonna quote

964
00:52:15,080 --> 00:52:17,200
Speaker 1: now from a selection from the book The Nazi Honors.

965
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:21,160
Speaker 1: At one eleven, A. M. Joakim von Ribbon Trop, Hitler's

966
00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:23,480
Speaker 1: foreign minister, was the first to arrive in the gym.

967
00:52:23,520 --> 00:52:25,520
Speaker 1: The original plan was for the guards to escort the

968
00:52:25,520 --> 00:52:28,920
Speaker 1: prisoners from their cells without manacles, but following giring suicide,

969
00:52:28,960 --> 00:52:31,440
Speaker 1: the rules had changed. Ribbon Trop's hands were bound as

970
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:33,279
Speaker 1: he entered, and when the manacles were replaced with a

971
00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:36,640
Speaker 1: leather strap. After mounting the scaffold, the former diplomatic wizard

972
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:39,319
Speaker 1: of Nazi dom as Smith archly put it, proclaimed to

973
00:52:39,320 --> 00:52:42,920
Speaker 1: the assembled witnesses, God protect Germany allowed to make an

974
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:45,320
Speaker 1: additional short statement, the men who had played a critical

975
00:52:45,400 --> 00:52:48,520
Speaker 1: role in launching Germany's attacks on country after country, concluded,

976
00:52:49,080 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 1: my last wishes that Germany realized its entity in an

977
00:52:52,160 --> 00:52:55,120
Speaker 1: understanding be reached between East and West. I wish peace

978
00:52:55,160 --> 00:52:57,719
Speaker 1: to the world. Would then place the black hood over

979
00:52:57,800 --> 00:52:59,880
Speaker 1: his head, adjusted the rope and pulled the lever that

980
00:53:00,000 --> 00:53:02,799
Speaker 1: opened the trap, sending Ribbon Trop to his death. Two

981
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:06,040
Speaker 1: minutes later, Field Marshal Kitel entered the gym. Smith duly

982
00:53:06,120 --> 00:53:08,319
Speaker 1: noted that he was the first military leader to be

983
00:53:08,400 --> 00:53:11,760
Speaker 1: executed under the new concept of international law, the principle

984
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:15,320
Speaker 1: that professional soldiers cannot escape punishment for waging aggressive wars

985
00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:17,920
Speaker 1: and permitting crimes against humanity, with the claim that they

986
00:53:17,920 --> 00:53:22,440
Speaker 1: were dutifully following orders of superiors. Kitel maintained his military

987
00:53:22,440 --> 00:53:24,680
Speaker 1: bearing to the last. Looking down from the scaffold before

988
00:53:24,680 --> 00:53:27,040
Speaker 1: the noose was put around his neck, he spoke loudly

989
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:30,080
Speaker 1: and clearly, betraying no signs of nervousness. I call on

990
00:53:30,080 --> 00:53:32,760
Speaker 1: God Almighty to have mercy on the German people, he declared.

991
00:53:33,000 --> 00:53:35,120
Speaker 1: More the two million German soldiers went to their deaths

992
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:37,760
Speaker 1: for the fatherland before me. I now follow my son's

993
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:40,799
Speaker 1: all for Germany will. Both Ribbon trop and Kitel were

994
00:53:40,800 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 1: still hanging from their ropes. There was a pause in

995
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:46,160
Speaker 1: the proceedings. An American general representing the Allied Control Commission

996
00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:48,280
Speaker 1: allowed the thirty or so people in the gym to smoke,

997
00:53:48,480 --> 00:53:52,680
Speaker 1: and almost everyone immediately lit up. At least you guys,

998
00:53:53,320 --> 00:53:55,480
Speaker 1: they have them a smoke break because it's the forties.

999
00:53:55,680 --> 00:54:00,040
Speaker 1: They're like, ship, we need a cigarette, Okay, I mean it,

1000
00:54:00,239 --> 00:54:02,560
Speaker 1: I would have a cigarette. Then that's the time to

1001
00:54:02,640 --> 00:54:07,879
Speaker 1: have a fucking cigarette now there would be one more

1002
00:54:07,920 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 1: smoke break over the course of the day, and true

1003
00:54:10,200 --> 00:54:13,080
Speaker 1: to form, Woods, his executions were as sloppy as his dress.

1004
00:54:13,200 --> 00:54:16,880
Speaker 1: Joachim von Ribbentropp took fourteen minutes to die. Keitel choked

1005
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:19,760
Speaker 1: to death for almost half an hour. It is possible

1006
00:54:19,800 --> 00:54:21,719
Speaker 1: that both of these were due to errors, either in

1007
00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:23,560
Speaker 1: the construction of the gallows or in the type of

1008
00:54:23,600 --> 00:54:26,960
Speaker 1: noose Woods Tide, but McLean Woods. His biographer believes he

1009
00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:31,600
Speaker 1: intentionally botched at least one job, the hanging of Julius Striker,

1010
00:54:31,840 --> 00:54:35,120
Speaker 1: the first arch propagandist to the Nazi Party. And I'm

1011
00:54:35,120 --> 00:54:37,200
Speaker 1: gonna quote one more time from the Nazi hunters. This

1012
00:54:37,239 --> 00:54:40,239
Speaker 1: is a good bit. At two twelve, Smith noted that

1013
00:54:40,320 --> 00:54:43,480
Speaker 1: the ugly dwarfish little man Julius Striker, the editor and

1014
00:54:43,520 --> 00:54:46,920
Speaker 1: publisher of the venomous Nazi Party newspaper Dear Schirmer, walked

1015
00:54:46,920 --> 00:54:50,560
Speaker 1: to the gallows, his face visibly twitching. Asked to identify himself,

1016
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:53,480
Speaker 1: he shouted, Heil Hitler, allowing for a rare reference to

1017
00:54:53,520 --> 00:54:56,400
Speaker 1: his own emotions. Smith confessed the shrieks sent a shiver

1018
00:54:56,520 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 1: down my back. As Striker was pushed up the final

1019
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:01,600
Speaker 1: steps on top of the gallows to position him for Woods.

1020
00:55:01,640 --> 00:55:04,440
Speaker 1: He glared at the witnesses and screamed pure in Fest

1021
00:55:04,560 --> 00:55:07,960
Speaker 1: ninety six. The reference was to the Jewish holiday that

1022
00:55:07,960 --> 00:55:11,080
Speaker 1: commemorates the execution of Hayman, who, according to the Old Testament,

1023
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:13,560
Speaker 1: was planning to kill all the Jews and the Persian Empire.

