Julius Streicher was executed by hanging at Nuremberg Prison shortly after 2:12 a.m. on October 16, 1946. He was convicted of crimes against humanity for his decades of antisemitic propaganda as publisher of Der Stürmer, and he went to the gallows shouting “Heil Hitler!” and “Purimfest 1946!” His hanging, carried out by U.S. Army Master Sergeant John C. Woods, is widely regarded as one of the botched executions of that night.
What Streicher Was Convicted Of
The International Military Tribunal convicted Streicher on Count Four of the indictment, crimes against humanity, and acquitted him on Count One, conspiracy to wage aggressive war. He was the only man sentenced to death at Nuremberg on a single count. Every other defendant condemned to hang faced convictions on multiple counts.
His crimes were rooted entirely in what he published. Streicher founded Der Stürmer in 1923 and ran it for more than two decades, filling its pages with grotesque caricatures and fabricated accusations against Jewish people. He held no military command, played no role in planning operations, and did not administer the camps. The tribunal found that his sustained incitement to murder and extermination, published while Jews in Eastern Europe were being killed, amounted to persecution on political and racial grounds connected to war crimes under the tribunal’s charter.1The Avalon Project. Judgment: Streicher The authority to impose death came from Article 27 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which allowed the court to impose death or any other punishment it found just.2International Committee of the Red Cross. Agreement for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis, and Charter of the International Military Tribunal
Streicher’s attorney conceded his client held “terrible views” but argued that he had not helped start the war or commit genocide, that Der Stürmer was not a government or party publication, and that Streicher had held no official post in the national regime during the years of the killings.3Harvard Law School Library. Nuremberg – Document Analyst’s Report The tribunal rejected that defense. The judges found that Streicher knew extermination was underway and kept calling for it in print, and that his lack of a title or rank did not shield him from individual criminal responsibility.
Inside the Nuremberg Gymnasium
The executions took place in the old gymnasium on the grounds of Nuremberg Prison, beginning just after 1:00 a.m. on October 16, 1946.4Memorium Nuremberg Trials. Verdicts – Section: Execution Three black-painted wooden scaffolds stood inside. Two were used alternately, with the third held in reserve. Allied Control Commission representatives and a small pool of journalists watched and verified the identity of each condemned man. Guards escorted each prisoner individually from his cell through a side door into the hall.
The hangman was Master Sergeant John C. Woods of the U.S. Army. Woods had secured the job by falsely claiming prior experience as a hangman in Texas and Oklahoma, states that had switched to electrocution during the period he claimed to have performed hangings. The Army never verified those claims.5Wikipedia. John C. Woods
Woods used the standard drop method rather than the long drop favored by British executioners.6Wikipedia. Nuremberg Executions The long drop calculates the fall distance from the prisoner’s weight so that the neck breaks on impact. The standard drop uses a shorter, fixed fall and carries a much higher risk of slow strangulation.
Streicher on the Gallows
Streicher entered the gymnasium at 2:12 a.m., the seventh man in the sequence. Kingsbury Smith of the International News Service, chosen by lottery as the sole American correspondent to witness the executions, recorded the scene. Streicher glanced at the three scaffolds and at the witnesses, then was directed to the first gallows on the left.
At the bottom of the steps, stopped for the identification formality, he screamed “Heil Hitler!” When an American colonel had the interpreter ask his name, Streicher shouted, “You know my name well,” and gave it only after a second request. Climbing the platform, he cried, “Now it goes to God.” Swung around to face the witnesses, he glared and screamed, “Purimfest 1946!”
The phrase was deliberate. Purim commemorates the story from the Book of Esther in which Haman, an official in the ancient Persian Empire, plotted to exterminate the Jewish people. The plot was foiled, Haman was hanged, and his ten sons were killed and hanged as well. By invoking Purim while standing among ten condemned men, Streicher drew a bitter parallel between Haman’s sons and the Nuremberg defendants. Asked for last words, he shouted, “The Bolsheviks will hang you one day.” As the black hood came down over his head, his muffled voice said, “Adele, my dear wife.” Then the trapdoor opened.
Why the Hanging Is Called Botched
Streicher went down kicking. The rope snapped taut and the body swung wildly. Groans came from the concealed interior below the scaffold. Woods descended from the platform, lifted the black canvas curtain, and went inside. Something he did there stopped the groans and brought the rope to a standstill. Kingsbury Smith later wrote that he assumed Woods had grabbed the swinging body and pulled down on it. Witnesses believed Streicher had died of strangulation rather than a broken neck.
Streicher’s hanging was not the only troubled one that morning. Legal scholar Donald E. Wilkes Jr. noted that many of the executed men fell with insufficient force to snap their necks, resulting in suffocating death struggles that in some cases lasted many minutes.7History News Network. The Nuremberg Hangings – Not So Smooth Either The trapdoor openings were also reportedly too small, causing several of the condemned to strike the edges as they fell. The Army denied all claims that the executions had been botched.
What Happened to the Body
Officials photographed each body after the hanging, as required by the tribunal’s documentation procedures. The remains were placed in caskets and transported to the Ostfriedhof crematorium in Munich.4Memorium Nuremberg Trials. Verdicts – Section: Execution Allied authorities wanted no burial site that could become a pilgrimage destination for Nazi sympathizers. The bodies were delivered in secrecy, and the ashes were scattered in a tributary of the Isar River. Streicher has no grave and no marker.
The Legal Legacy of Streicher’s Case
Streicher’s conviction established a direct, enforceable link between inflammatory speech and criminal responsibility for the violence that speech provokes. Before Nuremberg, no international court had held a propagandist personally liable for genocide committed by others. After the verdict, the principle was written into treaty law. Article III of the 1948 Genocide Convention made direct and public incitement to commit genocide a punishable act, drawing on the reasoning of the Streicher judgment.8United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Incitement to Genocide in International Law
The precedent was applied again half a century later. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda prosecuted the Media Case against three Rwandan media figures who had used radio broadcasts and a newspaper to incite the 1994 genocide. The tribunal cited Streicher’s conviction as foundational authority for holding media operators criminally accountable for incitement.8United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Incitement to Genocide in International Law