#1688
Post
by andreobrecht » 07 May 2008, 01:21
Regarding the speed of the two Weidmann clips, the one taken from behind and above is the one that is too slow the other clip is the one that runs normal speed. This has been analyzed to the Nth degree by several people on the other "guillotine" forum where these videos were originally posted. The calculated real drop speed of the blade of approx. 0.65 sec is stretched to about 1.1 sec in the video. Someone managed to speed up the video 1.5 x and the rhythm of the scene appears more correct.
Most of the French guillotines used after 1872 were of the "Berger" design (in reference to Alphonse Berger, 1841-1906, who designed the "New" French guillotine). This design was first produced in 1868 and the modified version in 1872 (See Gordon's earlier post), therefore the guillotines from Guyana, Algeria, Hanoi, Saigon, New Caledonia, Tahiti, France and Sweden are more or less identical, as were the Tegel and 1854 fallbeils.
The French design is actually 14-years newer than the 1854 Fallbeil and completely different from the older French design so, in that regard, both the French and Germans decided that a new design was needed to replace the antiquated 1792 style machine. The Germans went for an industrial, all-metal, killing machine, while the French went for a more furniture-like, graceful, but still very sophisticated, design. This seems to perfectly fit their respective personalities.
In response to an earlier question, the blade shield was used on older style wooden guillotines, both in Germany (Hamburg, Weimar) and in France (Executioner Nicolas Roch had it added to his machine in 1878 but his successor, Louis Deibler, promptly had it removed in 1879).