1024
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:17,440
Speaker 1: Asked formally for his last words, Striker shouted, the Bolsheviks

1025
00:55:17,440 --> 00:55:20,080
Speaker 1: will hang you. One day. While Woods was placing the

1026
00:55:20,120 --> 00:55:23,200
Speaker 1: black hood over his head, Striker could be heard saying, adele,

1027
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:25,680
Speaker 1: my dear wife. But the drama was far from over.

1028
00:55:25,719 --> 00:55:28,000
Speaker 1: The trap door opened with a bang, with Striker kicking

1029
00:55:28,040 --> 00:55:30,279
Speaker 1: as he went down. As the rope snagged taught, it

1030
00:55:30,320 --> 00:55:33,320
Speaker 1: swung wildly, and the witnesses could hear him groaning. Woods

1031
00:55:33,320 --> 00:55:35,680
Speaker 1: came down from the platform and disappeared behind the black

1032
00:55:35,680 --> 00:55:38,840
Speaker 1: curtain that concealed the dying man. Abruptly, the grown ceased

1033
00:55:38,840 --> 00:55:41,040
Speaker 1: and the rope stopped moving. Smith and the other witnesses

1034
00:55:41,040 --> 00:55:43,520
Speaker 1: were convinced that Woods had grabbed Striker and pulled him

1035
00:55:43,560 --> 00:55:47,120
Speaker 1: down hard, strangling him. Had something gone wrong or was

1036
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:50,360
Speaker 1: this no accident? Lieutenant Stanley Tillis, who was charged with

1037
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:53,640
Speaker 1: coordinating the Nuremberg and earlier hanging of war criminals. Later

1038
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:56,360
Speaker 1: claimed that Woods had deliberately placed the coils of Striker's

1039
00:55:56,360 --> 00:55:58,360
Speaker 1: news off center so that his neck would not be

1040
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:02,239
Speaker 1: broken during his fall. Instead, he would strangle. Everyone in

1041
00:56:02,239 --> 00:56:04,520
Speaker 1: the chamber had watched Stryker's performance, and none of it

1042
00:56:04,560 --> 00:56:07,040
Speaker 1: was lost on Woods. I knew Woods hated Germans, and

1043
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:09,640
Speaker 1: I watched his face become florid and his jaws clinch,

1044
00:56:09,920 --> 00:56:12,279
Speaker 1: he wrote, adding that Woods's intent was clear. I saw

1045
00:56:12,320 --> 00:56:14,600
Speaker 1: a small smile cross his lips as he pulled the

1046
00:56:14,640 --> 00:56:21,439
Speaker 1: hangman's handle. Oh my god, this guy. I I feel

1047
00:56:21,480 --> 00:56:24,520
Speaker 1: like you have to either he sucks at his job

1048
00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:29,160
Speaker 1: or he's at least good enough to funk people over.

1049
00:56:30,200 --> 00:56:32,239
Speaker 1: You know. It's I think where I am on this

1050
00:56:32,320 --> 00:56:34,319
Speaker 1: is he was bad at his job, but it was

1051
00:56:34,360 --> 00:56:36,920
Speaker 1: a job that the best way to do it was poorly.

1052
00:56:37,440 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 1: Because Nazis don't deserve a nice, clean executively, and you

1053
00:56:41,000 --> 00:56:43,640
Speaker 1: can't as the government. You have to try to give

1054
00:56:43,680 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 1: them one because otherwise you're you're not You're not upholding

1055
00:56:47,960 --> 00:56:49,920
Speaker 1: the kind of moral high ground you need to uphold.

1056
00:56:50,000 --> 00:56:51,640
Speaker 1: To try to make the point that they were trying

1057
00:56:51,640 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 1: to make by trying these guys in a court of law.

1058
00:56:54,040 --> 00:56:56,480
Speaker 1: I don't want our government to have tortured them. I

1059
00:56:56,520 --> 00:56:59,480
Speaker 1: don't want our government to have executed them painfully. But

1060
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:03,839
Speaker 1: I do want an incompetent, shitty asshole hangman to funk

1061
00:57:03,840 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 1: it up so that it's a little bit worse for them.

1062
00:57:05,719 --> 00:57:08,200
Speaker 1: That's I think it is kind of like the perfect

1063
00:57:08,239 --> 00:57:12,920
Speaker 1: balance of justice inasmuch as you can achieve it here. Yeah, agreed,

1064
00:57:13,000 --> 00:57:17,640
Speaker 1: But so he he straight up strangled the last guy.

1065
00:57:18,480 --> 00:57:20,120
Speaker 1: A Striker wasn't the last now, I think he like

1066
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:23,480
Speaker 1: pulled him down, like the guy strangling. He pulled him

1067
00:57:23,520 --> 00:57:26,680
Speaker 1: to like strangle him faster. And and there's debate. You know,

1068
00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:29,680
Speaker 1: um that guy. You know. One of the witnesses who

1069
00:57:29,720 --> 00:57:32,640
Speaker 1: is there with Woods one day says that he thinks

1070
00:57:32,680 --> 00:57:35,840
Speaker 1: that um Striker fucked out up so that it would

1071
00:57:35,880 --> 00:57:38,160
Speaker 1: be more painful because he hated Germans and he wanted

1072
00:57:38,160 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 1: to get to strangle a guy. McLean Woods. His biographer

1073
00:57:41,640 --> 00:57:46,080
Speaker 1: argues that Wood's intentionally fucked up Striker's execution not because

1074
00:57:46,080 --> 00:57:49,200
Speaker 1: he hated Germans, but because the Nazi propagandist had stolen

1075
00:57:49,240 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 1: the show from him by like making a big like

1076
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:59,080
Speaker 1: like like by yeah exactly, um McLean wrote at an execution,

1077
00:57:59,160 --> 00:58:02,320
Speaker 1: John Woods wanted too and insisted on playing the lead actor.

1078
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:04,960
Speaker 1: So like that's McLean's angle is that Like Woods was

1079
00:58:05,000 --> 00:58:07,200
Speaker 1: just jealous that he'd stolen the spotlight for a little

1080
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:10,400
Speaker 1: while and he wanted to take it back and like yeah,

1081
00:58:10,400 --> 00:58:14,120
Speaker 1: it's wild. Yeah. Now, halfway through the execution of these

1082
00:58:14,120 --> 00:58:16,160
Speaker 1: ten men, which were all executed on the same day

1083
00:58:16,160 --> 00:58:18,680
Speaker 1: in a couple of hours, Uh, John C. Woods was

1084
00:58:18,720 --> 00:58:21,320
Speaker 1: asked how he felt by an American officer who I

1085
00:58:21,320 --> 00:58:23,360
Speaker 1: think was concerned for his mental health, like wanted to

1086
00:58:23,400 --> 00:58:25,440
Speaker 1: make sure he was okay, you know, because it's it's

1087
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:29,560
Speaker 1: a tough thing Woods. His response was wins early chow,

1088
00:58:31,360 --> 00:58:35,680
Speaker 1: I'm fine. What do we eat? Oh my god? Uh

1089
00:58:36,440 --> 00:58:40,760
Speaker 1: gotta love it now. In the immediate aftermath of the executions,

1090
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:43,840
Speaker 1: Woods agreed to do an interview with Stars and Stripes magazine.

