Does society need executioners? The question is not at all idle, since certain representatives of the human race are prone to committing serious criminal offenses. Such individuals are caught, tried and often sentenced to death. This is where the executor of punishment comes to the fore. It is he who, on behalf of the state, takes the life of a convicted person. Therefore, whatever one may say, there is nowhere without executioners.
However, not every citizen of the country is ready to shoulder such a responsible burden. This requires a certain psyche and worldview. You can’t call the first passerby from the street. Therefore, finding a performer is not so easy. And yet, government officials at all times resolved this complex issue, and justice was administered in accordance with the verdict. The performers were selected taking into account local characteristics and the mentality of the people.
Executioners in Europe
In France, such a craft as taking people's lives by court verdict was passed on by inheritance. The executioner's house always stood on the outskirts. People were not eager to meet him in everyday life. There was a belief that whoever touched the executor of punishment would end his life on the gallows. Hence the alienation not only from the “professional killer” himself, but also from members of his family. Such people, as a rule, took women from their circle as wives, and their sons continued the work of their fathers.
The most famous dynasty of shoulder craftsmen became Sanson family. They fulfilled their national duty for 159 years. The founder of the dynasty is Charles Sanson. In 1688, Louis XIV appointed him by special decree as chief executioner of Paris. The reason for choosing the king was that Sanson was married to the daughter of the executor of bloody punishments. But he had no sons, so after the death of the latter, the position passed to his son-in-law.
In 1726, another representative of this dynasty died suddenly. He is survived by his 8-year-old son, Charles Baptiste. In accordance with existing traditions, he became an executioner. But the boy, naturally, could not perform such difficult duties. Therefore, until he came of age, the executions were carried out by another person, and the child was obliged to be present at them so that the tradition was formally observed.
The most famous of this dynasty was Charles Henri Sanson. He executed Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, Georges-Jacques Danton, Robespierre, and many other famous people of the French Revolution. It was at this time that the guillotine appeared, which made work much easier.
The last in the dynasty and the 7th in a row was Clement Henri Sanson. He assumed specific duties in 1840. This man had a passion for gambling, so he incurred a lot of debt. He was forced to flee Paris from creditors in 1847. The time had come to carry out the next execution, but Clement was nowhere to be found. He did not have a son, and therefore the dynasty ceased to exist.
But the surname known throughout the country later helped the last Sanson. One of the French publishing houses decided to write a book about the famous dynasty. They decided to publish the book on behalf of Clément Henri and bought the right to do so from him for a large sum of money. As a result, in 1863, a 6-volume collection entitled “Notes of an Executioner” was published.
Execution of sentence on the French guillotine
An equally famous executor is considered Giovanni Batista Bugatti. He worked as an executioner in the Papal States from 1796 to 1865. This man was born in 1780, and assumed bloody responsibilities at the age of 16. At first he chopped off the heads and hanged criminals, and in 1816 the process of taking life was made more civilized. The guillotine appeared in Italy following the example of France. Throughout his long career, Giovanni took the lives of 516 people.
He himself was a pious and modest man. His salary was small, but constant. At the age of 85, this man retired. Bugatti has become very popular these days. His personal belongings and production tools are kept in the Roman Museum of Criminology.
Already in the 20th century, the English executioner gained fame Albert Pierpoint(1905-1992). He was engaged in shoulder affairs from 1934 to 1956. During this time, he hanged 608 convicts. I received a total of 10 thousand pounds sterling for them. This is in addition to the official salary. That is, for each person who was hanged, Albert was paid extra. At the end of his career, the Englishman became so skilled that he could hang a convict in 17 seconds.
Executioners in the USA
As for the United States, the executioners in this country performed their bloody work on a piecework basis. A person worked, say, as an electrician, and during the execution of his punishment he turned into a punishing sword of justice. And they paid a lot of money for it. At the current exchange rate, for each killed backpack master received 2 thousand dollars.
For example, such a punishment executor as Robert Green Elliot. He worked at the Clinton Correctional Institution (New York State). It is the largest maximum security men's prison in the United States. The electric chair began to be used there in 1892.
Robert Greene sent 387 people to the next world between 1926 and 1939. Taking into account the fees paid, he became a wealthy man. A voltage of 2000 volts was applied to the condemned. It created a powerful discharge of current that passed through the brain. Death occurred instantly.
No less popular is the American sergeant John Woods. He became famous thanks to the Nuremberg trials. It was he who was entrusted with the execution of the Nazis. But before that, he already had a lot of experience behind him. The sergeant hanged 347 murderers and rapists. True, the poor guy himself was unlucky. He died at the age of 39 in 1950 from electric shock in an accident. Woods was buried in Toronto, Kansas.
