10.Vojtech Tuka
When Jozef Tiso came to power in October 1939 as President of the First Slovak Republic, he did not hesitate to appoint Vojtech Tuka as Prime Minister. Tuka, a fascist lawyer, journalist, and politician, made a name for himself early on by implementing comprehensive national anti-Semitic laws. However, his favorite pastime was overseeing the mass deportation of Slovak Jews to concentration camps. As the years passed and the killings increased, Tuka found himself in a rapidly deteriorating health. After suffering a stroke at the end of the war, a wheelchair-bound Tuka emigrated to Austria, where he was arrested shortly after and promptly deported to Slovakia. Throughout his trial by the postwar Czechoslovak government, Tuka suffered several more strokes that resulted in partial paralysis. Despite several serious medical ailments, the Nazi fascist had no mercy and rightly so, having thrown Slovakia into war against the Soviet Union. On August 20, 1946, the 66-year-old convicted war criminal was carried in his chair to the gallows by the waiting rope; a lovely ending for a monster who enjoyed the agony and grief of others.
9.Taha Yassin Ramadan
Amid the looming conflict between the United States and Iraq in 2002, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan came up with an unusual proposal. He believed that to avoid war, President George W. Bush and Saddam Hussein should resolve their differences with a duel, specifically stating: “A president against a president and a vice president against a vice president and a duel takes place. And in this way, we are saving the American and Iraqi people. The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, should be the referee ”. As you might imagine, Bush was not enthusiastic about the idea and rejected the gracious offer. Two years later, US forces captured Ramadan and would try him before the Iraqi High Court (IHT) for crimes against humanity. Finally, he was sentenced to life in prison in November 2006; however, the IHT prosecutor considered that the punishment was too merciful. Days later, the IHT Appeals Chamber ordered the Trial Chamber to re-convict Ramadan, resulting in his execution by hanging on March 20, 2007, the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.
8.William Joyce
One of the most recognized broadcasters during World War II, William Joyce, “Lord Haw-Haw”, was an American-born fascist living in Germany in 1939. His ability to speak in public caught the attention of Joseph Goebbels, who recruited Joyce for his own radio show. with the intention that a foreign fascist spread Nazi propaganda to allied countries. By 1940, Joyce had six million regular listeners (eighteen million occasional) tuning into broadcasts aimed at inciting distrust among the British public towards his government. Goebbels was so pleased with Joyce’s popularity that he wrote in his diary: “I tell the Führer about the success of Lord Haw-Haw, which is truly amazing.” In the spring of 1940, Joyce’s rhetoric became more dire, threatening Britain with an invasion and urging the country to surrender. Lord Haw-Haw’s voice on the radio waves came to an end in May 1945 when he was captured by British forces and transported to England for trial. Seeing that Joyce served Nazi Germany during the war, the court concluded that he committed high treason and sentenced him to death. On January 3, 1945, Joyce was hanged in Wandsworth Prison, making him the last person to be executed for high treason in the UK.
7.Carmen Mory
Carmen Mory – ‘The Devil’ – was a Swiss woman who moved to Berlin in 1933. Shortly after, she approached the propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, who paved the way for her to become a Gestapo agent. In 1940, Mory was arrested in France after a failed assassination attempt on a newspaper editor. Having originally been sentenced to death, Ella Mory was released on the condition that she spy for the French. Soon after, the Gestapo was cautious and arrested her for being a double agent. She was sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she was selected to be a Blockova (one in charge of the prisoners in her block). She there she enjoyed the power denied to others, initiating a sadistic path of torture and murder. From daily beatings to administering lethal injections, Mory’s favorite pastime was dousing the prisoners in the “lunatic room” with buckets of ice water. At the end of the war, she was released from Ravensbrück only to be detained again by the Allied authorities after learning of her heinous activities in Block 10. Having been found guilty of torture and murder charges, Mory was sentenced to hang but struck the executioner at his own game when she committed suicide with a razor on April 9, 1947, a week before her scheduled execution.
6.Julius Streicher
As an early member of the Nazi party, Julius Streicher was known for his fierce anti-Semitic rhetoric that undoubtedly made him love Hitler. In fact, his personal association with the madman was so strong that Hitler valued him as his protégé. In May 1945, however, all hope was lost that Streicher would be in the captivity of American forces. After the Nuremberg trials of October 1946, Streicher was taken to a small prison gymnasium where he would meet a remarkably agonizing end. When he opened the hatch, a defiant Streicher disappeared from sight, but he was far from dead. Seeing that his neck did not break, the Nazi propagandist “rocked violently and groaned in pain as he struggled to breathe” for minutes. Many believed the shoddy execution was intentional by the executioner Sergeant Major. John C. Woods, arguing that Woods did not want to be overshadowed by Streicher’s infamous style of playwriting. Brimming with confidence, the Kansas native bragged to Time magazine about his efficiency in killing after hanging, saying, “I wasn’t nervous. A partner can’t afford to be nervous in this business.”