1091
00:58:43,920 --> 00:58:46,240
Speaker 1: He bragged that the hangings had gone off without a hitch.

1092
00:58:46,600 --> 00:58:48,800
Speaker 1: I hanged these ten Nazis and Nuremberg, and I am

1093
00:58:48,840 --> 00:58:51,000
Speaker 1: proud of it. I did a good job. Everything went

1094
00:58:51,120 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 1: a number one. I have never been doing execution which

1095
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:56,600
Speaker 1: went better. I am only sorry that that fellow Garring

1096
00:58:56,760 --> 00:58:59,000
Speaker 1: escaped me. I'd have been at my best for him. No,

1097
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:01,439
Speaker 1: I wasn't nervous. I haven't got any nerves. You can't

1098
00:59:01,440 --> 00:59:04,120
Speaker 1: afford nerves in my job. But this Nuremberg job was

1099
00:59:04,200 --> 00:59:06,360
Speaker 1: just what I wanted. I wanted this job so terribly

1100
00:59:06,360 --> 00:59:08,000
Speaker 1: that I stayed here a bit longer, though I could

1101
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:11,280
Speaker 1: have gone home earlier. So that's what he claims to

1102
00:59:11,280 --> 00:59:14,080
Speaker 1: the news, And from woods point of view, the only

1103
00:59:14,200 --> 00:59:16,360
Speaker 1: hitch in the whole day seems to have come afterwards.

1104
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:18,960
Speaker 1: At a post execution celebration in the n c O

1105
00:59:19,040 --> 00:59:21,440
Speaker 1: S Club, Woods was informed that he would not be

1106
00:59:21,480 --> 00:59:23,840
Speaker 1: allowed to drink more than his nightly ration of four

1107
00:59:23,920 --> 00:59:26,840
Speaker 1: ounces of liquor. He demanded that the sergeant in charge

1108
00:59:26,880 --> 00:59:29,360
Speaker 1: break out the booze, and eventually got so violent over

1109
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:31,760
Speaker 1: the sergeant's refusal to do so that the Commandant of

1110
00:59:31,800 --> 00:59:34,280
Speaker 1: the Guard was called on him. Woods never got an

1111
00:59:34,280 --> 00:59:38,920
Speaker 1: increase in his liquor ration, he just got belligerent afterwards.

1112
00:59:39,400 --> 00:59:42,360
Speaker 1: He does deserve some extra shots, I think, for he

1113
00:59:42,440 --> 00:59:46,240
Speaker 1: does deserve some extra shots. If you if anything deserves shots,

1114
00:59:46,280 --> 00:59:51,280
Speaker 1: it's hanging the Nazis. But now, uh, Woods did spend

1115
00:59:51,320 --> 00:59:52,920
Speaker 1: a lot of time drunk in the immediate wake of

1116
00:59:52,960 --> 00:59:56,760
Speaker 1: the executions, though Obermeyer recalled a more or less drunken

1117
00:59:56,800 --> 00:59:59,640
Speaker 1: moment after the hangings, when another soldier asked John how

1118
00:59:59,680 --> 01:00:02,920
Speaker 1: he'd feel about dying via hanging, and John C. Woods responded,

1119
01:00:03,440 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's a damn good way to die.

1120
01:00:05,280 --> 01:00:07,840
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, I'll probably die that way myself.

1121
01:00:10,480 --> 01:00:14,120
Speaker 1: How did you think here? Well, what the soldier asked,

1122
01:00:14,120 --> 01:00:16,040
Speaker 1: basically that question, you asked, like, what the what the

1123
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:18,160
Speaker 1: hell are you talking about? Like, don't say ship like that.

1124
01:00:18,160 --> 01:00:21,560
Speaker 1: That's fucked up. And Woods replied, I'm damn serious. It's clean,

1125
01:00:21,600 --> 01:00:24,360
Speaker 1: and it's painless, and it's traditional. It's traditional with hangman

1126
01:00:24,400 --> 01:00:26,800
Speaker 1: to hang themselves when they get old, which I think

1127
01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:29,600
Speaker 1: he's just making up. I don't think it's traditional at all.

1128
01:00:29,960 --> 01:00:33,680
Speaker 1: I think he's just lying. But do you know how

1129
01:00:33,720 --> 01:00:36,720
Speaker 1: he died? Or are we getting there? We're getting there,

1130
01:00:37,040 --> 01:00:39,760
Speaker 1: We're getting there now. Woods became something of a minor

1131
01:00:39,840 --> 01:00:42,320
Speaker 1: celebrity in the wake of the executions. He gave interviews

1132
01:00:42,320 --> 01:00:44,560
Speaker 1: to any journalists who would sit and talk to him.

1133
01:00:44,720 --> 01:00:46,840
Speaker 1: The blizzard of media attention came as a shock to

1134
01:00:46,920 --> 01:00:49,760
Speaker 1: his wife, Hazel Woods, and I'm gonna read a quote

1135
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:53,320
Speaker 1: she gave to the Emporia Gazette on October seventeenth, ninety six,

1136
01:00:53,320 --> 01:00:55,080
Speaker 1: when they asked her about the fact that her husband

1137
01:00:55,080 --> 01:00:57,800
Speaker 1: had killed all of the Nazi high command. He never

1138
01:00:57,880 --> 01:00:59,840
Speaker 1: told me that he was doing that type of work.

