Nice beil photos, good to have them for comparison. The (lower) is Scandinavian setting on the bench is unique but has no connection with Nazi Germany. It is great for comparison... one might call it a "Danish modern" beheading tool. Note the paddles to hold the condemn's head steady and metal hoops to hold the torso. Quite an axe too...really a work of art, quite Nordic, almost Viking, ja?
Beils from pre-and-early Nazi days were more practical than the Scandinavian model; richtbeils were heavy-duty choppers. Harald Polchau describes the beils he saw in Plotzensee as "huge tools." The closest beil to ones used by Groppler, Reindel, Englehardt, Krautz and Herr would be the center beil which I believe was owned by Sharfrichter Sigismurd Schesmer (sp). I would guess it is late 18th century. The one one the right probably is near
that time period and the one on the left is earlier...and may be in the Swiss Criminal Museum. Quite elaborate beil.
Anyone know the location of Groppler's axe? A replica of Reindel's axe is in the German History Museum (not displayed). When Julius Krautz was
appointed scharfrichter of Berlin, he did not have an axe and borrowed the Museum's. I think Reindel had sold his axe to a restaurant where it was displayed and now is probably lost. Another story is that it was passed along to another Scharfrichter and later confiscated by the Gestapo. Evans
says that the RMJ collected all execution equipment (axes, benches, blocks) from scharfrichters and possibly German prisons
at the time the fallbeil became the standard.
I have read that Gustav Vopel (post-Nazi, self-acclaimed sharfrichter) got his axe from Breslau. The execution rooms in Posen and Danzig
had blocks as well as fallbeils. Probably some axes hidden away too.
Today the Rothenburg Criminal Museum has a fine collection of beils. One is a match for the axe described in Mortimer's book as the
one Groppler used to behead Von Falkenhayn.
Richtbeils typically are said to weigh about 13lbs.
None were filled with mercury as claimed but this claim endures. Another claim was that the axe blade was immersed in ice
water before or between beheadings to keep blood from sticking to the blade. Blades were sometimes engraved with the names
and dates of victims as I have seen on some French guillotine blades.
A few axe executions did take place after the fallbeil became the norm. I have heard that a few axe executions continued after the War in the Eastern Zone.