Photos and videos of execution by guillotine. Don't watch for the impressionable

Mechanical devices for beheading prisoners on death row have been used in Europe for many centuries. However, the guillotine was most widely used in France during the French Revolution. Below are 10 specific facts about the guillotine, dating back to the Age of Terror.

The creation of the guillotine dates back to the end of 1789, and it is associated with the name of Joseph Guillotin. Being an opponent of the death penalty, which was impossible to abolish in those days, Guillotin advocated the use of more humane methods of execution. He helped develop a device for rapid decapitation (decapitation) in contrast to the previously used swords and axes, which was called the “guillotine”.

Subsequently, Guillotin made a lot of efforts to ensure that his name was not associated with this murder weapon, but nothing worked out for him. His family even had to change their last name.

2. No blood

The first person executed by guillotine was Nicolas-Jacques Pelletier, sentenced to death for robbery and murder. On the morning of April 25, 1792, a huge crowd of curious Parisians gathered to watch this spectacle. Pelletier climbed onto the scaffold, painted in blood red color, a sharp blade fell on his neck, his head flew into a wicker basket. The bloody sawdust was raked up.

Everything happened so quickly that the spectators, thirsty for blood, were disappointed. Some even started shouting: “Bring back the wooden gallows!” But, despite their protests, guillotines soon appeared in all cities. The guillotine made it possible to actually turn human deaths into a real conveyor belt. Thus, one of the executioners, Charles-Henri Sanson, executed 300 men and women in three days, as well as 12 victims in just 13 minutes.

3. Experiments

Decapitation devices were known even before French Revolution, but during this period they were significantly improved, and the guillotine appeared. Previously, its accuracy and effectiveness were tested on living sheep and calves, as well as on human corpses. In parallel, in these experiments, medical scientists studied the influence of the brain on various body functions.

4. Vietnam

In 1955, South Vietnam separated from North Vietnam, and the Republic of Vietnam was created, with Ngo Dinh Diem becoming its first president. Fearing coup plotters, he passed Law 10/59, under which anyone suspected of communist ties could be jailed without trial.

There, after terrible torture, a death sentence was eventually imposed. However, in order to fall victim to Ngo Dinh Diem, it was not necessary to go to prison. The ruler traveled through villages with a mobile guillotine and executed all those suspected of disloyalty. Over the next few years, hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese were executed and their heads were hung everywhere.

5. A Profitable Nazi Endeavor

The revival of the guillotine occurred during the Nazi period in Germany, when Hitler personally ordered the production of a large number of them. The executioners became quite rich people. One of the most famous executioners of Nazi Germany, Johan Reichhart, was able to buy himself a villa in a wealthy suburb of Munich with the money he earned.

The Nazis even managed to make additional profits from the families of beheaded victims. Each family was billed for each day the defendant was held in prison and an additional bill for the execution of the sentence. The guillotines were used for almost nine years, and 16,500 people were executed during this time.

6. Life after execution...

When the execution took place... (reconstruction in the museum)

Do the eyes of the executed man see anything in those seconds when his head, cut off from his body, flies into the basket? Does he still have the ability to think? It is quite possible, since the brain itself is not injured, it continues to perform its functions for some time. And only when its oxygen supply stops does loss of consciousness and death occur.

This is supported by both eyewitness testimony and experiments on animals. Thus, King Charles I of England and Queen Anne Boleyn, after cutting off their heads, moved their lips as if they were trying to say something. And the doctor Borjo notes in his notes that, twice addressing the executed criminal Henri Longueville by name, 25-30 seconds after the execution, he noticed that he opened his eyes and looked at him.

7. Guillotine in North America

IN North America the guillotine was used only once on the island of St. Pierre to execute a fisherman who killed his drinking companion while drunk. Although the guillotine was never used there again, legislators often advocated for its return, some arguing that using the guillotine would make organ donation more accessible.

Although proposals to use the guillotine were rejected, the death penalty was widely used. From 1735 to 1924, more than 500 death sentences were carried out in the state of Georgia. At first it was hanging, which was later replaced by the electric chair. In one of the state prisons, a kind of “record” was set - it took only 81 minutes to execute six men in the electric chair.

