How the Nuremberg Trials operated:
In English law, the black cap was worn
by a judge when passing a sentence of
death.
series Blackadder
Goes Forth whilst
reading the 1979 English translation
German historian Werner
Maser's 1977 Nuremberg:
Trial of the Victors:
John C. Woods at Nuremberg
As early as July 1946, 3 months
before sentences were handed down at
the main Nuremberg Trial, the
Americans knew they'd be executions.
Werner Maser wrote:
"Viktor Freiherr von der Lippe [...] one of the defence assistants in Nuremberg, noted in his diary on 12 July 1646: 'From a court source . . . the rumour went round today that, irrespective of the final pleas, the Tribunal was so far advanced with its findings that, as things stood, death sentences must be reckoned with except for Schacht, Papen and Fritzsche. The hangman had even been designated before the defendants had made their final pleas. He was John C. Woods, who had executed 347 criminals by hanging in the United States over a period of fifteen years; in August he was given a secret assignment telling him that he would shortly have to go to Nuremberg where he would have to execute the German war criminals."
Nuremberg: A Nation on Trial (1979)
By Werner
Maser, translated by Richard Barry.
Page 235
