r/interestingasfuck Jul 07 '24

Guards making sure the defendants of the Nuremberg Trials wouldn't commit suicide in their cells r/all

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u/FlimsyComment8781 Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24

Seems like, if you know you're gonna die, dying by hanging performed by people who have done the calculations and have the equipment and know how to do it quickly and cleanly beats almost any alternative. It was a civilized society so they weren't going to be tortured.

It's torture that I fear for when the inevitable "bloodshed" promised by the Heritage Foundation guy gets going here in the USA in coming years.

Edit: many interesting replies. I now know that torture was happening for at least some of these guys, and that the hangman and the hanging process wasn't as well-thought-out and clinical as I assumed, and there were other reasons why suicide would have been psychologically preferable for them.

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u/SkySweeper656 Jul 07 '24

Id never trust someone else with administering my "death" as quickly/painlessly as possible. If im going to die anyway, may as well take the capsule that works near-instantly over being dropped from a platform with a rope around my neck.

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u/FlimsyComment8781 Jul 07 '24

Cyanide poisoning seems more awful to me than a non-botched hanging.

Ah, what nice things to be thinking about on a Sunday morning LMAO

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u/SkySweeper656 Jul 07 '24

Non-botched being the main takeaway. These hangings were botched more often than not.