Executioners in Russia
In Rus', professionals in shoulder cases appeared at the end of the 17th century. In 1681, a royal decree was issued, which ordered that in every city where there was a prison, a special person could be recruited into the service who could carry out death sentences. This meant volunteers. It was even allowed to recruit tramps, offering them constant food and income.
However, the matter was aggravated by the shameful status of the performer. People turned away from such a person, and in church they were not allowed to take communion. They called the executioner in Rus' cut, which is synonymous with executor. In a word, there were no hunters for a position that was satisfying but not prestigious. Only the most fallen individuals, who had nowhere to go, went to the katas.
In 1742, the Senate increased the salaries of executors by almost 2 times, but this did not solve the personnel problem. By the beginning of the 19th century, in many provinces there were no people at all who could carry out the death sentence. In 1805, the highest decree allowed the recruitment of convicted criminals for the role of kats. They were kept in special separate prison premises. It was impossible to keep him in a common cell, since the prisoners could kill such an executor.
Favorite whip punishment in Rus'
Punishment with the whip was widely used in Russia at that time. It seemed to be considered humane, since it did not imply death. And indeed, people did not die under the whip. They gave their souls to God 2-3 days after the execution. The whip tore the liver, kidneys, blood vessels, causing profuse internal bleeding. The person being punished received severe injuries, but could live with them for a couple more days.
During the execution of punishment, katyas, as a rule, wore red shirts. This was their uniform. But in France, those condemned to death were taken to the scaffold in such shirts. Each nation has its own customs and traditions.
In 1879, military district courts appeared in the empire. They were given the right to impose death sentences without appeal to a higher authority. The number of death row prisoners increased, but there were no executioners. At that time, there was only one executioner in the whole country named Frolov. He, accompanied by guards, traveled to prisons and hanged those sentenced to death. It turned out that this man’s whole life was spent traveling.
The situation did not improve in the first decade of the 20th century. In the empire there was a certain katom Filipev. He himself was from the Cossacks. During a quarrel, he killed a man, and the court sentenced him to death. Then he was offered to exchange his life for agreeing to become a backpack master. The former Cossack agreed. It was he who hanged the terrorist Ivan Kalyaev in the spring of 1905, who killed Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich with a bomb. Filipyev also took the lives of many other political and criminal criminals. Kat himself was killed in 1911 by prisoners with whom he accidentally ended up in the same carriage.
But then something incomprehensible happened in Russia. During the Civil War, many murderers appeared. Both whites and reds exterminated people by the thousands. This trend continued into the 20s and 30s. It was as if the people had been replaced, or maybe the status of the executor had simply changed. Previously, he was an outcast, but now he became the sovereign master of human destinies. Most likely, this is the case. Through murder, individual citizens asserted themselves and began to feel their importance. But this is the lot of pathetic and narrow-minded individuals, which the real executioners have always been.
The article was written by Leonid Sukhov
One of the most ancient professions is executioner– has never been honorable. The death penalty was once the predominant punishment for serious crimes. And someone had to carry out the sentence. Of course, there were few people willing - the social status of the executioner was at the level of thieves and prostitutes. The executioners lived outside the city, looked for wives and apprentices among their own kind, in the church they stood behind everyone, people avoided them. However, in this inglorious profession there were those whose names went down in history.
The chief executioner of the city of Nuremberg in Germany, Franz Schmidt, executed 361 people over 45 years of work - the exact numbers and circumstances of the execution are known thanks to the diary in which the pedantic executioner recorded all the details. He showed humanity to the convicts - he tried to reduce their suffering to a minimum, and believed that he was helping them atone for their sins. In 1617, he left his position, which washed away the stigma of “dishonest”, as executioners, prostitutes and beggars were called.
Often executioners had entire dynasties - the profession was necessarily passed on from father to son. The most famous was the Sanson dynasty in France - 6 generations served as executioners for a century and a half. Members of the Sanson family were executors of sentences over Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, revolutionaries Danton, Robespierre, Saint-Just and other historical figures.
According to legend, Napoleon once asked Charles Sanson whether he could sleep peacefully after executing 3 thousand people. He replied: “If kings, dictators and emperors sleep peacefully, why shouldn’t the executioner sleep peacefully?” Henri Sanson interrupted the Clement dynasty - due to financial difficulties, he laid down the guillotine. When the order came to appear for the execution of the death sentence, he rushed to the moneylender, but he refused to give out the “tool of labor” for the time being. Therefore, in 1847, Sanson was dismissed.
Italy's most famous executioner was Giovanni Batista Bugatti, who executed 516 people during his 65 years of work. He began his “professional activity” with axes and clubs, then switched to the guillotine. Bugatti called the convicts patients, and he himself was nicknamed “Master of Justice.”
Briton James Berry combined two professions - executioner and preacher. He also wrote theoretical works on the proper execution of executions. And the most effective executioner in England is called Albert Pierpoint, who in the twentieth century. executed 608 convicts. He retired after hanging his own friend. Pierpoint wrote the memoir that served as the basis for the film The Last Executioner.
