Beheadings in the Third Reich

[Pete26]

Kate Tucholla.jpg

Käte Tucholla was guillotined in Berlin Ploetzensee prison on 28 September 1943.

Kate Tucholla execution notice.jpg

"Die vom Volksgerichtshof wegen Landesverrats und Vorbereitung zum Hochverrat zum Tode und zu dauerndem Ehrverlust verurteilte 33 Jahre alte Käte Tucholla ist heute hingerichtet worden."

[Ponury]

For what?

[von thoma]

By anti-fascist activities and resistance fighter...born Käthe Scheffler, executed after her husband Felix Tucholla, a KPD functionary.
She was a field hockey player.

Commemorative stamp

[fredric]

If you dare to disagree with the head of state you will
Loose your head.
Hmmm. Sound familiar?

[Pete26]

If you dare to disagree with the head of state you will
Loose your head.
Hmmm. Sound familiar?

Felix Tucholla, the husband of Kate Tucholla, did not lose his head. But he lost his life just the same when he was hanged in Ploetzensee prison on 8 September 1943. The guillotine was damaged by an Allied bomb raid during that time so many prisoners were executed by hanging even though their original sentence called for guillotine execution.

[Pete26]

The first person officially guillotined in France was the robber Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier who was guillotined in Paris on 25 April 1792, almost exactly 230 years ago.

The last person officially guillotined in France was the Tunisian national Hamida Djandoubi, guillotined in Marseille on 10 September 1977.

Therefore France used a guillotine for executions for 185 years. How does this compare to Germany?

I do not know when Germany first started using a guillotine, but the last official execution by guillotine in East Germany was that of Dr. Horst Fischer in Leipzig on 8 July 1966.


La machine
Qui simplement nous tuera
Et que l'on nommera
Guillotine.

[Hans1906]

Liste von im Deutschen Reich hingerichteten Personen / List of people executed in the German Reich:

Link: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von ... n_Personen


Liste von Hinrichtungen / List of Executions

Die Liste bekannter Personen, die wegen Hexerei hingerichtet wurden, enthält Opfer von Hexenverfolgungen der frühen Neuzeit in Europa und Amerika, die hingerichtet wurden.
Liste während der Französischen Revolution hingerichteter Personen
Liste von im Deutschen Reich hingerichteten Personen
Liste von Hinrichtungsopfern in Berlin-Plötzensee während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus
Liste der in der Justizvollzugsanstalt Brandenburg a. d. Havel hingerichteten oder verstorbenen Personen
Liste der 1933 bis 1938 nach österreichischem Recht hingerichteten Personen
Liste von in der DDR hingerichteten Personen

Link: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_von_Hinrichtungen

Both lists are only available in the German-language Wikipedia, not in the English-language Wikipedia.
(Why, get down to a proper translation for a start...)

It is of course unfortunate, that this article is not available in English.
But all that is in the nature of things, in Europe people used cut off heads, in other countries they preferred the rope.
The victims were and are the same, no innocently executed person has ever been brought back to life.

If there is one place here in Germany, that I would never want to visit, it is the execution site in Plötzensee, never.


Hans

[fredric]

The first person officially guillotined in France was the robber Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier who was guillotined in Paris on 25 April 1792, almost exactly 230 years ago.

The last person officially guillotined in France was the Tunisian national Hamida Djandoubi, guillotined in Marseille on 10 September 1977.

Therefore France used a guillotine for executions for 185 years. How does this compare to Germany?

I do not know when Germany first started using a guillotine, but the last official execution by guillotine in East Germany was that of Dr. Horst Fischer in Leipzig on 8 July 1966.


La machine
Qui simplement nous tuera
Et que l'on nommera
Guillotine.

