Following the International Military Tribunal's verdicts, Hermann Göring cheated the gallows by suicide hours earlier, but Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, and eight others were executed by American hangman John Woods. The executions closed the first international tribunal to hold state leaders accountable for genocide and aggressive war.
The gymnasium at Nuremberg's Palace of Justice had been converted into an execution chamber, three gallows built specifically for the occasion. American Master Sergeant John Woods served as executioner, hanging the condemned one by one through the early morning hours.
Hermann Göring, once Hitler's designated successor, had swallowed a smuggled cyanide capsule in his cell hours before, cheating the rope. The other ten—including Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, who reportedly asked for a photograph of his wife before he died, and Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel—were led to the scaffold in the order of their conviction's severity.
The trials themselves had been unprecedented: victorious powers putting defeated leaders on trial not just for losing a war but for orchestrating genocide. Photographs of the bodies were taken as proof and to counter any future claims that the men had escaped. The Nuremberg precedent—that following orders is no defense against charges of crimes against humanity—became foundational to modern international law.
Key people: Hermann Göring, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel