There was a German-speaking Lutheran pastor from Saint Louis named Gerecke (rhymes with Cherokee) who worked with several of the Nuremberg defendants. Apparently he brought some measure of courage, comfort and repentance to former Field Marshall Keitel before his ignominious death. Keitel saw hanging as a great humiliation, preferring to be shot instead. And he needed the courage, since he ended up kicking on the gallows for 28 minutes! No one in the US Army remembered how to properly hang criminals any more.
There was a German-speaking Lutheran pastor from Saint Louis named Gerecke (rhymes with Cherokee) who worked with several of the Nuremberg defendants. Apparently he brought some measure of courage, comfort and repentance to former Field Marshall Keitel before his ignominious death. Keitel saw hanging as a great humiliation, preferring to be shot instead. And he needed the courage, since he ended up kicking on the gallows for 28 minutes! No one in the US Army remembered how to properly hang criminals any more.