Beheadings in the Third Reich

[fredric]

Yes, Bruchsal had built a brick execution shed against an outer wall and had installed the "all-metal" fallbeil, based upon the Mannhardt
design. I think we all know the photo of this unique machine. The caption on its photo says it came from Alsace but I have not seen documentation. Maybe this is false?
Reports say the Stuttgart Courthouse was mostly destroyed including its old Mannhardt
fallbeil. You open the possibility some metal parts were reused in the "all-metal" fallbeil described as being sent to Bruchsal.
The wooden bench and supports were reported to be in terrible shape due to absorbing oil and were brittle like glass. So maybe
the "new Bruchsal fallbeil" is a "modified Mannhardt" using the old frame, sledge, etc. and fitted with metal supports and bench?
This is worth researching.

[history1]

Some interesting books about inmates of different Nazi prisons and their executions:
https://www.stsg.de/cms/stsg/veroeffent ... ftenreihen

Can you give me a link ref. the article you read Pete? As someone with a medical background and attending a couple dissections during my training I doubt that.

[svenga]

A nice 1:25 scale model of a Tegel

Not sure if this is a museum piece or privately owned.

(picture is protected so can not be linked to here from what I can work out)

Source:

https://www.deutsche-digitale-bibliothe ... WSSNJAVHD2

[fredric]

It is a museum-quality model made by Dieter Paprotka, a respected
historian on the fallbeil and capital punishment. I understand he is located in Berlin.
I hope to meet or communicate with him some day. I understand he has
an excellent archive and a private museum. Yes...this is a nice model.

[svenga]

Vladimir Sebecek's 1:1 scale Replica of the Pancraz Tegel fallbeil in action..

[youtube]https://youtu.be/EqpvHFWTU7U/[youtube]

Although he chose to base his Replica on a poorly restored example of a Tegel (and in this video the bench and accesories are not in place just the main frame), it is still very close in regards to size, weight, dimension, operation etc. This gives us a good feel and view of how powerful these Tegels were when the lever was pulled, rather brutal!.

As Gordon has mentioned some time ago, upon firing the Tegels he was lucky enough to examine and operate, when not fixed to the ground the violent shock moved the whole fallbeil a few inches and jolted upwards.. On this video you can clearly see the entire machine jump up once the schlitten hits the base. Note that the rubber shock absorbers on this Replica only give the schlitten one return bounce. None the less this aspect was not part of the original Tegel design so In my opinion is not something to focus on... The whole action on this Replica is much more closer to how an original Tegel would of behaved.

It's no suprise nearby prisoners could feel and sense the thud on execution days.

[Pete26]

Below is a working link for the video clip in the post above. Vladimir Sebecek does a nice job dropping the blade immediately after dropping the lunette upper half. This is the way it was most likely done in an actual execution to save time. The only problem is the incorrect release lever, which of course is a vertical pull rod on an unmodified Tegel. As I mentioned before, there is a good reason why a guillotine designer would not place a release lever this low and close to the guillotine bench. A struggling prisoner could release the blade with his head while being pushed onto the bench, and also possibility of inadvertent blade release would be high since it was the downward pressure on the lever which causes the sledge to release and drop. There would be a lot of inadvertent blade drops while the executioner's assistants were fighting with a struggling prisoner. An upward release direction for the lever would be much safer, but that is not the case on the improperly restored Pankrac fallbeil. A French guillotine has the blade release lever (declic) mounted way high on one of the uprights, above the head of an average size executioner standing next to it. Again, there is a good reason for this release lever placement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqpvHFWTU7U

Someone posted the following clip a while ago. At 3:24 into the clip Vladimir Sebecek talks about his life size Pankrac guillotine replica and drops the blade. He also uses the infamous "hook" for its real purpose - to bring down the empty hook, instead of trying to retrieve a bloody head with it from the head basket and show it to the execution commission as a proof that the execution was indeed carried out. The morbid story about the hook is even told in the last clip by Czech historian Ales Kyr when he describes the guillotine execution process in Pankrac prison.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICbHlYx2SHU

And in this clip which I posted some time ago, you can see the Pankrac Tegel blade come down at 4:39 into the clip. The crashing sound inside the actual execution room is greatly amplified and gives one a good idea how loud it was. It takes only about 1/2 of a second for the blade to come all the way down from the moment the sledge is released. The actual beheading would only take about 4/100 of a second.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=161RYr3QUTc

[Pete26]

Eine der Hinrichtungsstätten der Justiz im Deutschen Reich befand sich auch in Stuttgart. Im Hof des Oberlandesgerichts wurden Hunderte von Verurteilten umgebracht. Dass man von vielen die Namen weiß, ist einer Liste zu verdanken, die nach dem Krieg erstellt wurde und sich unter anderem in der Spruchkammerakte von Hermann Cuhorst befindet. Cuhorst war als Vorsitzender des Stuttgarter Sondergerichts seit 1937 für zahllose Todesurteile verantwortlich. Die Liste enthält die Namen von mehr 419 zum Tode verurteilten Personen, von denen die meisten zwischen März 1942 und September 1944 im Hof des Oberlandesgerichts ihr Leben lassen mussten. Bei den Getöteten handelt es sich nicht nur um Personen, die in Stuttgart verurteilt worden waren. Die Liste enthält vielmehr Opfer aus ganz Südwestdeutschland, die zur Zentralen Hinrichtungsstätte nach Stuttgart verbracht wurden. Das Verzeichnis ist damit eine ganz wichtige Quelle für alle, die dem Schicksal von NS-Opfern auf der Spur sind, und wurde deshalb jetzt komplett im Findmittelsystem des Landesarchivs Baden-Württemberg veröffentlicht.