5.Champ Ferguson
The Confederate guerrilla leader Champ Ferguson, known as a “gambler, troublemaker, drinker, fighter and brawler,” walked the Tennessee-Kentucky border leaving a trail of bloodshed everywhere. Of the countless victims Ferguson massacred – some legitimate acts of combat – most were Union soldiers wanted for personal revenge. The unionized men he took prisoner, whether they were soldiers or civilians, were often found shot or stabbed in the heart with Ferguson’s beloved Bowie knife. In some cases, decapitation was preferred. In 1864, the Ferguson guerrillas successfully fought off an attack by federal cavalry. The next day he chased the wounded into a hospital where he shot them while they lay defenseless, now known as the Saltville Massacre. Ferguson’s four-year slaughter came to an end when he was captured on May 26, 1865. Believing that he would be paroled like other guerrillas who surrendered, the federal government charged him with murder. With his wife and his 16-year-old daughter in attendance for the packed show, the guerrilla leader was led to the gallows and hanged on October 20, a far more civilized death than he bestowed on his victims.
4.Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant
Breaker Morant (1980) – YouTube
In southern Africa, in October 1899, the Boers declared war on Britain in response to a British incursion following the discovery of diamonds and gold in Boer-occupied regions. Being part of the British Empire, Australia provided 16,000 volunteer soldiers, one of whom was Lieutenant Harry “Breaker” Morant. As the war progressed, both sides began to use guerrilla tactics, further increasing the death toll. When Morant’s commanding officer became a victim, the ‘womanizing horsebreaker’ retaliated with a series of revenge killings of civilians and Boer prisoners of war. In August 1901, eight Boers approached the Morants camp to surrender. Instead, Morant had them executed on the spot. Soon after, Morant killed three Boer POWs followed by Reverend Heese, a German missionary, after witnessing the execution of prisoners. Morant was arrested in September 1901 and sentenced the following year for murdering 12 prisoners; incidentally, he was acquitted of the murder of the reverend. On February 27, 1902, Lieutenant “Breaker” took his last breath before a firing squad. Despite being a murderer, Australians were shocked that Britain executed an Australian without first consulting with the Australian government. To this day, Morant remains a popular hero to the Australian public given the controversy surrounding his trial and execution.
3.Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti
In the early hours of January 15, 2007, Saddam Hussein’s half-brother and head of the secret police, Barzan Ibrahim Hassan al-Tikriti, was hanged for his role in the 1982 torture and execution of dozens of Shiites. . Due to a serious miscalculation by the executioner, a strange and surreal scene occurred when the gallows hatch was opened; the separation of Ibrahim’s head from his body. The result was a Maliki government baffled by loyal Sunni Arabs who claimed that Ibrahim had been deliberately beheaded as an act of revenge and insult to the Sunni Muslim world. Despite the willingness to blame the United States, dozens of Basra residents took to the streets to celebrate honking car horns and waving Iraqi flags. According to an Iraqi staff member, many citizens across the country believed the incident occurred as a result of God’s punishment for Ibrahim’s crimes, stating that it was “an expression of how bad it was during his lifetime.”
2.Irma Grese
Having been one of the most sadistic Nazi guards of World War II, Irma Grese’s name will always be synonymous with evil. Nicknamed “the hyena of Auschwitz,” Grese quickly rose to the rank of senior SS supervisor, where she unleashed her deadly cruelty on the prisoners. From kicking prisoners with his spiked boots, to constant spanking, to having her dog brutally beat the sick and defenseless, Grese had a particularly unhealthy fondness for beating women on the chest. When it came time to select who was heading to the gas chamber, she Grese intentionally selected the beautiful prisoners out of jealousy and spite. She even raped countless inmates, while forcing Jewish girls to watch over her. She savored every moment of torture and kept trophies in the form of lampshades made from the skin of three dead prisoners. When Grese was arrested by the British in the spring of 1945, she was charged with numerous war crimes of which she pleaded not guilty. Due to the testimony of Grese’s surviving victims and witnesses, she was found guilty and sentenced to death. On December 13, 1945, Grese became the youngest woman hanged under British law during the 20th century at the age of 22.
1.Edith Cavell
Edith Cavell, one of the most prominent nurses in history, was anything but a criminal. After graduating in 1907, she moved from London to Brussels, where she trained thousands of nurses until 1914, when Belgium came under German military law. Soon after, Ella Cavell began harboring wounded British and French soldiers, including civilians, many of them smuggled into the neutral Netherlands. After being betrayed by a Frenchman in August 1915, Cavell unapologetically confessed to harboring and transporting some 60 British soldiers, 15 French soldiers, and 100 French and Belgian citizens. Without defending herself against her, Ella Cavell was sentenced to death despite the German civil governor’s recommendation for leniency given her humanitarian work. On October 12, 1915, Cavell was executed by firing squad that caused disgust among the West, facilitating America’s entry into World War I in 1917. Today, a statue of Cavell stands in Trafalgar Square in central London, with an inscription of the words he said. her minister the night before her death; “Patriotism is not enough. I must not feel hatred or bitterness for anyone. “
