WEBVTT - The Bastard Who Executed The Top Nazis 0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:06.360 Hello Internet, I'm Robert Evans, hosted Behind the Bastards, and 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.360 I still don't know how to introduce my podcast now 0:00:09.400 --> 0:00:12.799 that we're transitioning to a new introduction. But that doesn't 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:17.200 matter because today we have a rip roaring episode about 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:20.640 a terrible person from history and helping me to tell 0:00:20.680 --> 0:00:24.279 that tale. Will be my guest today, Courtney Kozak, co 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:28.160 host of the Private Parts Unknown podcast, which is also 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:33.159 co hosted by Sophia Alexandria, are our frequent guest. Uh, Courtney, 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:36.360 how are you feeling today? I'm excited to be here, Robert, 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:44.360 thank you for having me indulging my bastard worship. Now 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:47.480 what bastards do you mostly worship? You know, I got 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:49.720 into it. I think I got into it through the 0:00:49.800 --> 0:00:55.200 standard gateway of a good old Hitler worship. Good old Hitler. Yeah, 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.920 we all love us a Hitler. Yeah. Yeah, And then 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:04.520 I mostly worship through your show. That's my Yeah. Well 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:07.200 who's okay? Well who's been? If who's who's been your 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:11.480 favorite bastard we've covered recently? You know, I am so 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:17.360 freaked out about climate change? So what was? Yes, Yeah, 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:19.640 that was. He's a real piece of ship. He is 0:01:20.319 --> 0:01:24.000 he's ruining us. Well, today we have a lighthearted episode, um, 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.840 because I think things are getting real serious and I 0:01:26.840 --> 0:01:29.360 think we all need to relax. So today we're going 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.679 to talk about a hangman um who was a terrible 0:01:32.760 --> 0:01:37.119 hangman um, but the people he was hanging were all Nazis. 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:41.399 So even though he definitely qualifies as kind of a bastard, 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:45.480 the victims are Nazis. So we're okay, like this like 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:51.040 a Dexter, Yeah, totally, yeah, if Dexter was like known 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:58.040 by his incompetence rather than his hypercompetence, totally. Yeah. I 0:01:58.040 --> 0:02:00.440 don't think this guy meant to do most to well, 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:02.480 I don't know, it's debatable. We'll see how you feel. 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:04.640 I was going to ask you, what do you think 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:09.120 is the most common thread between all the bastards? Is 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:16.200 it psychopathy? I think I think it's relentless self confidence. 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:21.120 Ah yeah, that makes I think all of the worst 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:24.200 people in history, that's the driving factor is they really 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:29.400 believe in themselves. Damn it, we're really fostering that in 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:33.000 our current system, like everybody gets a first place metal. 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:36.960 I you know, yeah, maybe, I don't know. I do 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:39.800 think that that is one of the one of the 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:45.920 One of the consequences of are are focusing on people's 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:48.120 self esteem is that all of the worst people in 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:52.079 history had had great self esteem. Um. You know, Hitler 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:54.040 was a guy who really believed in himself and his 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:57.000 ability to change the world. It's like if you you 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:59.280 look at all of those like like new age memes 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.920 that get spread on Twitter about like visualizing your future 0:03:03.080 --> 0:03:05.440 and like making it happen, and like how you can 0:03:05.600 --> 0:03:07.600 you can accomplish anything if you set your mind to it. 