fredric wrote:Reichhart by this time was claiming he beheads in 3 seconds from turn-over, 4 below the standard.
Think of this! The condemned was grabed and slamed.
The execution report above says it took ten seconds from the time the prisoner was turned over to the executioner to fall of the blade. Somewhat slow for Reichhart. There must have been an occasional prisoner who struggled when being led to the fallbeil. Maybe this was one of them and therefore it took all of ten seconds.
It amazes me that they even recorded the time it took to walk the prisoner from the cell to the execution building.
When claiming 3 or 4 second execution times, one must realize that at least a second passed between the time the upper lunette half was closed over the neck, the blade was released, and the blade crashed down. Based on the total drop height, we know it takes about 0.5 seconds for the fallbeil blade to come all the way down once released. This would leave only 2 seconds or so to grab the prisoner, lead him to the guillotine, throw him on the bench and shove him forward so the neck is in the lunette. I really have hard time imagining this. Ten seconds looks fast enough to me to accomplish all this. 3 or 4 seems almost impossible, even if the fallbeil was just behind the curtain so that it took only a step to reach the fallbeil bench. However, East German executioner Walter Boettcher claimed times of 4 seconds routinely in his execution reports.
Just for comparison, in Die letzten Tage movie, it took about 20 seconds to accomplish the execution. The assistants grab the actress at 17 seconds into the clip and the blade falls at 37 seconds. Of course, the fallbeil was located too far from the curtain, which meant loosing at least four seconds due to leading the prisoner to the guillotine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_epbnn1xvk