The guillotine, some say, was first used in Germany when some old, Revolutionary guillotines were left behind when the
French departed. I do not have a date however. Each lander in Germany had its own tradition ranging from sword, axe and
fallbeil. Even Bavaria, always a place where beheading by sword or axe was the practice did not rule that the fallbeil was to
be the only execution method. I believe this was about 1854 although other sections of Bavaria already were using a French-style
guillotine (possibly copied from a Franco-Prussian antique?). I guess we could say the fallbeil (Mannhardt and its descendent designs) was used at least 92 years in Western Germany and longer in Eastern sectors (Soviets continued to use it and so did some
Western courts). What's wild is that there is some reference to the sword still being used during the War in one region... a myth?

[Pete26]

It is of course unfortunate, that this article is not available in English.


Hans

That's not a problem at all. Latest versions of browsers like Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome have automatic translate capability, so all of contents is quickly translated. A few years back such translations were full of grammatical errors but now they are nearly perfect.

Thanks for an interesting link.

[Pete26]

There does not appear to be any standard time of day for conducting guillotine executions. In 20th century France guillotine executions were usually performed during very early morning hours, typically 4 AM. In the Third Reich it depended on the execution site. Some started executions at 4 PM on certain days of the week only (Pankrac prison), some at 6 PM (Vienna, although initially they started at 6 AM), some at 12 PM (Wolfenbuettel), etc. The post war DDR executions in Dresden were usually conducted at 3 AM, as can be seen from the execution report of Karel Laufrenz in 1955, for example.

[fredric]

good info
Plotzensee moved execution times from early morning to late afternoon and then
to times when the bombing began... later, in the dark. (see Polchau and others).
The execution chamber is always described as dark but with blackout window curtains pulled, only candles
provided visible light. Candles of course were part of the execution protocol. You can see some in the Soviet photos
An eerie scene.

[Hans1906]

An eerie scene

fredric, I am not sure, but it was probably a kind of a "tradition", to take care about executions bevore dawn.
("Vor dem Morgengrauen / Vor dem ersten Hahnenschrei").

First, not to let the victims watch another sunrise again, second, to awake them half asleep, so that they were
executed, before they were really awake.

Probably a very last gesture of "mercy" by the executioners, I do not know ?

* A sort of romantic appeal, most certainly has to do with the executions of the 17th, and the 18th centuries...


Hans

[hmtk1964]

4am, this would certainly ruin your day

[enrico985]

The first person officially guillotined in France was the robber Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier who was guillotined in Paris on 25 April 1792, almost exactly 230 years ago.

The last person officially guillotined in France was the Tunisian national Hamida Djandoubi, guillotined in Marseille on 10 September 1977.

Therefore France used a guillotine for executions for 185 years. How does this compare to Germany?

I do not know when Germany first started using a guillotine, but the last official execution by guillotine in East Germany was that of Dr. Horst Fischer in Leipzig on 8 July 1966.


La machine
Qui simplement nous tuera
Et que l'on nommera
Guillotine.

According to this site (https://www.kriminalia.de/2013/01/todes ... ng-kruger/), Horst Fischer was by no means the last guillotined in the DDR. After his execution (July 8, 1966), 5 others sentenced to death were guillotined in Leipzig: Ernst Zepernick (April 19, 1967), Helmut Scheithauer (May 25, 1967), Lothar Preisker (August 11, 1967), Paul Beirau and Günter Herzfeld (6 September 1967), all guilty of murder.
The first execution by gunshot to the back of the head took place on December 3, 1968 on the murderer Edgar Schützler.

[Hans1906]

enrico985,

the so-called "Unerwarteter Nahschuss" was used in the GDR. ("Unexpected Close Shot").
There is no better designation for the the german term "Nahschuss", sorry.

The red painted nazis in the GDR, took over all the very nasty details from the SS, and the russian NKWD, without any difference.
nahschuss ddr: https://www.google.com/search?q=nahschu ... u8P97OGuAo


Hans
P.S. I remember the german term "Nahschuss" from befriended hunters, to bring a wounded game to a final end.
(Normally done with a pistol, or a revolver, right in the head of the game)

P.S.S Erich Honecker shot 10.000s pieces of game in his time, just for the thrill of killing, like H. Göring, and other crazy idiots,
megalomaniac sickos, history repeats, again, and again...