8. Family traditions

The profession of executioner was despised in France, society shunned them, and merchants often refused to serve them. They had to live with their families outside the city. Due to their damaged reputation, it was also difficult to get married, so executioners and members of their families were legally allowed to marry their own cousins.

The most famous executioner in history there was Charles-Henri Sanson, who began carrying out death sentences at age 15, and his most famous victim was King Louis XVI in 1793. Later family tradition continued by his son Henri, who beheaded the king's wife, Marie Antoinette. His other son, Gabriel, also decided to follow in his father's footsteps. However, after the first beheading, Gabriel slipped on the bloody scaffold, fell from it and died.

9. Eugene Weidman

In 1937, Eugene Weidman was sentenced to death for a series of murders in Paris. On June 17, 1939, a guillotine was prepared for him outside the prison, and curious spectators gathered. It took a long time to calm down the bloodthirsty crowd; because of this, the time of execution even had to be postponed. And after the beheading, people with handkerchiefs rushed to the bloody scaffold to take the handkerchiefs with Weidman’s blood as souvenirs home.

After this, the authorities, represented by French President Albert Lebrun, banned public executions, believing that they arouse disgusting base instincts in people rather than serve as a deterrent to criminals. Thus, Eugene Weidman became last person in France, who will be publicly beheaded.

10. Suicide

The guillotine is ready for use...

Despite the declining popularity of the guillotine, it continued to be used by those who decided to take their own lives. In 2003, 36-year-old Boyd Taylor from England spent several weeks constructing a guillotine in his bedroom that would turn on at night while he slept. His son's headless body was discovered by his father, who was awakened by a noise that sounded like a chimney falling from the roof.

In 2007, the body of a man was discovered in Michigan, killed in the forest by a mechanism he had built. But the worst thing was the death of David Moore. In 2006, Moore built a guillotine using metal conduit and a saw blade. However, the device initially did not work, leaving Moore only seriously injured. He had to get to the bedroom, where he had 10 Molotov cocktails hidden. Moore blew them up, but they didn't work as planned.

And if the guillotine was created for humane reasons and was designed to make it easier for a person to forcefully leave for another world, then the “Pear of Suffering” is an instrument of torture that forced people to admit to anything.

Each century has its own concept of philanthropy. At the end of the 18th century, for the most humane reasons, it was invented guillotine. Cheap and fast - this is how the popularity of this “death machine” can be characterized.

The guillotine is named after the French doctor Joseph Guillotin, although he was only indirectly involved in the creation of this killing weapon. The doctor himself was an opponent of the death penalty, but he recognized that no revolution could do without it. In turn, Joseph Guillotin, being a member of the newly-minted Constitutional Assembly during revolutionary times, expressed the opinion that it would be nice to invent a weapon that would equalize the conditions of execution for all classes.

At the end of the 18th century, people were executed in all sorts of ways: nobles were beheaded, commoners were subjected to wheeling, hanging, and quartering. In some places, burning at the stake was still practiced. The most “humane” execution was considered to be beheading. But even here, not everything was simple, because only master executioners could cut off the head the first time.

The guillotine mechanism itself was developed by the French surgeon Antoine Louis and the German mechanic Tobias Schmift. A heavy oblique knife fell along the guides from a height of 2-3 meters. The body of the condemned man was fixed on a special bench. The executioner pressed the lever and the knife cut off the victim's head.

The first public execution by guillotine occurred on April 25, 1792. The crowd of onlookers was very disappointed that the spectacle was quickly over. But during the revolution, the guillotine became an indispensable and speedy means of dealing with those objectionable to the new regime. The King of France, Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, and the revolutionaries Robespierre, Danton, and Desmoulins found themselves under the knife of the guillotine.

Relatives of Dr. Joseph Guillotin made every effort to get the authorities to change the name for the death machine, but to no avail. Then all of Guillotin’s relatives changed their surname.

After the “revolutionary terror” the guillotine lost its popularity for several decades. In the second half of the 19th century, the mechanism with an oblique knife “came into fashion” again.

The last public guillotine execution took place in France on June 17, 1939. She was captured on camera. But excessive crowd unrest forced the authorities to abandon public executions altogether.