1139
01:00:59,840 --> 01:01:01,680
Speaker 1: He didn't mention any hangings. And the first thing I

1140
01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:03,280
Speaker 1: knew of it was what I saw his picture in

1141
01:01:03,320 --> 01:01:09,160
Speaker 1: the papers. Oh my god. So it doesn't even tell

1142
01:01:09,200 --> 01:01:16,760
Speaker 1: his wife a real piece of ship, and it's there's

1143
01:01:16,800 --> 01:01:18,840
Speaker 1: a couple like the charitable is like, Oh, he didn't

1144
01:01:18,840 --> 01:01:20,680
Speaker 1: want her to worry because it's such you know, it

1145
01:01:20,720 --> 01:01:22,680
Speaker 1: would have increased their risk, and maybe he felt that

1146
01:01:22,720 --> 01:01:25,280
Speaker 1: she'd be safe or not knowing. I don't think that's

1147
01:01:25,320 --> 01:01:27,800
Speaker 1: the case. I think he either just didn't think to

1148
01:01:27,840 --> 01:01:32,120
Speaker 1: do it, or his pay tripled, right, But he doesn't

1149
01:01:32,120 --> 01:01:33,960
Speaker 1: want to have to send extra money back to his

1150
01:01:33,960 --> 01:01:40,040
Speaker 1: wife because that he gets spend it all that He

1151
01:01:40,080 --> 01:01:44,560
Speaker 1: wasn't a communicator, you know, he doesn't. That's also very possible. Yeah,

1152
01:01:44,640 --> 01:01:46,360
Speaker 1: he seems like that kind of guy that would just

1153
01:01:46,560 --> 01:01:49,640
Speaker 1: have a whole relationship and it would just be about

1154
01:01:49,680 --> 01:01:53,040
Speaker 1: eating or whatever. I mean, how would you feel if

1155
01:01:53,120 --> 01:01:58,080
Speaker 1: like your your romantic partner after years of executing war criminals,

1156
01:01:58,200 --> 01:02:01,920
Speaker 1: and you think you thinking he was putting it together

1157
01:02:02,000 --> 01:02:06,480
Speaker 1: like phone like telephone wires like, because Oh, yeah, I've

1158
01:02:06,480 --> 01:02:09,240
Speaker 1: just been hanging people for years, just hanging folks all day.

1159
01:02:09,280 --> 01:02:12,080
Speaker 1: That's what I've been doing. That's that means you need

1160
01:02:12,120 --> 01:02:16,080
Speaker 1: to ask more questions. I think that's what that means. Yeah,

1161
01:02:16,440 --> 01:02:21,720
Speaker 1: made relationship experts would agree. Yeah. Now, as interest in

1162
01:02:21,760 --> 01:02:24,280
Speaker 1: the executions began to wane and America moved on from

1163
01:02:24,280 --> 01:02:26,760
Speaker 1: World War Two to go onto the important business of

1164
01:02:26,800 --> 01:02:29,800
Speaker 1: forgetting all of World War two's lessons, UH, Johnson to

1165
01:02:29,920 --> 01:02:33,640
Speaker 1: have gotten somewhat desperate for attention. UH. Interviews conducted with

1166
01:02:33,720 --> 01:02:36,720
Speaker 1: him in this period reveal his increasing attempts to convince

1167
01:02:36,800 --> 01:02:39,680
Speaker 1: journalists that a secret cabal of Nazis was trying to

1168
01:02:39,760 --> 01:02:42,360
Speaker 1: murder him for his role in killing their leaders. I'm

1169
01:02:42,360 --> 01:02:44,120
Speaker 1: going a quote now from an article in the Male

1170
01:02:44,200 --> 01:02:47,760
Speaker 1: Special Service. After I started hanging these German war criminals

1171
01:02:47,840 --> 01:02:49,960
Speaker 1: last year, someone tried to poison me in Germany, and

1172
01:02:50,000 --> 01:02:52,120
Speaker 1: somebody shot at me in Paris, but the poison only

1173
01:02:52,160 --> 01:02:54,760
Speaker 1: made me sick, and the bullet missed me. Somebody has

1174
01:02:54,800 --> 01:02:56,840
Speaker 1: to do this job. I got into it by accident.

1175
01:02:56,880 --> 01:02:58,680
Speaker 1: Years ago in the States, I attended to hanging as

1176
01:02:58,680 --> 01:03:00,439
Speaker 1: a witness, and the hangman asked me if I would

1177
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:03,000
Speaker 1: mind helping. I helped and later took over myself. I

1178
01:03:03,040 --> 01:03:05,400
Speaker 1: just don't let it bother me. Now that the Nuremberg

1179
01:03:05,480 --> 01:03:06,880
Speaker 1: job is over, I'm ready to go back to the

1180
01:03:06,960 --> 01:03:09,000
Speaker 1: United States, and I'm planning to leave in a few days,

1181
01:03:09,040 --> 01:03:10,720
Speaker 1: but I may come back to Germany. There are more

1182
01:03:10,760 --> 01:03:12,640
Speaker 1: than a hundred and twenty war criminals waiting here to

1183
01:03:12,680 --> 01:03:15,640
Speaker 1: be hanged, including those forty three sentence to the Almity massacre.

1184
01:03:15,880 --> 01:03:17,800
Speaker 1: I had some buddies killed in that massacre. I'll just

1185
01:03:17,840 --> 01:03:20,520
Speaker 1: come back here just to get even for them. So

1186
01:03:20,920 --> 01:03:23,000
Speaker 1: this is how he continues to present himself in the

1187
01:03:23,040 --> 01:03:25,800
Speaker 1: post war period. And it's hard to say with a

1188
01:03:25,840 --> 01:03:27,920
Speaker 1: guy like John, but it is possible that he believed

1189
01:03:27,920 --> 01:03:29,880
Speaker 1: a lot of what he was saying. People who knew

1190
01:03:29,920 --> 01:03:31,960
Speaker 1: him said that in the years after the executions, he

1191
01:03:32,000 --> 01:03:34,560
Speaker 1: took to carrying a pair of forty five caliber handguns

1192
01:03:34,600 --> 01:03:38,160
Speaker 1: everywhere he went as protection against possible Nazi assassins. He

1193
01:03:38,240 --> 01:03:40,840
Speaker 1: was quoted by one reporter is saying, if some German

1194
01:03:40,880 --> 01:03:42,680
Speaker 1: thinks he wants to get me, he'd better make sure

1195
01:03:42,680 --> 01:03:44,240
Speaker 1: he does it with his first shot, because I was

1196
01:03:44,320 --> 01:03:46,920
Speaker 1: raised with a pistol in my hand, which he definitely

1197
01:03:47,000 --> 01:03:51,680
Speaker 1: was not. Um, is this a real threat? Is? Because

1198
01:03:52,240 --> 01:03:55,000
Speaker 1: I mean it's a great question. It sort of is right.