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:10.240 And it's like that's great when you're thinking about like 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:12.880 your friend who wants to like open up her own 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:18.440 like h or whatever, yoga studio, who wants to start 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:24.800 a bar, But like there's also Hitler's out there, yeah, um, 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:28.800 and they have great follow through. Um. But you know, 0:03:29.880 --> 0:03:34.240 our story today starts when the follow through, uh stops 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:40.119 following through on May seven, when General Alfred Yodel, representing 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:43.279 the German High Command, presented the Allies with the unconditional 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:46.560 surrender of his nation and its armed forces. So we 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:49.960 are we are starting at the end of Nazism today, 0:03:50.600 --> 0:03:54.200 which is a nice little change of pace. H Yeah, 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:58.040 what year is it? Yeah? Never came back forty five 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:01.080 May seven. That was the end of the war in 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:06.040 in Europe. Yeah, officially so. In the wake of Germany's defeat, 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:08.240 many of its top Nazis where, of course, while beyond 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.360 the reach of justice. Adolf Hitler had of course shot himself. 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:14.280 Joseph Gebels had blown himself and his wife up with 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.799 a grenade. Heinrich Himler had been captured, but had chosen 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:20.120 to eat poison rather than face up to his crimes. 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:23.640 But a lot of high ranking Nazis had been caught. 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.880 There was Herman Gerring, who was the head of the 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.039 Liftwaffe and like the former like second in command to 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.600 uh to Adolf Hitler, um he got taken alive. Also 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:37.640 taken was Julius Striker, editor of Dear Schirmer and the 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:41.039 man most responsible for shaping the party's early propaganda efforts. 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:43.880 We don't talk about Striker a lot because, like Gebels 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:47.039 became a big name. But Striker was like kind of 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.640 the Steve Bannon of the Third Reich, Like he was 0:04:49.680 --> 0:04:52.680 the first like propaganda head who like really got like 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:55.200 their messaging and shipped on point. And they kind of 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.200 dumped him once they got into power because he was 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:00.279 a huge asshole. Um, but he was. He was real 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.120 critical figure and like the Night of Long Knives and 0:05:03.440 --> 0:05:05.840 helping to ignite a lot of anti Jewish hatred. So 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:08.719 people wanted him, Like it's good that he got captured, 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:10.640 even though he was kind of out of the picture 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:12.560 for most of the forties in a real way. So 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:15.000 you still pay the price if you're a bastard early 0:05:15.040 --> 0:05:17.360 on and you get out of there. Yeah, I think 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:20.000 so you wouldn't we would you want a guy Like 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.560 if someone like in nineteen forty five was like, hey man, 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:25.720 I stopped being a Nazi in nineteen forty Uh, Like 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:29.640 you wouldn't be like, well, all right, you missed the 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.279 worst year. You get a pass. I would love to 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:34.560 give people a pass, you know what I mean. If 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.760 it's like, if you'll just stop being an asshole, we'll 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:41.039 let you We'll let you go. I mean there's a 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.960 point at which that's okay. Like, uh, if you're a 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:47.359 guy who like marches around with a Nazi organization for 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:49.440 a while a couple of years, but you don't like 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:52.839 participate in any attacks, you don't like sell anybody any guns, 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:55.080 you don't kill anybody, and you're like, oh, this is 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:57.400 fucked up and you leave Like fine, I don't, I don't. 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:01.520 I don't want you to uh be like murdered or anything. 0:06:01.600 --> 0:06:04.440 But like at the point at which the Holocaust happens, 0:06:04.480 --> 0:06:07.320 I feel like the guys who you know, weren't as 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:10.719 active later in the Reich like still fuck you, dude, 0:06:10.720 --> 0:06:13.960 Like yeah, you can still pay with your life. And 0:06:14.000 --> 0:06:15.960 you know there was an element of this that was 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.440 they led a lot of top Nazis off. Actually, like 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:24.200 the prosecute, even of the Nazis that we caught or 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:29.680 who survived the war. Um, the prosecution wasn't particularly thorough. Um. Famously, 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:33.520 Adolf Eichmann, who was the main logistical mind behind the Holocaust, 0:06:33.560 --> 0:06:36.240 fled to South America. He was eventually caught and tried, 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:41.760 but not for years later. Dr Mangela, the infamous doctor Death, escaped. Um. 0:06:41.800 --> 0:06:45.120 But like also like like those are kind of more 0:06:45.160 --> 0:06:49.039 famous cases. Um. Have you ever heard of the Eisset scrouping? No? 