Translated by google:

One of the execution sites of the justice system in the German Reich was also in Stuttgart. Hundreds of convicts were killed in the courtyard of the Oberlandesgericht. The fact that many people know the names is due to a list which was created after the war and is, among other things, in the courtroom of Hermann Cuhorst. Since 1937, Cuhorst, as chairman of the Special Court of Stuttgart, was responsible for countless death sentences. The list contains the names of more 419 deaths, most of whom were killed in the court of the Oberlandesgericht between March 1942 and September 1944. The dead were not just persons who had been convicted in Stuttgart. The list contains victims from all over South-West Germany, who were sent to the Central Execution Center in Stuttgart. The list is therefore a very important source for all those who are on the trail of the fate of Nazi victims and has therefore been published in the Land Resources Archives of Baden-Württemberg.

https://www.landesarchiv-bw.de/web/58486

[alanlee]

The following article provides chilling information about execution of Bedrich Kozlik and his wife in Pankrac prison by beheading on 28 April 1944 at 1611 and 1612 hours, respectively.

http://pribram.kscm.cz/article.asp?them ... item=86853

Some new and more detailed information is included, such as:

1. Beheaded bodies were placed into a wooden tub immediately after execution and carried into the morgue next door

2. In the morgue room beheaded bodies were dumped out of the tub, blood from the tub poured into the drain, and bodies were placed around centrally located floor drain in the morgue with the necks next to the drain and heads placed between the legs. They were arranged in a star pattern around the drain and remained bleeding for about two hours.

3. The guillotine was hosed down after each execution, but also a bucket full of water stood ready and that was also dumped onto the guillotine to wash away the blood (buckets full of water were also used to clean French guillotine in multiple beheadings).

4. The weight of the blade/sledge is given as 65 kg.

5. The rough wooden caskets were lined with saw dust to absorb the blood. The caskets were supposedly reused after the remains of the executed were cremated and new saw dust thrown in.

6. The executioner Alois Weiss was paid 40 Reichsmarks for the first execution, then 30 Reichsmarks for each remaining execution that day. He also received a fixed salary of 3000 Reichsmarks a year on top of that. He lived in an apartment in Prague vacated by a Jewish family which was deported, and his monthly rent was 35 Reichsmarks.

7. The official exchange rate was 1 Reichsmark = 10 Czech crowns, although in reality the buying power of both was about the same in the Protectorate of Bohemia nd Moravia. Of course, only Germans (and perhaps their collaborators) were paid in Reichsmarks, which gave them a tremendous buying power over Czechs.

8. Both the fallbeil and morgue floor drains were tied into the prison toilet sewer system.

9. The prisoners in surrounding cells counted the impacts of the guillotine blade to determine how many people were executed that day. (This was also mentioned in the recently posted article about Vienna executions).



http://pribram.kscm.cz/data2/dep_35/03_Kozlik.jpg



http://pribram.kscm.cz/data2/dep_35/04_Kozlikova.jpg

What kind of crime has committed by this couple lead to suffer so heavy penalty ?

[Piotr1]

http://forum.axishistory.com/download/f ... &id=396208

[Pete26]

What kind of crime has committed by this couple lead to suffer so heavy penalty ?

They were both involved in resistance activities against the Third Reich. The most serious charge against them was providing shelter and food to resistance fighters. Such activities were considered treasonous by Nazi judiciary and death penalty was usually imposed. The following articles contain a lot of details about their resistance activities, imprisonment, sentencing, and execution.

http://pribramsky.denik.cz/zpravy_regio ... 60505.html

http://pribramsky.denik.cz/zpravy_regio ... 60506.html

[alanlee]

What kind of crime has committed by this couple lead to suffer so heavy penalty ?

They were both involved in resistance activities against the Third Reich. The most serious charge against them was providing shelter and food to resistance fighters. Such activities were considered treasonous by Nazi judiciary and death penalty was usually imposed. The following articles contain a lot of details about their resistance activities, imprisonment, sentencing, and execution.

http://pribramsky.denik.cz/zpravy_regio ... 60505.html

http://pribramsky.denik.cz/zpravy_regio ... 60506.html

Thanks for share. So sorry I cannot read the Czch language.

[Pete26]

Thanks for share. So sorry I cannot read the Czch language.

https://translate.google.com/translate? ... edit-text=

https://translate.google.com/translate? ... edit-text=

Some words that google could not translate: Kat = executioner; sekyrarna = axe room, or guillotine execution room in this case

[fredric]

Piotr,You... find so much. This is a good close-up of the
old head tub. Painted blue? Is this fallbeil ever going to be exhibited? It was used in
films. Where is it today?
Pete2 also is a "star" for input. Thanks to you and Piotr for your work.
Those of us in the background
respect and appreciate you.
Find a picture of a fallbeil execution. It would be the most important discovery ever.
I figure that around Plotzensee or in greater Berlin or Magdeburg, some relatives or associates
can be found. I do not have the language skills to do this.

So many similar photos are published France. Bois de Justice has the world's best site.
But there must be some German.

The closest I have seen is
one in Pancraz showing a bloody smock on the hanging table...but who knows when
this was taken? Photo was made by the Pancraz photographer.

[Piotr1]

[quote="fredric"]Piotr,You... find so much. This is a good close-up of the
old head tub. Painted blue? Is this fallbeil ever going to be exhibited? It was used in
films. Where is it today?
=================================================================================
The fallbeil from Katowice today is exhibited in Silesian Museum in Katowice( after seventy years rest somewhere in Auschwitz's Museum warehouse)

[Pete26]

This is a good close-up of theold head tub. Painted blue?

I do not think it is painted, and it looks more gray to me. These sheet metal baskets (Blechkorb in German) were made of galvanized sheet metal and zinc tends to turn dull gray over the years. An old galvanized water bucket would look about the same after many years.