War crime hangings at Landsberg in May 1946.

War crime hangings at Landsberg in May 1946.

War crime hangings at Landsberg in May 1946.

With special thanks to Traugott Vitz for his help with these two articles.

Over two days at the end of May 1946, 28 German war criminals were hanged at Landsberg am Lech prison in Germany (US War Criminals Prison No. 1).

These men had been tried at Dachau Concentration Camp by a US General Military Court. The trial lasted from the 15th of November to the 13th of December 1945.  There were 40 defendants, 36 of whom received the death sentence. Eight of these sentences were reduced to terms of imprisonment, the remaining 28 being confirmed.

The trial went under the designation “USA against Martin Gerhard Weiß (Weiss) et al.”, Case No. 000-50-2. It became the “Parent Case” for 121 other trials (dealing with concentration camp atrocities) against about 500 defendants.

The first charge of the Dachau trial alleged that the accused “acting in pursuance of a common design to commit the acts hereinafter alleged, and as members of the staff of Dachau Concentration Camp and camps subsidiary thereto, did, at, or in the vicinity of DACHAU and LANDSBERG, Germany, between about January 1,1942 and about April 29, 1945, wilfully, deliberately and wrongfully encourage, aid, abet and participate in the subjection of civilian nationals of nations then at war with the then German Reich to cruelties and mistreatment, including killings, beatings, tortures, starvation, abuses and indignities, the exact names and numbers of such civilian nationals being unknown.”  Martin Gerhard Weiß was the camp commandant at Dachau.

The hangings were carried out by US Army Master Sergeant John C. Woods and German executioner Johann Reichhart using two US style gallows.  See photo.  Woods typically used the left hand gallows and Reichhart the right hand set. 

Shortly after leaving the building and before mounting the steps, the prisoners were stopped for the pinioning of their hands with cord by Woods and with hinged handcuffs by Reichhart.  Once they were on the trap door, the ankles were pinioned with cord by both men. 

When all the formalities (reading of death warrant, etc.) were completed, the black hood was put on.

Reichhart, who worked without assistant, then put on the US style thirteen coil noose, holding it in position with his left hand, while operating the lever with his right.

Woods’ assistant held out the noose to Woods who took it and placed it with the knot at the back of the neck. The assistant held the coil upright behind the head of the condemned, while Woods worked the lever.

A 48 minute long video is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4WZuJvNSv8  It does not identify the men by name. It would appear from this recording of a number of these executions that the men were given a drop of their own height plus a few inches and that the knot was placed at the back of the neck by Woods or just behind the left ear by Reichhart.  However this seemed to be adequate and there is no sign of struggling in the video of the executions.  

70 years ago today, on Tuesday the 28th of May 1946, 14 men were hanged here.  They were :

41 year old SS-Obersturmführer, Friedrich Wilhelm Ruppert, who was certified dead at 0954 hours.

Simon Kiern, (32) an SS-Hauptscharführer, died at 1013 hrs.

43 year old Otto Förschner, an SS-Sturmbannführer, was dead at 1022 hrs.

Franz Xaver Trenkle (47), an SS-Hauptscharführer, was dead at 1044 hrs.

Rudolf Heinrich Suttrop, aged 34, an SS-Obersturmführer, died at 1054 hrs.

42 year old Josef Jarolin, another SS-Obersturmführer, died at 1111 hrs.

Engelbert Valentin Niedermeyer, aged 34, an SS - Unterscharführer, was dead at 1121 hrs.

At 1327 hrs. Vinzenz Schöttl (40), an SS-Obersturmführer, was certified dead.

Dr. Klaus (or Claus) Karl Schilling (74) was dead at 1337 hrs.  He was not an SS member, but rather a retired professor and physician, who did malaria research, experimenting on inmates of whom hundreds died as a result. See photo.

30 year old Josef Seuss, (Seuß in German) an SS-Hauptscharführer, was pronounced dead at 1354 hrs.

Walter Adolf Langleist, (52) an SS-Oberführer, died at 1407 hrs.

Anton Endres, (36) an SS-Oberscharführer, died at 1423 hrs.

31 year old Otto Moll, an SS-Hauptscharführer who was in charge of cremations, died at 1436 hrs.  

55 year old Johann Viktor Kirsch, an SS-Hauptscharführer, was the last to die this day, at 1447 hrs.

Johann Reichhart had been a German executioner before the war and according to his records carried out 3,165 executions, mostly by guillotine (Fallbeil in German).

Although he had been a member of the Nazi Party he was employed as an executioner at Landsberg am Lech by the US Army until the end of May 1946.  He may have offered his services to them.  The by then 60 year old Reichhart seemed to have adapted well to the US Army method of hanging.  He still wore a dark suit and black bow tie but had dispensed with the tail coat, top hat and white gloves which were the executioner’s uniform. Reichhart resigned after this series of executions, apparently because he was concerned that he had been asked to hang two innocent men due to an administrative mix up.  It is thought that he hanged 21 men at Landsberg. See photo.