1199
01:03:55,080 --> 01:03:58,160
Speaker 1: But also, wouldn't they be screwing themselves over by like

1200
01:03:58,200 --> 01:04:01,640
Speaker 1: calling attention to themselves by like trying to kill this

1201
01:04:01,840 --> 01:04:06,040
Speaker 1: hangman who really did wasn't a shot caller? Yeah? Yeah,

1202
01:04:06,080 --> 01:04:08,560
Speaker 1: I mean that's what you'd think. Um, although he'd be

1203
01:04:08,560 --> 01:04:10,880
Speaker 1: easier to be easier to kill the hangman than Eisenhower,

1204
01:04:11,000 --> 01:04:15,640
Speaker 1: you know. Um, But yeah, it's possible. Like I can

1205
01:04:15,680 --> 01:04:18,200
Speaker 1: see how, you know, as much of a liar as

1206
01:04:18,200 --> 01:04:19,960
Speaker 1: we know John Woods was, I can see how he

1207
01:04:19,960 --> 01:04:23,160
Speaker 1: could have legitimately believed his life was in danger. It's

1208
01:04:23,160 --> 01:04:25,760
Speaker 1: not unreasonable to think that would make someone paranoid, even

1209
01:04:25,800 --> 01:04:28,480
Speaker 1: if there was no actual plot against him. But it

1210
01:04:28,640 --> 01:04:34,400
Speaker 1: is possible there was a plot against him. So Yeah.

1211
01:04:34,480 --> 01:04:36,560
Speaker 1: Eventually the army stopped having much of a use for

1212
01:04:36,640 --> 01:04:38,760
Speaker 1: John and he went back to serving as a normal soldier.

1213
01:04:38,840 --> 01:04:41,000
Speaker 1: In the nineteen fifty who was stationed on the Ino

1214
01:04:41,000 --> 01:04:43,680
Speaker 1: Wa Talk, a toll in the Pacific, one of our

1215
01:04:43,760 --> 01:04:46,920
Speaker 1: nuclear weapon test basis, and woods job was basically to

1216
01:04:46,960 --> 01:04:49,200
Speaker 1: act as a guard and a gopher for the scientists

1217
01:04:49,200 --> 01:04:52,520
Speaker 1: and engineers who worked there, and thanks to Operation paper Clip,

1218
01:04:52,640 --> 01:04:55,720
Speaker 1: many of these scientists were Germans who had previously worked

1219
01:04:55,720 --> 01:04:59,760
Speaker 1: on the Nazi rocket program or in the military aircraft industry.

1220
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:02,680
Speaker 1: And on June twenty one, nineteen fifty, John C. Woods

1221
01:05:02,680 --> 01:05:05,880
Speaker 1: was tasked with changing some light bulbs. Showing his characteristic

1222
01:05:05,960 --> 01:05:08,320
Speaker 1: lack of attention to detail, he changed these light bulbs

1223
01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:11,200
Speaker 1: while standing in ankle deep water. A current of electricity

1224
01:05:11,240 --> 01:05:14,520
Speaker 1: surged through the water for unclear reasons and electrocuted him

1225
01:05:14,520 --> 01:05:17,360
Speaker 1: to death instantly. In the years since, there have been

1226
01:05:17,440 --> 01:05:20,400
Speaker 1: numerous rumors that John Woods was murdered, presumably by Nazi

1227
01:05:20,520 --> 01:05:22,760
Speaker 1: scientists for his role in the execution of their leaders.

1228
01:05:23,000 --> 01:05:25,560
Speaker 1: This is not impossible, but there is no hard evidence

1229
01:05:25,600 --> 01:05:29,480
Speaker 1: to support this theory. So yeah, yeah, that's how it

1230
01:05:29,520 --> 01:05:37,520
Speaker 1: all goes down. Fascinating ending five star Yeah, and it's

1231
01:05:37,600 --> 01:05:39,960
Speaker 1: it's pretty It's like one of those things where it's

1232
01:05:39,960 --> 01:05:43,200
Speaker 1: not impossible that some of these Nazi scientists would have

1233
01:05:43,200 --> 01:05:46,840
Speaker 1: wanted revenge, but also like the scientists tended to be,

1234
01:05:47,080 --> 01:05:48,440
Speaker 1: you know, even the ones who did a lot of

1235
01:05:48,520 --> 01:05:50,800
Speaker 1: Nazi ship and used slave labor and stuff like Verne

1236
01:05:50,880 --> 01:05:53,480
Speaker 1: von Braun did some awful things, but he cared more

1237
01:05:53,520 --> 01:05:56,640
Speaker 1: about the science than the Nazism. Like he wasn't in

1238
01:05:56,680 --> 01:05:59,880
Speaker 1: love with the fewer or anything. Um, he was kind

1239
01:06:00,040 --> 01:06:01,960
Speaker 1: like Kitel Well, he was just like willing to do

1240
01:06:02,040 --> 01:06:03,919
Speaker 1: the horrible Nazi ship to get to do the things

1241
01:06:03,960 --> 01:06:06,840
Speaker 1: he wanted to do. Um. Didn't the government kind of

1242
01:06:06,920 --> 01:06:09,240
Speaker 1: vet these scientists a little bit to make sure they

1243
01:06:09,240 --> 01:06:12,640
Speaker 1: weren't totally dangerous. No, no, no, no, as long as

1244
01:06:12,640 --> 01:06:15,440
Speaker 1: they okay. So one of the people that we brought

1245
01:06:15,480 --> 01:06:20,480
Speaker 1: in after World War two was Hitler's chief architect and

1246
01:06:20,520 --> 01:06:22,920
Speaker 1: like the the guy who would like manage the Germans

1247
01:06:23,000 --> 01:06:27,040
Speaker 1: armaments industry during World War two and had like organized

1248
01:06:27,040 --> 01:06:29,800
Speaker 1: the massive use of slave labor um and was a

1249
01:06:29,840 --> 01:06:32,840
Speaker 1: gigantic piece of ship and one of Hitler's best friends.

1250
01:06:33,320 --> 01:06:36,320
Speaker 1: And we forgave that guy because he knew things we

1251
01:06:36,480 --> 01:06:39,240
Speaker 1: he was good at organizing shit and like we needed

1252
01:06:39,320 --> 01:06:41,960
Speaker 1: we we wanted his help and sort of like Cold

1253
01:06:41,960 --> 01:06:47,160
Speaker 1: War planning ship like like renavon Brand designed rockets that

1254
01:06:47,200 --> 01:06:51,040
Speaker 1: were used to be fired specifically on civilian chunks of

1255
01:06:51,280 --> 01:06:55,080
Speaker 1: cities in London or cities in England like and we

1256
01:06:55,120 --> 01:06:56,920
Speaker 1: forgave him because he knew how to build rockets, like

1257
01:06:56,920 --> 01:06:58,920
Speaker 1: all the we we didn't give a ship what they

1258
01:06:58,920 --> 01:07:00,800
Speaker 1: did as long as they were good at the kind

1259
01:07:00,800 --> 01:07:04,600
Speaker 1: of science we needed. So it's totally it's not impossible

1260
01:07:05,000 --> 01:07:08,400
Speaker 1: that these guys killed it. It's not impossible. That said,

1261
01:07:08,760 --> 01:07:11,480
Speaker 1: it's also totally in character for John C. Woods for

1262
01:07:11,560 --> 01:07:15,560
Speaker 1: him to have been completely unconcerned, uncareful while working with

1263
01:07:15,600 --> 01:07:18,880
Speaker 1: electricity and get himself killed because he was a dumb,

1264
01:07:18,920 --> 01:07:21,439
Speaker 1: gross piece of ship who didn't pay attention to his work.