In Nazi Germany under Hitler, more than 40,000 members of the Resistance were put under the guillotine. Even after World War II, the lethal mechanism was used in Germany until 1949, and in the GDR until 1966. The last death penalty by guillotine occurred in 1977 in France.
After the abolition of the death penalty, hundreds of executioners were left without work. will allow us to see something different in this profession from the point of view of our ancestors.

France, Marseille

On September 10, 1977, Tunisian emigrant Hamid Djandoubi, convicted of murder, was executed in Marseille; he became the last criminal to be executed by guillotine.

The guillotine as a device for carrying out the death penalty has been documented since the 13th century, when it was used in Ireland, Scotland and England, especially during the Republic of Oliver Cromwell, as well as in Italy and Switzerland.

During the French Revolution, the guillotine was introduced by decree of the French National Assembly on March 20, 1792 as the only instrument for executing capital punishment, regardless of social status sentenced to death. The idea of this law was submitted in 1790 by the doctor and revolutionary Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who himself was an opponent of the death penalty; he considered guillotining a more humane means of execution than hanging, beheading or shooting. Two years later, according to the design of the military surgeon Antoine Louis, a French version of a similar device was built, it was tested on corpses, and on April 25, 1792, the first person, the common thief Nicolas Pelletier, was executed on it in Paris on Place de Greve. The public, accustomed since the Middle Ages to “exquisite” torture, was disappointed by the speed of the execution.

Subsequently, the guillotine, as the device soon became known, was transported to the Place de la Revolution (now the Place de la Concorde), where more than 10,000 people were executed during the French Revolution, including the former King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. Figures of the French Revolution were also guillotined - Georges Danton, Robespierre, Louis Saint-Just, Desmoulins. Contrary to popular belief, Joseph Guillotin himself was not executed by guillotine, but died naturally.

In 1868, the guillotine was improved - it became dismountable and was transported to the place of execution, as a rule, to the square in front of the prison gates. Around the same time, the positions of regional executioners were abolished, and the main, Parisian executioner with assistants, if necessary, began to travel to various cities of the country.

In Germany, which introduced guillotining in 1803, executions by guillotine continued until 1949, and in the German Democratic Republic- until 1960. Switzerland abandoned the use of the guillotine in 1940. The last public execution by guillotine in France was carried out in 1939, and the last execution by guillotine in general was on September 10, 1977. This was also the last death penalty in Western Europe.

In 1981, France abolished the death sentence as a form of punishment, automatically abandoning the guillotine as a means of executing a person.

Born in Germany in 1908, Eugene Weidmann began stealing from young age and, even as he grew up, he did not give up his criminal habits.

While serving a five-year sentence in prison for robbery, he met future partners in crime Roger Millon and Jean Blanc. After their release, the three began working together, kidnapping and robbing tourists around Paris.

1. June 17, 1938. Eugene Weidman shows police the cave in the forest of Fontainebleau in France where he killed nurse Janine Keller.

They robbed and murdered a young New York dancer, a chauffeur, a nurse, a theater producer, an anti-Nazi activist, and a real estate agent.

Management staff national security eventually got on Weidman's trail. One day, returning home, he found two police officers waiting for him at the door. Weidman shot at the officers with a pistol, wounding them, but they still managed to knock the criminal to the ground and neutralize him with a hammer lying at the entrance.

As a result of the sensational trial, Weidman and Millon were sentenced to death, and Blanc was sentenced to 20 months in prison. On June 16, 1939, French President Albert Lebrun rejected Weidmann's request for clemency and commuted Millon's death sentence to life imprisonment.

Weidman met the morning of June 17, 1939 in the square near the Saint-Pierre prison in Versailles, where the guillotine and the whistling of the crowd awaited him.

8. June 17, 1939. A crowd gathers around the guillotine awaiting Weidman's execution outside the Saint-Pierre prison.

Among the spectators who wanted to watch the execution was the future famous British actor Christopher Lee, who was 17 years old at the time.

9. June 17, 1939. On the way to the guillotine, Weidman passes by the box in which his body will be transported.

Weidman was placed in the guillotine, and France's chief executioner, Jules Henri Defourneau, immediately lowered the blade.

