On the 19th of December 1945, months after the end of World War II, a notorious British traitor was led into the execution chamber of Wandsworth Prison in London. He had during the war defected over to Germany and tried to raise support for a British SS volunteer division and unit who would fight the allies directly.

John Amery was hooded as he was placed over the trapdoor of the gallows, and then the executioner Albert Pierrepoint secured the noose around his neck. But the execution of John Amery left an impression on the executioner, and Pierrepoint claimed that he was, I quote, “the bravest man he ever had to hang.” In his final moments on the gallows, Amery claimed that he always wanted to meet the executioner, but not in the manner that he would work to bring his life to an end.

But why specifically was John Amery executed on the gallows, and why was he not necessarily shot by a firing squad when he tried to specifically subvert the British military and cause damage to it? John Amery was actually the son of a Member of Parliament and a Conservative Minister, and he was someone who was a rather disruptive young man.

One of his teachers claimed he was unteachable and was incredibly defiant. Another teacher described him as the most difficult boy, but he wanted to carve a career for himself inside the fledgling film industry. But everything he tried to do tended to fail badly, and he did set up a number of the latter being declared bankrupt.

John Amery was though very political, and he was very anti-communist, and across Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, the rise of Nazism and the politics of men such as Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini greatly attracted him. Amery left Britain to live inside of France in 1936, but then he met prominent fascists and traveled to Nazi Germany and fascist Italy for the first time.

He fell in love with these nations and specifically the politics of them, and he even traveled to Spain to fight for Franco’s nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. Following this conflict, he returned to France and settled, and he witnessed the German invasion of the nation in June 1940.

 France fell very quickly to the Germans who blitzkrieged their way throughout the country. The armored units pushed quickly throughout the lands and left the French defenders and elements of the British Expeditionary Force encircled on the beaches of Dunkirk, and they needed rescuing. The country was placed in a German occupation, and the collaborationist government, the Vichy regime, was set up, and this was led by Marshal Philippe Pétain.

But John Amery did not get on with the collaborators and tried actually to leave. He was even given the chance to live in Germany, but could not leave occupied France. This was all due to the relevant travel permits, but in September 1942, Amery was given this piece of paper that allowed him to travel to Berlin.

At the time, he suggested that the Germans should try and form a British anti-Bolshevik faction, and this suggestion even impressed Hitler greatly. The Führer then pulled some strings to allow John Amery to stay inside of the Third Reich as a guest, and he then worked with Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda and Enlightenment, to make a number of pro-German propaganda broadcasts, and he tried to appeal to the British people to switch sides to fight communism.

But the idea of Amery’s British Free Corps remained, and he wanted to recruit 100 British men to be used in propaganda, and he tried to get these men from prisoner of war camps. He tried to recruit many, but his efforts fell flat. Amery continued to broadcast and write propaganda inside the German capital, but he then traveled to northern Italy to support Benito Mussolini’s fascist puppet state in the north, but it was inside of Italy where he was captured on the 25th of April 1945.

He was captured with his French mistress, and the partisans who arrested them planned to execute both of them immediately. However, instead of this, he was then passed over to the British, and they sent him back to Britain by plane. Incidentally, on his flight was actually William Joyce, Lord Haw-Haw, another man who would be executed by Pierrepoint for treason.

John Amery was tried for treason in London. He claimed at trial that he never attacked the British and that he was anti-communist and was not a Nazi. There were attempts to also prove he obtained Spanish citizenship, which would have possibly scuppered the treason charge. His defense also tried to make out that he was mentally ill, but on the first day of his trial, John Amery risked it all and pleaded guilty to all eight charges of treason.

He may have done this to try and appease the judge in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. The judge announced his verdict and said, I quote, “John Amery, I’ve read the depositions and the exhibits in this case, and I am satisfied that you knew what you did and that you did it intentionally and deliberately after you had received warning from more than one of your fellow countrymen that the course you were pursuing amounted to high treason.

They called you a traitor, and you heard them, but in spite of that, you continued in that course. You now stand a self-confessed traitor to your king and country, and you have forfeited your right to live.” On the 19th of December 1945, John Amery was sitting inside his condemned cell, and he was then greeted by the executioner Albert Pierrepoint.

Pierrepoint had previously met with Amery to calculate his height and weight and then the drop required to snap his neck using the long drop method. As they walked into the execution chamber, John Amery extended his hand to Pierrepoint and shook it, and Amery claimed he’d always wanted to meet the hangman, but not under these circumstances.

This remark gained the respect of the executioner, and Pierrepoint said he was the bravest man he ever had to execute, and it is believed that Amery went to his death with calm, quiet, and did not panic. The executioner led him over to the gallows trapdoor and placed a white cap over his head.

 Pierrepoint had previously secured his arms behind his back and then secured his legs. The noose was then placed around the neck, and Pierrepoint released the trapdoor, and John Amery crashed through the drop, and his neck was instantly snapped. Death was immediate, and Amery was then buried inside the courtyard within Wandsworth Prison.

 But why specifically was he hanged on the gallows rather than, let’s say, being shot by a firing squad? Well, at the time of his execution, Britain used hanging as the method to execute civilians. Amery was not a serving member of the armed forces, and he was also tried under the Treason Act specifically as a civilian.

 A firing squad was not on the table either as he was not a senior ranking military officer. The charge against Amery did fall under the Treason Act, and the standard punishment for this crime at the time was death by hanging. It was codified legal practice, and judges did not choose between this and other methods.

 They used hanging as the standard punishment. The fact he was also declared a traitor meant that the sentence was rather automatic, too, as treason for centuries was deemed the most serious crime someone could commit. The gallows was a traditional instrument of civilian criminal justice, and it marked John Amery as a condemned criminal offender and not a soldier.

Although John Amery tried to recruit for a Nazi unit, he was not a legitimate soldier in the British eyes and was not entitled to the conventions of a prisoner of war status, too. By hanging him, it denied him any association he had with military legitimacy and reinforced his actions were criminal betrayal and were not acts of war.

There was also a significant amount of consistency with Amery’s execution protocol. He was executed in exactly the same manner and also in exactly the same place as William Joyce, Lord Haw-Haw. They were hanged on the same gallows weeks apart, but both of the men had been involved in producing Nazi propaganda and broadcasts, and this consistency of sentence mattered.

 It showed the British public that treason would be handled through established legal channels and that the punishment for this crime would not be improvised. There were also practical reasons for the sentence, too. British prisons like Wandsworth were already equipped with functioning gallows that worked, and executioners like Albert Pierrepoint were trained in using this specific equipment, and they were familiar with using the exact chamber of death.

So, John Amery, one of the worst British traitors of World War II, was executed by hanging rather than other methods because he was legally a civilian and was not a soldier, and the British law mandated that he was to be hanged for the crime of treason. The gallows symbolized that he was criminally guilty and that he was in no way a soldier guilty of any military offense.

 He is remembered today for betraying his country during its darkest hours, and for this, he paid the ultimate price. Thank you for watching. If you did find this video interesting, maybe click subscribe. Once again, thank you so much for giving up your time to watch one of these videos.