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:53.760 I just read about some guy though that had escaped 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.479 and was living in Ohio. Did you read about this? 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.200 It was a news story couple weeks ago. But he's 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:04.040 been living like a regular life in Ohio for like years, 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.360 wasn't he a Nazi? Yeah, yeah, I think it was 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.000 a concentration camp guard. Usually when you hear about those 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:11.960 guys who made it to a super old age, they 0:07:11.960 --> 0:07:16.440 were either concentration cap guards or insets grouping dudes, and 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:19.800 those were like mobile German military units during the invasion 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:22.440 of Russia who just like shot hundreds of tens, like 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:24.920 tens of thousands of people in single actions to death, 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:28.200 like they were the first stage of the Holocaust, and 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:30.960 the vast majority of like we captured those guys, we 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:33.480 had documentation on what they did, and we just let 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:35.120 most of them go, and a lot of them were 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.680 able to immigrate later. Like there's some really crazy stories. 0:07:38.680 --> 0:07:41.400 There were even like one or two s S members 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:44.360 who later joined the US military, Like one of them 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:47.960 died fighting in Vietnam. Like it's we didn't prosecute most 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:51.880 of these guys. Hilarious. Yeah, So when you get a 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:56.240 guy like Striker like arrested and tried, like you can say, like, well, 0:07:56.280 --> 0:07:59.080 he wasn't really a part of the later parties efforts, 0:07:59.120 --> 0:08:01.720 but also like suck him. You gotta get rid of 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:03.760 all these people, like you hat, you gotta punish him 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.720 when you can Um, and it was kind of random, 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.640 like they chose not to arrest and punish more of 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:12.480 the Einsetz group. And because they only had so many 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:15.720 chairs in the courtroom in Nuremberg, and they didn't want 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:19.280 to like get more chairs, They're like, we need a 0:08:19.320 --> 0:08:23.160 stadium for all these guys. Yeah, it was a little 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:24.720 It wasn't just like they wouldn't want to drag in 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:26.960 more chairs. It was like the court was only made 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.400 to hold so many defendants, so they limited the number 0:08:29.400 --> 0:08:32.640 of people they tried. But it's ridiculous, like you build 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:37.800 a bigger court. It's World War two. So also captured 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.600 was Field Marshal William Kitel, Hitler's yes man General Um. 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.360 During the invasion of Poland, Kitel had issued criminal orders 0:08:44.400 --> 0:08:46.720 that had allowed the arrest and execution of Jews and 0:08:46.720 --> 0:08:51.000 other civilian noncombatants. While Kitel was not an enthusiastic backer 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.720 of the Holocaust, he gave orders that required the Wehrmach 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:56.600 to the German military to aid in the extermination of 0:08:56.679 --> 0:08:59.000 Jews captured in the Eastern Front and send them to 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:01.480 death camps. So he's like a perfect example of the 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.559 fundamental moral cowardice at the heart of the German military. 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:06.600 He was not a guy who would have been a 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:08.880 Nazi if he hadn't have had to be in But 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:11.400 he was a Nazi because it was good for his 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.560 career and he didn't want to have his soldiers wipe 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.200 out innocent people. But he also didn't care enough about 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:19.400 it to stop it from happening, and he gave them 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.600 orders to do so because he was that was his job. 