1265
01:07:22,200 --> 01:07:28,120
Speaker 1: So hard to say. Yeah, he didn't die by hanging though,

1266
01:07:28,320 --> 01:07:32,480
Speaker 1: sorry John, No, he did not die by hangings sorry John.

1267
01:07:33,840 --> 01:07:37,120
Speaker 1: So Courtney, how you feeling about John C. Woods at

1268
01:07:37,120 --> 01:07:38,920
Speaker 1: the end of this little tale? Man? That was a

1269
01:07:38,920 --> 01:07:46,080
Speaker 1: fun one. Yeah, he's not. He's not the worst guy. No, no, no, no,

1270
01:07:46,680 --> 01:07:51,880
Speaker 1: Like he's he's French. McLean Is biographer frequently describes him

1271
01:07:51,920 --> 01:07:55,360
Speaker 1: as a bum um like, which I think is fair. Like,

1272
01:07:55,440 --> 01:07:58,400
Speaker 1: he's not like a crazy monster who like wanted to

1273
01:07:58,480 --> 01:08:01,920
Speaker 1: kill people because he enjoyed he's death. He was like

1274
01:08:02,080 --> 01:08:04,959
Speaker 1: just kind of a shitty dude who didn't want to

1275
01:08:05,040 --> 01:08:08,160
Speaker 1: go to war and thought killing people was easier and

1276
01:08:08,200 --> 01:08:10,080
Speaker 1: then liked that had made him important enough that he

1277
01:08:10,120 --> 01:08:12,760
Speaker 1: could drink all day. Like that's that's my feel for

1278
01:08:12,840 --> 01:08:17,360
Speaker 1: John C. Woods. Yeah, some of those instincts I can

1279
01:08:17,439 --> 01:08:23,320
Speaker 1: relate to. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it's a fascinating tale. And

1280
01:08:24,280 --> 01:08:27,720
Speaker 1: it's as close to getting what they deserved as as

1281
01:08:27,760 --> 01:08:30,840
Speaker 1: these guys could have gotten. They certainly didn't deserve to

1282
01:08:30,880 --> 01:08:36,080
Speaker 1: be executed by a hangman who cared deeply about his

1283
01:08:36,080 --> 01:08:42,200
Speaker 1: his craft. No, but they did get. Yeah, the special

1284
01:08:42,240 --> 01:08:46,439
Speaker 1: trap doors. I love that touch. Yeah, yeah, and I

1285
01:08:46,520 --> 01:08:48,000
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of those things. I don't know

1286
01:08:48,080 --> 01:08:50,360
Speaker 1: if he if it's true that he designed the trap

1287
01:08:50,360 --> 01:08:53,800
Speaker 1: door specifically to hit people's faces on the way down.

1288
01:08:54,479 --> 01:08:57,000
Speaker 1: But if you look at pictures of these guys corpses,

1289
01:08:57,080 --> 01:08:59,439
Speaker 1: we there's clear pictures of all of their bodies immediately

1290
01:08:59,439 --> 01:09:01,280
Speaker 1: after extitly cution because it was part of like the

1291
01:09:01,360 --> 01:09:04,200
Speaker 1: legal documentation, and they all busted their faces open on

1292
01:09:04,360 --> 01:09:09,920
Speaker 1: the trap door. Yes, uh yeah, it kind of rules.

1293
01:09:09,960 --> 01:09:13,880
Speaker 1: Like I'm normally not as I think it's sucked up

1294
01:09:13,880 --> 01:09:16,160
Speaker 1: when people talk about like wanting you know, prisoners and

1295
01:09:16,240 --> 01:09:19,160
Speaker 1: jails to get raped or whatever, because like that's not

1296
01:09:19,200 --> 01:09:23,599
Speaker 1: why we should have a juter. Yeah, but like these

1297
01:09:23,640 --> 01:09:29,120
Speaker 1: guys are Nazi, Like, I'm not all I'm okay with

1298
01:09:29,400 --> 01:09:31,640
Speaker 1: them getting hit in the face one extra time on

1299
01:09:31,680 --> 01:09:33,560
Speaker 1: the way down. I'm not gonna I'm not going to

1300
01:09:33,640 --> 01:09:37,639
Speaker 1: consider that a miscarriage of justice. Um, I think it's

1301
01:09:37,720 --> 01:09:41,880
Speaker 1: kind of fine. I think it's kind of fine. So yeah,

1302
01:09:42,040 --> 01:09:43,920
Speaker 1: I feel like we could all use a good story

1303
01:09:44,240 --> 01:09:48,200
Speaker 1: of terrible people having something horrible happen to them. I

1304
01:09:48,240 --> 01:09:51,679
Speaker 1: love this. I have a quick question. Um sure, So

1305
01:09:53,000 --> 01:09:56,400
Speaker 1: I never think I always think about the Hitler stuff

1306
01:09:56,439 --> 01:09:59,320
Speaker 1: in World War Two, and then I never think about

1307
01:10:00,200 --> 01:10:03,400
Speaker 1: Germany's government right after. But this has made me think

1308
01:10:03,439 --> 01:10:08,280
Speaker 1: about that. So did we install who we thought should

1309
01:10:08,320 --> 01:10:12,320
Speaker 1: be the leaders? Did did like the US in Britain

1310
01:10:13,040 --> 01:10:15,639
Speaker 1: and the leading country. Did the Allied countries do that?

1311
01:10:15,840 --> 01:10:18,760
Speaker 1: Or how did their new leadership form? Well, I mean

1312
01:10:18,800 --> 01:10:21,759
Speaker 1: it was not an immediate process. Germany was split between

1313
01:10:21,760 --> 01:10:25,000
Speaker 1: East and West, and the Soviets UM controlled East Berlin

1314
01:10:25,160 --> 01:10:28,760
Speaker 1: and there was an East German state that was set

1315
01:10:28,880 --> 01:10:32,960
Speaker 1: up with initially Soviet backing. It wasn't like a complete

1316
01:10:33,000 --> 01:10:36,000
Speaker 1: like satellite state or anything like it had like actually,

1317
01:10:36,040 --> 01:10:37,360
Speaker 1: one of the things that they'll point out is that

1318
01:10:37,439 --> 01:10:42,519
Speaker 1: the East German um security apparatus, they're like uh secret police,

1319
01:10:42,520 --> 01:10:45,120
Speaker 1: were actually better than the Soviet secret police, because like

1320
01:10:45,120 --> 01:10:47,760
Speaker 1: Germans are just good at that sort of thing. Um.