The crowd present at the execution was very unrestrained and noisy, many of the spectators broke through the cordon to soak handkerchiefs in Weidman's blood as souvenirs. The scene was so horrific that French President Albert Lebrun banned public executions entirely, arguing that instead of curbing crime, they served to awaken people's baser instincts.

The guillotine, originally invented as a quick and relatively humane method of killing, continued to be used in non-public executions until 1977, when Marseille behind closed doors executed the death sentence on Hamida Dzhandoubi. The death penalty in France was abolished in 1981.

In the 18th-19th centuries. Cruel methods of execution were used: burning at the stake, hanging, quartering. Only aristocrats and rich people were executed in a more “honorable” way - cutting off the head with a sword or an ax.

But such types of execution (with an ax or sword), which assumed the quick death of the condemned, often caused prolonged agony if the executioner was insufficiently qualified.

The good doctor Guillotin invented the guillotine execution

Doctor Guillotin (Joseph Ignace Guillotin) was born in 1738. Having been elected to constituent Assembly, in December 1789, he submitted to the meeting a proposal that the death penalty should always be carried out in the same way - namely through decapitation, and, moreover, by means of a machine.

It was believed that such a machine was a much more humane method of execution than those common at that time. Since such a mechanism would ensure instant death even with minimal qualifications of the executioner.

On April 25, 1792, after successful experiments on corpses, the first execution with a new machine - the guillotine - was carried out in Paris, on Place de Greve.

Decapitation by guillotine was a common mechanized form of execution invented shortly before the French Revolution. After the head was cut off, the executioner raised it and showed it to the crowd. In addition, the guillotine was applied to all segments of the population without exception, which emphasized the equality of citizens before the law.

It was believed that the severed head could be seen for about ten seconds. Thus, the person’s head was raised so that at the last moment before death he could see the crowd laughing at him.

Is the head still alive after being cut off by the guillotine?

In 1793, after the execution of Charlotte Corday, who stabbed to death one of the leaders of the French Revolution, Jean-Paul Marat, according to eyewitnesses, the executioner, taking the severed head by the hair, mockingly whipped her across the cheeks. To the great amazement of the spectators, Charlotte's face turned red, and his features twisted in a grimace of indignation.
Thus, the first documentary report of eyewitnesses was compiled that a person’s head severed by a guillotine was capable of retaining consciousness. But such an observation was far from the last.

Unlike the arms and legs, the head contains the brain, a mental center capable of consciously controlling muscle movements. When the head is cut off, in principle, no trauma is caused to the brain, so it is able to function until a lack of oxygen leads to loss of consciousness and death.

excerpt from the film “White Sun of the Desert”

According to eyewitnesses, English king Charles I and Queen Anne Boleyn, after being executed at the hands of the executioner, moved their lips, trying to say something.

Categorically opposing the use of the guillotine, the German scientist Sommering referred to numerous records from doctors that the faces of those executed were distorted in pain when the doctors touched the cut of the spinal canal with their fingers.

The most famous of this kind of evidence comes from the pen of Dr. Borieux, who examined the head of the executed criminal Henri Langille. The doctor writes that within 25-30 seconds after decapitation, he called Langille by name twice, and each time he opened his eyes and fixed his gaze on Borjo.

Judith and Holofernes by Caravaggio

The execution itself by guillotine takes a matter of seconds; the headless body was instantly pushed by the executioner's assistants into a prepared deep box with a lid. During the same period, the positions of regional executioners were abolished.

In Germany, guillotine cutting (German: Fallbeil) has been used since the 17th and 18th centuries and was standard view the death penalty until its abolition in 1949. At the same time, in some lands of Germany, beheading with an ax was practiced, which was finally abolished only in 1936. Unlike French models of the 19th and 20th centuries, the German guillotine was much lower and had metal vertical posts and a winch for lifting the knife.

The last execution by beheading by guillotine was carried out in Marseille, during the reign of Giscard d'Estaing, on September 10, 1977. The executed man's name was Hamida Jandubi, of Arab origin. This was the last death penalty in Western Europe.