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.120 He thought thought it was justified by that. So he's 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:28.200 a piece of ship, but in a different way than 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.520 like one of the Nazis who's like rapidly champing at 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:34.440 the bit to kill, you know, Jewish people. Like. In 0:09:34.480 --> 0:09:36.760 some ways, he's even worse because at least that Nazi 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:41.360 like believes in something right. And Kai tells like, I'm 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:44.439 just not gonna I'm not gonna fight this because I 0:09:44.440 --> 0:09:46.800 I think my job as a German general is more important. 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:48.839 I don't know, it's a complicated moral issue. But he's 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.640 a piece of ship for sure. But our our guy, 0:09:51.760 --> 0:09:56.520 our main guy, is our is the Steve Bannon comparison, right, Well, 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:58.719 he's he's he's one of them. He's definitely the one 0:09:58.800 --> 0:10:02.160 I think is most copable of the guys who get 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:04.920 the two who are most copable in genocide of the 0:10:04.960 --> 0:10:08.640 people who are tried at Nuremberg are Julius Stryker and 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:10.520 and Hermann Gerring. When you're talking about like the guys 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:12.520 at the top level of the of the party who 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.160 are who are responsible? Now, there were other guys too. 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.040 Like one of the people captured was Ernst Calton Brenner. Uh. 0:10:18.080 --> 0:10:20.600 He's the man who had succeeded Reinhardt Hydrick, who was 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.920 the architect of the Holocaust. Hydrick was assassinated in like 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.960 forty two, but he planned the Holocaust uh And Calton 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.640 Brenner was the guy who took his job afterwards as 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:31.920 head of the Reich Security Main Office, so he was 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:35.520 a major architect of the Holocaust. UM. Another was Hans 0:10:35.559 --> 0:10:38.440 Frank uh an o G Nazi, a former member of 0:10:38.440 --> 0:10:41.160 the Tool Occult Society and the governor of Poland under 0:10:41.200 --> 0:10:45.080 the Nazi regime. Uh Frank had been basically like the 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:48.520 guy who had helped to organize the execution of Poland's 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:50.800 Jewish population because he was in charge of Poland once 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.719 the Nazis took over. So he's a big bad guy too. UM. 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:57.920 And then you've got Joachim von Ribbentrop, who was Hitler's 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.960 diplomatic emissary and like the guy in charge of his 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.400 plan to kind of try to navigate international diplomacy to 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:07.240 get what the Nazis wanted before the war started. So 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:09.120 like a lot of bad guys. In short, like you 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:11.960 got a lot of really shitty dudes who need to 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.880 be punished, and you know, you miss most of the 0:11:14.920 --> 0:11:17.400 heavy hitters, but like it's still a pretty solid docket 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.840 of people who need to be punished, right, Yeah, yeah, 0:11:22.240 --> 0:11:25.199 let's how Yeah, wasn't there a lot of you said 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.800 some one of the guys fled to South America? Didn't 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:33.720 a lot of them go? Yeah? Yeah, a lot of 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:37.840 them went to Brazil, to Argentina, um Bolivia, and in fact, 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:40.720 interestingly enough, um ernst Rome, who was the head of 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:44.240 the brown Shirts before the Nazis came to power. He 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:46.840 was executed by Hitler shortly after they came to power 0:11:46.840 --> 0:11:49.559 because he was like seen as kind of an unstable guy. 0:11:49.600 --> 0:11:51.280 But he was a big part of the Nazis coming 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:54.160 to power. He like organized their street fighting movement and 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.800 stuff in the years when they were rising. Um at 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:01.360 one point he had like a falling out with Hitler 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:03.840 and he moved to Bolivia for a couple of years 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.560 to train the Bolivian military. Um. So like that there, 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:09.920 and like there's still echoes of that in the Bolivian 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:13.000 like government and stuff today. The fact that this like 0:12:13.120 --> 0:12:15.880 Nazi was a major architect of like the security state 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:18.720 over there's wild that's so funny. It's like they're a 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:20.720 band and he's like, Okay, I'm gonna go do my 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.640 own thing in Bolivia. Man, this is working out for 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:28.280 me in Germany. And in fact, Ernst Rome is often 