1321
01:10:47,800 --> 01:10:49,920
Speaker 1: But so there was the East German state that was

1322
01:10:49,960 --> 01:10:52,639
Speaker 1: like a communist state in East Germany, and then there

1323
01:10:52,720 --> 01:10:55,040
Speaker 1: was like West Germany, and like Berlin was split right

1324
01:10:55,080 --> 01:10:58,480
Speaker 1: down the middle, and West Germany was sort of controlled

1325
01:10:58,560 --> 01:11:01,360
Speaker 1: by the ally Is for a while after the war

1326
01:11:01,439 --> 01:11:04,520
Speaker 1: and then gradually set up to have its own democratic

1327
01:11:04,560 --> 01:11:07,920
Speaker 1: elections and government and stuff. Um. And we just made

1328
01:11:07,960 --> 01:11:12,920
Speaker 1: sure there wasn't one of these like horrible people. Well,

1329
01:11:12,960 --> 01:11:16,080
Speaker 1: I mean kind of from the beginning of the German

1330
01:11:16,720 --> 01:11:21,120
Speaker 1: uh Federal Republic uh, like the current German state that exists.

1331
01:11:21,120 --> 01:11:22,720
Speaker 1: One of their rules is that you can't be a

1332
01:11:22,720 --> 01:11:25,240
Speaker 1: fucking Nazi, like you can't have swatzt because you can't

1333
01:11:25,240 --> 01:11:29,800
Speaker 1: display things like they're the people who wound up like

1334
01:11:29,880 --> 01:11:32,800
Speaker 1: running for office and stuff for the most part, where

1335
01:11:32,800 --> 01:11:35,240
Speaker 1: folks who had been like a lot of them, where

1336
01:11:35,240 --> 01:11:37,160
Speaker 1: folks who've been like in the early stage of folks

1337
01:11:37,160 --> 01:11:39,080
Speaker 1: have been like persecuted by the Nazis who been like

1338
01:11:39,160 --> 01:11:42,960
Speaker 1: left wing activists and stuff in the pre Nazi period. Yeah,

1339
01:11:43,040 --> 01:11:45,439
Speaker 1: some folks like that. Like there's some sketchy stuff that

1340
01:11:45,479 --> 01:11:48,680
Speaker 1: happened too, but like kind of a lot of the

1341
01:11:48,760 --> 01:11:51,400
Speaker 1: Nazi like the actual people who wanted to do Nazi

1342
01:11:51,520 --> 01:11:54,479
Speaker 1: ship either died during the war or fled the country

1343
01:11:54,600 --> 01:11:59,000
Speaker 1: or afterwards like new enough to keep their heads down. Um.

1344
01:11:59,080 --> 01:12:02,160
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not I'm not competent to go into

1345
01:12:02,240 --> 01:12:06,200
Speaker 1: like deep detail about like how the German Republic was

1346
01:12:06,280 --> 01:12:09,040
Speaker 1: sort of established post World War Two, but it was

1347
01:12:09,080 --> 01:12:12,280
Speaker 1: like a gradual process of US running things until we

1348
01:12:12,400 --> 01:12:15,439
Speaker 1: felt like things were rebuilt enough and set up enough

1349
01:12:15,479 --> 01:12:18,040
Speaker 1: that like they could start having elections and self governing

1350
01:12:18,080 --> 01:12:20,000
Speaker 1: and like even after the point at which they became

1351
01:12:20,000 --> 01:12:23,040
Speaker 1: an independent state. Um, there was throughout a lot of

1352
01:12:23,040 --> 01:12:26,760
Speaker 1: the Cold War, like a huge US in British military

1353
01:12:26,800 --> 01:12:30,240
Speaker 1: presence in Germany. They were effectively inoccupied country and there's

1354
01:12:30,240 --> 01:12:34,599
Speaker 1: still military US military bases um in Germany right now. Um.

1355
01:12:34,640 --> 01:12:37,280
Speaker 1: Obviously Germany is a fully independent country now and they

1356
01:12:37,280 --> 01:12:41,840
Speaker 1: have their own military um. But it's also like one

1357
01:12:41,880 --> 01:12:44,560
Speaker 1: of the like the bunswir the current modern German military

1358
01:12:45,439 --> 01:12:48,200
Speaker 1: some people would describe as kind of a laughing stock

1359
01:12:48,760 --> 01:12:52,400
Speaker 1: laughing stocks. Not fair, but it's not it's not very

1360
01:12:52,520 --> 01:12:55,519
Speaker 1: large and it's not very capable, and some of that's

1361
01:12:55,560 --> 01:12:59,720
Speaker 1: pretty purposeful. Like I think there there was there was

1362
01:12:59,760 --> 01:13:03,080
Speaker 1: a reticence for Germany to have a large military ever

1363
01:13:03,200 --> 01:13:06,400
Speaker 1: again after World War Two, and that's starting to change

1364
01:13:06,400 --> 01:13:08,760
Speaker 1: in part because of like Russian aggression in Ukraine and

1365
01:13:08,760 --> 01:13:12,040
Speaker 1: this understanding that like the German the Bundswair and like

1366
01:13:12,040 --> 01:13:14,519
Speaker 1: like the like the use military for like they don't

1367
01:13:14,560 --> 01:13:18,040
Speaker 1: have very many tanks, like they don't have super capable

1368
01:13:18,600 --> 01:13:22,679
Speaker 1: um so like the there's I think there's some people

1369
01:13:22,760 --> 01:13:25,120
Speaker 1: talking about the fact that they that may have to change.

1370
01:13:25,439 --> 01:13:28,040
Speaker 1: I think it's understandable for there to always be reticence

1371
01:13:28,080 --> 01:13:30,160
Speaker 1: for the rest of the future of Germany ever having

1372
01:13:30,200 --> 01:13:33,640
Speaker 1: a large military again. Totally. But the reason that I

1373
01:13:33,680 --> 01:13:37,559
Speaker 1: asked was because leadership wise seems like it did work out,

1374
01:13:38,160 --> 01:13:40,599
Speaker 1: you know, like they have yeah, no, no, they have

1375
01:13:40,680 --> 01:13:43,840
Speaker 1: some good leaders since that hugely huge if you're looking

1376
01:13:43,880 --> 01:13:48,000
Speaker 1: at like this the great successes of international like government

1377
01:13:48,040 --> 01:13:50,519
Speaker 1: and particularly even of US foreign policy. Like I'm not

1378
01:13:50,560 --> 01:13:52,960
Speaker 1: to give the US credit for a lot of things, guy,

1379
01:13:53,000 --> 01:13:55,080
Speaker 1: but the Martial Plan, which is the plan by which

1380
01:13:55,120 --> 01:13:59,440
Speaker 1: we rebuilt most of Europe and Germany was a huge success.

