They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I said I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said welcome aboard.
- Fantastic, Chief Scientist an the Helios One powerplant, and likely descendent of John C. Woods
"Oopsie"
Submitted 2 weeks ago by PugJesus@piefed.social to historymemes@piefed.social
https://media.piefed.social/posts/0p/9y/0p9ytjTsmo7gjVE.jpg
Comments
TaterTot@piefed.social 2 weeks ago WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
There’s an old saying. “Anyone can build a bridge that stands up. It takes an engineer to design a bridge that will barely stand up.”
Some may say that the hangman was clearly incompetent. Others might say he was actually the most skilled at his craft on this Earth, simply….optimizing for a different variable.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Original madlad.
Godric@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Catling claimed that they were not properly tied, so that some hit the platform with their heads as they went down and their noses were torn off.” Although the “U.S. Army denied his story”, photographs of some of the deceased, such as Wilhelm Frick and Wilhelm Keitel, clearly displayed “battered and bloody faces.”
In the case of Julius Streicher, reporter Howard K. Smith wrote that the initial drop was not fatal, and that “witnesses could hear him groaning”, upon which “Woods came down from the platform and disappeared behind the black curtain that concealed the dying man. Abruptly the groans ceased and the rope stopped moving.
According to Lieutenant Stanley Tilles, who was charged with co-ordinating the hangings at Nuremberg, “Woods had deliberately placed the coils of Streicher’s noose off-center” to ensure that he would not experience a quick death. Smith believed that “Woods hated Germans”, and that “a small smile cross[ed] his lips as he pulled the hang-man’s handle.”
mojofrododojo@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
iirc he lied about his quals too. dude wanted to do the job in the worst way lol
akwd169@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Good, exactly what those Nazi fucks deserve
EyIchFragDochNur@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago Görings interpreters there called him gering, what means as much a low/little/small amount/poor… because he kept interrupting them in the trials.
AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 2 weeks ago
That reminds me of the story of the South American dictator who was so despised that, when he was deposed and sentenced to death, every member of the firing squad independently decided to “accidentally” aim for the wrong side of his chest, denying him a quick death.
WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
45 Executions? Sounds like the Army not only didn’t care, but was complicit.
Triasha@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Finding a hangman was not easy in 1945 US army. This guy was a bullshit artist failing upwards. “Oh yeah I can totally tie hangman’s knot”
Nobody wanted to have to find someone else.
PugJesus@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
A little of both, probably. “If we pulled him now, we’d have to admit we made a mistake, and also then we’d have to find a new executioner. What does it matter? They’re going to be dead either way.”
WoodScientist@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I mean, eventually, he can improve by repetition if nothing else. I mean, wasn’t he objectively one of the most experienced executioners in modern history?
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
And the Nuremberg trials were shockingly rife with benefit of the doubt. Some real bastards slipped out by pointing fingers, or were in prison for long enough that the government commuted their sentences.
Nobody who died at Nuremberg was a maybe.
NathanDerWeise@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Ok, but where’s the image of Kevin James in a Nuremberg officer outfit WITH big naturals?
epicshepich@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Why use a picture of Kevin James?
PugJesus@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
A common meme image for incidents one is “apologizing” for, because he looks like he’s been caught doing something but not sorry in a mischievous sort of way.
epicshepich@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Thanks for that. I’d seen the meme before but didn’t make the connection.
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
Wouldn’t be me, cruelty for cruelty’s sake, but I respect the choice without objection.
Zwiebel@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Ah yes commiting one of the same cruelties the nazis did while feeling morally superior for it, truly one of the moves of all time
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
> Police arrest kidnapper
‘Hypocrites.’
FiniteBanjo@feddit.online 2 weeks ago
Tolerance must end with the intolerant, and all that.
acockworkorange@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
Cruelty for revenge’s sake, I’d say.
PugJesus@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Not even. The hangman, John C. Woods, was probably a sadist who simply enjoyed killing people slowly, unfortunately.
MohamedMoney@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
I’m just musing here, but isn’t revenge just another form of cruelty? Revenge gaines nothing, it loses more. It only achieves itself but then evaporates like cotton candy in a raccoon’s hand.
PugJesus@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._Woods
Before D-Day, U.S. military executions by hanging in the European Theater of Operations occurred in Southern England only and were performed by the civilian executioner Thomas Pierrepoint, with assistance by Albert Pierrepoint (his nephew) and other British personnel. When in autumn of 1944 military executions by hanging were scheduled in France, the Army looked for a volunteer enlisted hangman and found Woods, who falsely claimed previous experience as assistant hangman in two cases in Texas and two in Oklahoma. He later told newspaper reporters that his career as an executioner had started when he “attended a hanging as a witness, and the hangman asked me if I wouldn’t mind helping."[3] There is no evidence that the U.S. Army made any attempt to verify Woods’s claims—if they had checked, it would have been easy to prove that he was lying; the states of Texas and Oklahoma had both switched to electrocution during the period he claimed to be a hangman. The last hanging in Texas took place in August 1923 when Woods would have been twelve. Oklahoma did not carry out hangings during the relevant period, the last one taking place three months before Woods was born. There was a single hanging in 1936 under federal jurisdiction, while all other executions in Oklahoma between 1915 and 1966 were carried out by electric chair.
Woods also participated in the execution of about 45 war criminals at various locations which included Rheinbach, Bruchsal, Landsberg, and Nuremberg. Donald E. Wilkes Jr., a professor of law at the University of Georgia Law School, wrote that many of the Nazis executed at Nuremberg fell from the gallows with a drop insufficient to snap their necks, resulting in their death by strangulation, which in some cases lasted up to 15 minutes.[1]
horseloaf@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
The OG Wichita Lineman, huh?
Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
That was about a phone technician.
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago On July 21, 1950, Woods was accidentally electrocuted when he tried to change a light bulb while standing in a pool of water.
Now there’s an “oopsie”!
Agent641@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ah so he fell out of a Wile-e-coyote cartoon
lime@feddit.nu 2 weeks ago
honestly the image of him in the article is funnier. he looks like he barely knows where he is.
mrbutterscotch@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
He looks like David Mitchell (The are we the baddies guy)
BigDiction@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Giving me Kevin from the Office vibes lol.
VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Judging by the last part of the article, he really might not have.
On July 21, 1950, Woods was accidentally electrocuted when he tried to change a light bulb while standing in a pool of water. He was buried in Toronto Township Cemetery, Toronto, Kansas.
- EyIchFragDochNur@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Not being sober ever again might help with that job
Formfiller@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Image