As the black hood was raised over his
head Kaltenbrunner, still speaking in a low voice, used a German
phrase which translated means, 'Germany, good luck.'
His trap was sprung at 1.39 a.m.
Field Marshal Keitel was pronounced dead
at 1.44 a.m. and three minutes later guards had removed his body.
The scaffold was made ready for Alfred Rosenberg.
Rosenberg was dull and sunken-cheeked
as he looked around the court. His complexion was pasty-brown, but
he did not appear nervous and walked with a steady step to and up
the gallows.
Apart from giving his name and replying
'no' to a question as to whether he had anything to say, he did not
utter a word. Despite his avowed atheism he was accompanied by a
Protestant chaplain who followed him to the gallows and stood beside
him praying.
Rosenberg looked at the chaplain once,
expressionless. Ninety seconds after he was swinging from the end
of a hangman's rope. His was the swiftest execution of the ten.
There was a brief lull in the proceedings
until Kaltenbrunner was pronounced dead at 1.52 a.m.
Hans Frank was next in the parade of
death. He was the only one of the condemned to enter the chamber
with a smile on his countenance.
Although nervous and swallowing frequently,
this man, who was converted to Roman Catholicism after his arrest,
gave the appearance of being relieved at the prospect of atoning
for his evil deeds.
He answered to his name quietly and when
asked for any last statement, he replied in a low voice that was
almost a whisper, 'I am thankful for the kind of treatment during
my captivity and I ask God to accept me with mercy.'
Frank closed his eyes and swallowed as
the black hood went over his head.
The sixth man to leave his prison cell
and walk with handcuffed wrists to the death house was 69-year-old
Wilhelm Frick. He entered the execution chamber at 2.05 a.m., six
minutes after Rosenberg had been pronounced dead. He seemed the least
steady of any so far and stumbled on the thirteenth step of the gallows.
His only words were, 'Long live eternal Germany,' before he was hooded
and dropped through the trap.
Julius Streicher made his melodramatic
appearance at 2.12 a.m.
While his manacles were being removed
and his bare hands bound, this ugly, dwarfish little man, wearing
a threadbare suit and a well-worn bluish shirt buttoned to the neck
but without a tie (he was notorious during his days of power for
his flashy dress), glanced at the three wooden scaffolds rising menacingly
in front of him. Then he glanced around the room, his eyes resting
momentarily upon the small group of witnesses. By this time, his
hands were tied securely behind his back. Two guards, one on each
arm, directed him to Number One gallows on the left of the entrance.
He walked steadily the six feet to the first wooden step but his
face was twitching.
As the guards stopped him at the bottom
of the steps for identification formality he uttered his piercing
scream: 'Heil Hitler!'
The shriek sent a shiver down my back.
As its echo died away an American colonel
standing by the steps said sharply, 'Ask the man his name.' In response
to the interpreter's query Streicher shouted, 'You know my name well.'
The interpreter repeated his request
and the condemned man yelled, 'Julius Streicher.'
As he reached the platform, Streicher
cried out, 'Now it goes to God.' He was pushed the last two steps
to the mortal spot beneath the hangman's rope. The rope was being
held back against a wooden rail by the hangman.
Streicher was swung suddenly to face
the witnesses and glared at them. Suddenly he screamed, 'Purim
Fest 1946.' [Purim is a Jewish holiday celebrated in the
spring, commemorating the execution of Haman, ancient persecutor
of the Jews described in the Old Testament.]
The American officer standing at the
scaffold said, 'Ask the man if he has any last words.'
When the interpreter had translated,
Streicher shouted, 'The Bolsheviks will hang you one day.'
When the black hood was raised over his
head, Streicher's muffled voice could be heard to say, 'Adele, my
dear wife.'
At that instant the trap opened with
a loud bang. He went down kicking. When the rope snapped taut with
the body swinging wildly, groans could be heard from within the concealed
interior of the scaffold. Finally, the hangman, who had descended
from the gallows platform, lifted the black canvas curtain and went
inside. Something happened that put a stop to the groans and brought
the rope to a standstill. After it was over I was not in the mood
to ask what he did, but I assume that he grabbed the swinging body
of and pulled down on it. We were all of the opinion that Streicher
had strangled.
Then, following the removal of the corpse
of Frick, who had been pronounced dead at 2.20 a.m., Fritz Sauckel
was brought face to face with his doom.
Wearing a sweater with no coat and looking
wild-eyed, Sauckel proved to be the most defiant of any except Streicher.
Here was the man who put millions into
bondage on a scale unknown since the pre-Christian era. Gazing around
the room from the gallows platform he suddenly screamed, 'I am dying
innocent. The sentence is wrong. God protect Germany and make Germany
great again. Long live Germany! God protect my family.'
The trap was sprung at 2.26 a.m. and,
as in the case of Streicher, there was a loud groan under the gallows
pit as the noose snapped tightly under the weight of the body.
Ninth in the procession of death was
Alfred Jodl. With the black coat-collar of his Wehrmacht uniform
half turned up at the back as though hurriedly put on, Jodl entered
the dismal death house with obvious signs of nervousness. He wet
his lips constantly and his features were drawn and haggard as he
walked, not nearly so steady as Keitel, up the gallows steps. Yet
his voice was calm when he uttered his last six words on earth: 'My
greetings to you, my Germany.'
At 2.34 a.m. Jodl plunged into the black
hole on the scaffold. He and Sauckel hung together until the latter
was pronounced dead six minutes later and removed.
The Czechoslovak-born Seyss-Inquart,
whom Hitler had made ruler of Holland and Austria, was the last actor
to make his appearance in this unparalleled scene. He entered the
chamber at 2.38 1/2 a.m., wearing glasses which made his face an
easily remembered caricature.
He looked around with noticeable signs
of unsteadiness as he limped on his left foot clubfoot to the gallows.
He mounted the steps slowly, with guards helping him.
When he spoke his last words his voice
was low but intense. He said, 'I hope that this execution is the
last act of the tragedy of the Second World War and that the lesson
taken from this world war will be that peace and understanding should
exist between peoples. I believe in Germany.'
He dropped to his death at 2:45 a.m.
With the bodies of Jodl and Seyss-Inquart
still hanging, awaiting formal pronouncement of death, the gymnasium
doors opened again and guards entered carrying Goering's body on
a stretcher.
He had succeeded in wrecking plans of
the Allied Control Council to have him lead the parade of condemned
Nazi chieftains to their death. But the council's representatives
were determined that Goering at least would take his place as a dead
man beneath the shadow of the scaffold.
The guards carrying the stretcher set
it down between the first and second gallows. Goering's big bare
feet stuck out from under the bottom end of a khaki-coloured United
States Army blanket. One blue-silk-clad arm was hanging over the
side.
The colonel in charge of the proceedings
ordered the blanket removed so that witnesses and Allied correspondents
could see for themselves that Goering was definitely dead. The Army
did not want any legend to develop that Goering had managed to escape.
As the blanket came off it revealed Goering
clad in black silk pyjamas with a blue jacket shirt over them, and
this was soaking wet, apparently the results of efforts by prison
doctors to revive him.
The face of this twentieth-century freebooting
political racketeer was still contorted with the pain of his last
agonizing moments and his final gesture of defiance.
They covered him up quickly and this
Nazi warlord, who like a character out of the days of the Borgias,
had wallowed in blood and beauty, passed behind a canvas curtain
into the black pages of history.