Page "Joachim von Ribbentrop" Paragraph 127

Ribbentrop was the first politician to be hanged on 16 October 1946 ( Göring having committed suicide before his own hanging ).

He was escorted up the 13 steps to the waiting noose and asked if he had any final words.

He calmly said: " God protect Germany.

God have mercy on my soul.

My final wish is that Germany should recover her unity and that, for the sake of peace, there should be understanding between East and West.

I wish peace to the world.

" Nuremberg Prison Commandant Burton C. Andrus later recalled that immediately before the hood was placed over his head, Ribbentrop, who had experienced a late conversion to Christianity while imprisoned at Nuremberg, turned to the prison's Lutheran chaplain and whispered, " I'll see you again.

" After a slight pause the executioner pulled the lever, releasing the trap door.

Ribbentrop's neck did not snap immediately.

Most accounts of the hanging indicate that it took ten to twenty minutes for Ribbentrop to die.

Commandant Andrus wrote in his memoirs that doctors declared Ribbentrop dead nineteen minutes after the hanging.

In a later interview, Joseph Malta, one of the Nuremberg hangmen, recalled: " I noticed that his neckbone did not break.

That's why he was alive.

So I jump on the rope with him -- I put my weight with him.

With my right hand on his left ear, I give it a jerk, and you hear the bones go snaps his fingers BEEK, and he's dead.

" Members of the U. S. Army cremated Ribbentrop ’ s remains and scattered his ashes in an unmarked location.