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:33.840 called the John Lennon of Nazism and he was shot early. Yeah, 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.360 so yeah, it really really actually does check out quite 0:12:36.360 --> 0:12:40.480 a lot. So where we are at the start of this, 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.560 We've arrested a bunch of top Nazis, uh, and no 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.360 one's really sure what to do with them, right, So, 0:12:48.400 --> 0:12:52.640 like it's clear that the Germans have committed war crimes 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:56.920 on a historical scale, but like what does that mean 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.160 in terms of what kind of actions you take? Like 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:02.600 people thought that there should be a trial, but how 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:04.920 do you try them? Whose laws do you try these 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:08.480 people under? There's no international legal system in a meaningful 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:10.960 sense of the word at this point certainly not one 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.560 that presents like the underpinnings of how you would try people. 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:17.400 Do they have rules about war crimes at this time, Yeah, 0:13:17.440 --> 0:13:20.240 but they weren't really enforced and it was never really 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:22.839 clear what you were supposed to do in a lot 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:25.320 of cases, Like they had rules against we talked about 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:28.280 this in a recent episode, the rules against using chemical weapons, 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:30.840 but then Italy used chemical weapons on Ethiopia and no 0:13:30.880 --> 0:13:33.080 one did anything. It was It's kind of like when 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:36.920 Obama made his redline on Syria. It's like, we're clear, 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:38.840 we don't want people doing this, but what do we 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.200 do when they do it? You know? Um, which has 0:13:42.240 --> 0:13:44.120 kind of always been the problem with this sort of thing. So, 0:13:44.160 --> 0:13:46.840 like you've got these guys. You can't try them under 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.840 German laws, obviously because they were not breaking German law, 0:13:50.440 --> 0:13:53.280 right because it was the Nazis. But then do you 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.760 try them under American law? How how do you justify 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.200 that they're not in the United States, they're not in Britain. 0:13:58.480 --> 0:14:00.640 Maybe some of them did some stuff in France, but 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:03.840 like even that's kind of wonky. Do you try them 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:06.480 under the laws of the individual nations where they occupied 0:14:06.480 --> 0:14:09.280 and committed their crimes. It's like, it's a really complicated question. 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:11.640 You can't just do whatever you want, right because the 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.120 problem with the nazis they did whatever the funk they wanted, 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:17.080 and like, at the end of this war, the Sainer 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:19.600 heads are trying to be like, we should establish some 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:22.280 sort of system to stop this. And if you're going 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.240 to not funk that up, the system itself has to 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.560 be as legitimate as you can make it, which means 0:14:27.560 --> 0:14:30.000 you can't like half asset and just be like we'll 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:32.280 just try them under US law or whatever. Like, you 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:36.240 can't do that, right. So it's like it's kind of 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.080 a really messy question and it's sort of trying to 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.000 solve it. The four great powers at the end of 0:14:41.000 --> 0:14:43.560 the war, the Soviet Union, the United States, Great Britain, 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:47.400 and France met together in London in June of to 0:14:47.480 --> 0:14:50.760 hammer out the framework that would establish an international tribunal 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:53.840 to try these men. Now, some of the jurisprudence they 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.920 sketched out during this is kind of wonky um. For example, 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.520 it's well established in most nations that you can't write 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:01.920 a law and then punish people who broke it before 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:04.800 it was a law. This is called ex post facto justice, 0:15:04.840 --> 0:15:08.600 and it's illegal in most nations, but it kind of 0:15:08.640 --> 0:15:11.200 had to be ex post facto justice because like nobody 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:13.440 had written laws about some of the ship the Nazis did. 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:14.920 But you can't just let them get off for the 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:20.080 Holocaust because nobody was like, don't murder people in gas chambers. 