1381
01:14:00,080 --> 01:14:02,840
Speaker 1: And both the occupation of Germany and the occupation of

1382
01:14:02,920 --> 01:14:05,720
Speaker 1: Japan post war were huge successes because both nations have

1383
01:14:05,800 --> 01:14:10,839
Speaker 1: turned into very prosperous countries where people have a fairly

1384
01:14:10,920 --> 01:14:15,600
Speaker 1: high degree of personal freedom and seemed to be relatively

1385
01:14:16,320 --> 01:14:18,760
Speaker 1: if you're looking at the grand scheme of societies in

1386
01:14:18,800 --> 01:14:22,559
Speaker 1: the world, both are doing all right, Like if you

1387
01:14:22,600 --> 01:14:25,519
Speaker 1: compare that to imperial Japan or Nazi Germany. Yet you

1388
01:14:25,560 --> 01:14:27,519
Speaker 1: have to look at the rebuilding of both countries is

1389
01:14:27,560 --> 01:14:32,400
Speaker 1: a pretty significant success. Way to go, America, good job. Well,

1390
01:14:32,400 --> 01:14:34,840
Speaker 1: it was a lot of people. It's a shame we

1391
01:14:34,920 --> 01:14:38,479
Speaker 1: didn't again learned nothing from it, um because we never

1392
01:14:38,920 --> 01:14:42,479
Speaker 1: we never did anything like that again, not competently. Like

1393
01:14:42,720 --> 01:14:45,920
Speaker 1: you can contrast like what happened with the attempted rebuilding

1394
01:14:45,960 --> 01:14:49,599
Speaker 1: of Iraq and Afghanistan to what happened in Germany and Japan,

1395
01:14:49,760 --> 01:14:59,200
Speaker 1: and and it's very unpleasant. Yeah, yeah, anyway, fun tales

1396
01:14:59,720 --> 01:15:06,760
Speaker 1: not in America, you know. Yeah, yeah, it is nice

1397
01:15:06,760 --> 01:15:09,080
Speaker 1: to go back to these stories of like a time

1398
01:15:09,080 --> 01:15:11,080
Speaker 1: when you could be proud of America, like that time

1399
01:15:11,080 --> 01:15:15,120
Speaker 1: we had that drunken hobo execute all those Nazis. Ah,

1400
01:15:15,120 --> 01:15:16,679
Speaker 1: that makes me just want to like sing the star

1401
01:15:16,760 --> 01:15:24,360
Speaker 1: Spangled banner, salutifly. I'm feeling very patriotic. Yes, yeah, yeah,

1402
01:15:24,760 --> 01:15:26,960
Speaker 1: I can't wait for listeners to see what this guy

1403
01:15:27,000 --> 01:15:32,639
Speaker 1: looks like. Yeah, oh yeah, show her a picture. She

1404
01:15:34,200 --> 01:15:38,160
Speaker 1: was exactly like him. I gotta say, you, guys, one

1405
01:15:38,160 --> 01:15:41,360
Speaker 1: of my favorite parts of the show is googling the

1406
01:15:41,400 --> 01:15:43,680
Speaker 1: bad guys and being like, oh, yeah, that looks like

1407
01:15:43,720 --> 01:15:49,880
Speaker 1: a piece of ship never fails. Yep. Oh he's amazing. Well,

1408
01:15:52,120 --> 01:15:54,880
Speaker 1: you got any plugables to plug as we we sail

1409
01:15:54,920 --> 01:16:01,520
Speaker 1: out on a river of patriotism? Well? Uh, the podcast,

1410
01:16:02,080 --> 01:16:05,639
Speaker 1: you guys, Private Parts Unknown. We just did a two

1411
01:16:05,680 --> 01:16:10,960
Speaker 1: part series from Mexico City. UM, one episode about masculinity

1412
01:16:11,000 --> 01:16:14,880
Speaker 1: and then an episode with some amazing artists that are

1413
01:16:14,920 --> 01:16:19,519
Speaker 1: kind of fucking with a buyinary and yeah, I'm really

1414
01:16:19,520 --> 01:16:22,040
Speaker 1: proud of them. So check them out Private Parts Unknown

1415
01:16:22,200 --> 01:16:28,400
Speaker 1: wherever you get podcasts, So check out Private Parts Unknown. Um,

1416
01:16:28,920 --> 01:16:33,000
Speaker 1: think about private parts when you think of knots. Nope, nope, nope.

1417
01:16:33,000 --> 01:16:38,240
Speaker 1: That's not a good way to lead people into this. Uh, boy, Sophie,

1418
01:16:38,360 --> 01:16:42,639
Speaker 1: I am not in a good place right now. I'm

1419
01:16:42,760 --> 01:16:44,920
Speaker 1: just spinning out in the control. We have a website

1420
01:16:44,920 --> 01:16:47,639
Speaker 1: behind the bastards dot com um. I have a social

1421
01:16:47,640 --> 01:16:51,960
Speaker 1: media at I right, okay, Uh, we have Instagram and

1422
01:16:52,000 --> 01:16:55,880
Speaker 1: a Twitter at at bastards pod um and we have

1423
01:16:56,760 --> 01:17:04,880
Speaker 1: uh desire for you to Sometimes the world needs an

1424
01:17:04,920 --> 01:17:11,720
Speaker 1: unshowered Nazi killing hobo and if that's you ship, I

1425
01:17:11,720 --> 01:17:14,720
Speaker 1: don't really know where to go with this. Sometimes the

1426
01:17:14,760 --> 01:17:17,679
Speaker 1: world gets what it needs is sometimes the world gets

1427
01:17:17,720 --> 01:17:19,880
Speaker 1: what it needs. All right, Well the episodes over, We're done,

1428
01:17:20,320 --> 01:17:23,720
Speaker 1: Go go home, everybody. Well you're probably home or in

1429
01:17:23,760 --> 01:17:27,160
Speaker 1: your car or pooping. Keep doing what you're doing. But

1430
01:17:27,920 --> 01:17:32,120
Speaker 1: wrote the episodes over, Yeah,