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:23.920 So it's it's complicated. Like, so they put together a 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:26.960 charter for this tribunal to try these guys, um, And 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:30.120 it's specifically outlines that individuals can be punished for their 0:15:30.160 --> 0:15:33.200 membership and what are called criminal organizations, even if the 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:36.920 criminal nature of that organization was established after their period 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.840 of membership in it, which is what like gets guys 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.640 like Striker and stuff. Um. The charter also establishes that 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.840 individuals could be punished for crimes against humanity even if 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.120 those crimes had not actually been illegal in the nation 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:51.800 they were committed and at the time. So this is 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:56.560 kind of like, uh, pretty groundbreaking stuff and it's not 0:15:56.640 --> 0:15:58.680 something we have a really returned to as a species, 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:00.880 which is kind of a bummer, um, I mean a 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:04.520 little bit after the Bosnian genocides and stuff. But was 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:07.800 everybody on board like internationally with like this is how 0:16:07.800 --> 0:16:10.920 it should go down. Yeah, I think for for World 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:13.160 War in the wake of World War two, I think 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:15.440 pretty much everybody was on this is one of those 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.280 rare instances where like, I mean, there are some disagreements, 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:20.640 but or like Russia in the US and Great Britain 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:23.440 are all kind of like, we gotta there's got to 0:16:23.480 --> 0:16:25.840 be like a big thing that we all do for this, 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:28.000 like it we can't just like it can't just be 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:32.160 one country executing its prisoners or whatever, like that's not enough. 0:16:33.000 --> 0:16:36.400 And yeah, so this is like the one time most 0:16:36.760 --> 0:16:41.119 of the world agrees on like an like the execution 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:45.600 of international justice. Um. And that's kind of cool. Um. Now, 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:49.960 since uh, the people being prosecuted here a Nazis, it's 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:52.960 not easy to care about like the fact that some 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:55.400 of the things they did would be considered illegal in 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:58.280 like U S courts, like charging people for crimes that 0:16:58.320 --> 0:17:01.200 weren't crimes when they committed them. Um. But it is 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:03.800 worth noting that some of the precedent behind the Nuremberg 0:17:03.840 --> 0:17:07.520 trial is really unsettling. Um. Charles Weizanski, a federal judge 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:11.240 in the US, initially led the charge against the Nuremberg trials. Uh. 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:13.120 He didn't want there to be trials because he worried 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.679 about the precedent they might state and what could be 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:17.960 done in the future as a result. So, like, if 0:17:18.000 --> 0:17:20.679 we're declaring that you can make something illegal and punish 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.480 people who did it when it wasn't illegal. If we're 0:17:23.520 --> 0:17:26.480 doing that now for the Nazis, sure fun the Nazis, 0:17:26.520 --> 0:17:28.600 But how does that you could do that for anything 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:31.280 in the future. Um, And like that could end in 0:17:31.280 --> 0:17:33.040 a really dark place. And he has a point, like 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:37.760 that's concerning right, It's it's something worth thinking about. Aren't 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.520 we still wrestling with this stuff like post nine eleven 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:45.399 and these exact same questions about when people can be 0:17:45.480 --> 0:17:49.200 tried and whatever. Yeah, I mean now there is something 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:53.000 of an international legal framework, so it's a little bit easier. 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.640 Like back then it was totally like you know, kind 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.560 of kind of the wild West in terms of international law, 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.840 and now there is something of like a framework set 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:05.840 up for that. And one of the things that um, 0:18:06.000 --> 0:18:08.040 So like Wizansky, who was the guy who was initially 0:18:08.040 --> 0:18:11.240 against having a Nuremberg trial, he actually changes his mind 0:18:11.359 --> 0:18:13.800 over the course of the trial because the prosecutors do 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.719 such a good job of bringing forward evidence of Nazi 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:20.080 war crimes, and Wizanski decides that even if the methods 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:23.639 used to like create this legal framework, we're kind of 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:26.560 fucked up the principle of international law and needed to 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:29.600 exist to punish crimes against humanity, and it's worth it. Um, 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:32.119 I'm gonna read from something he wrote actually in The 0:18:32.119 --> 0:18:35.480 Atlantic in ninety six the reasons for my change that 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:38.200 the failure of the international community to attach the criminal 0:18:38.280 --> 0:18:41.160 label to such universally condemned conduct would be more likely 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:44.879 to promote an arbitrary and discriminary action by public authorities 0:18:44.880 --> 0:18:48.160 and to undermine confidence in the proposition that international agreements 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:50.000 are made to be kept than the failure of the 0:18:50.000 --> 0:18:52.640 international community to abide by the maxim that no act 0:18:52.680 --> 0:18:54.840 can be punished as a crime unless there was an 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.359 advance of that act a specific criminal law. So he's like, 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:01.600 basically it is it's yes, it's worrisome to try to 0:19:01.640 --> 0:19:05.000 prosecute these people for things that like weren't necessarily crimes before, 0:19:05.560 --> 0:19:10.040 but the consequences of not prosecuting these people, um are worse, 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:12.879 Like it will enable more bad behavior in the future. 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:14.520 So this is like a damned if you do, damned 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:17.000 if you don't situation, but we should do it. Yeah. 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:18.639 I'm giving a lot of background on this because I 0:19:18.640 --> 0:19:23.080 think it's interesting. Every met the threshold of egregiousness that 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:26.800 they were like, we we have to do Basically it'd 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:30.280 be worse to do nothing. Yeah. Now, in total, a 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:34.200 hundred and eighty five people were indicted in the Nuremberg trial. Um, 0:19:34.280 --> 0:19:37.240 and yeah, it's it's not enough, but it's it's a 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:42.200 good amount. Um. And like most of those people actually 0:19:42.240 --> 0:19:44.520 weren't sentenced to death, that were sentenced to like periods 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:46.280 of jail time, and a lot of those sentences were 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:50.440 actually commuted later. It's kind of a fucked up story. Yeah, 0:19:50.480 --> 0:19:53.120 a lot of a lot of top Nazis, people who 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.240 were like literally ordering mass killings, had like their sentences 0:19:56.280 --> 0:19:58.760 committed and went on to die peacefully. Happen to a 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:02.640 ton of them, ar of all super fucked up. Yeah, 0:20:02.680 --> 0:20:05.200 you know, there's a bunch of reasons that different things 0:20:05.240 --> 0:20:09.480 like that happened. Um, but it it happened a lot. Um. 0:20:09.520 --> 0:20:14.800 But twelve top Nazis were sentenced to die by hanging. Um. 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:17.679 So there were twelve of these guys that an international 0:20:17.720 --> 0:20:21.480 court said, like, you know, even as like Laxis. We're 0:20:21.520 --> 0:20:25.160 being with punishing the Nazis. You motherfucker's like, we can't 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:28.800 let you live. Um, So that's good, but this set 0:20:28.840 --> 0:20:32.640 off another question, who's actually going to kill these guys? 0:20:32.680 --> 0:20:35.919 Like who do you bring in to execute one of 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.920 the worst collections of bastards and like the whole history 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:43.320 of humanity? And the answer, of course is another piece 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:46.679 of shit. And this brings me to the glorious tale 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:51.719 of John C. Woods, America's hangman, and that this has 0:20:51.720 --> 0:20:54.280 been our long introduction. Yeah, he's a fun one. He's 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:59.240 a fun guy. So. John C. Woods was born in Wichita, Kansas, 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:02.560 on June five, nineteen eleven. We have very little detail 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.160 in his early life. One source I found just says, 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.160 prior to his induction in the army, he lived in Eureka, Kansas. 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:11.240 He was married with no children. Now I can tell 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:13.560 you from other reading I've done that his parents separated 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.439 when he was young. One source even says they abandoned 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.760 him and he was raised by his grandparents. Uh, we 0:21:19.800 --> 0:21:22.360 can infer that he didn't have an easy adolescence. When 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.240 he attended Wichita High School, which is now East High 0:21:25.240 --> 0:21:28.400