US Army Lance Sergeant John Woodd hanged 347 murderers and rapists, but became famous in 1946 by executing 10 Nazis convicted at the Nuremberg trials. And after the execution, he made money by selling pieces of the rope on which the leaders of Hitler's Germany were hanged.
The hereditary executioner Fernand Meyssonnier worked on the guillotine since 1947, executed more than 200 Algerian rebels, and collected the belongings of those executed to exhibit in the museum. He began working as an executioner at the age of 16, helping his father. After his retirement, he wrote memoirs in which he admitted that he had no remorse, since he considered himself the punishing hand of justice.
Not a single state in the world in the course of its development could do without the institution of executioners. not an exception. In Rus', in the Moscow kingdom, in the Russian Empire, death sentences were passed, which were carried out by the executioner, or, as our ancestors called him, kat.
JUSTICE IN RUSSIAN
We would consider the oldest set of laws, Russian Pravda, dated 1016, to be surprisingly mild. The death penalty was provided only for murder. The captured and exposed criminal was to be executed by one of the relatives of the murdered person. If there was no one among them, the killer got off with a fine of 40 hryvnia. In all other cases, only a monetary fine was provided.
The highest form of punishment was considered to be “deportation and plunder” (deportation of the criminal or enslavement with complete confiscation of property). Agree, such legislation cannot be called bloodthirsty.
The death penalty was mentioned seriously only almost four centuries later in the Dvina charter of 1397. Moscow Prince Vasily Dmitrievich believed that the state did not need a slave who did not want to work, and the Russian land should be rid of such people. The one who was caught stealing for the third time should also be killed.
In the Code of Laws of Ivan III (1497), the death penalty was provided for crimes against the state, murder, robbery, robbery and horse theft (what about introducing the death penalty for car theft?). They were executed by death for theft in the church and sacrilege (the dancers from Pussy Riot would have been impaled). Such types of punishment as whipping, cutting of ears, tongue, and branding appeared.
As the state developed, the number of articles providing for the death penalty increased. According to the Council Code of 1649, about 60 crimes were punishable by death. The list of executions also expanded: to the previously existing quartering and impalement, burning, pouring metal into the throat, hanging and burying in the ground were added. Nostrils were torn for smoking and sniffing tobacco. (This is how our ancestors fought for the health of the nation!)
Such a variety of penalties provided for the presence of specialists, that is, executioners. They, of course, always existed, but only in the 17th century were amateurs given the status of professionals and their hard work equated with socially useful work.
UNPRESTIGIOUS PROFESSION
On May 16, 1681, the Boyar Duma determined in its verdict: “In every city there cannot be without executioners.” So if a question arises about the date of the professional holiday of Russian kata, May 16 is best suited. Hunters (volunteers) from the townspeople and free people were supposed to be appointed as executioners; they were considered serving people of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Robbery Order), and they were entitled to a salary of 4 rubles a year.
However, the advertised vacancies have not been filled for years. The governors constantly complained that there were no hunters to break bones, beat with a whip, brand and tear out nostrils. And those chosen by force or tempted by high salaries soon run away. The Russian people did not want to become executioners.
The Orthodox Church openly showed its hostility towards the executioners: the khat was deprived of spiritual nourishment and was not allowed to take communion. If the church still accepted repentant robbers, then only one case of forgiveness of the executioner by the church is known: in 1872, the Solovetsky monastery accepted the former Kata Petrovsky.
The power grew stronger, and the need for shoulder craftsmen grew. In 1742, the Senate ordered each district city to acquire an executioner, the provincial city - two, Moscow and St. Petersburg - three. The salaries of executors were doubled, and doubled again under Emperor Paul I, and yet there was a catastrophic shortage of “specialists.” In many provincial cities there was no one to carry out court sentences.
PROBLEM OF PERSONNEL SHORTAGE
In 1804, there was only one full-time executioner in all of Little Russia. The governor of the region, Prince Alexei Kurakin, it seemed to him, had found a way out of the situation and sent a proposal to the capital to allow the recruitment of executioners from among the convicts. The Senate marveled at the prince’s ingenuity and gave the go-ahead.
In 1818, the situation repeated itself in St. Petersburg. Then, almost simultaneously, two executioners died in the capital and the prison administration fell into a stupor. The prison was filled with convicts who, before heading to the prison camp, had to receive their portion of the whip or a brand on their forehead. The St. Petersburg mayor, Count Miloradovich, remembered Kurakin’s initiative and followed the same path.
In 1833, the State Council extended the practice to the entire Russian Empire. And soon the executors of the convicts everywhere replaced the rare well-wishers. Almost since 1833, all executioners in the Russian Empire were recruited exclusively from criminals.
SPECIAL CONVICTED
Most often, criminals sentenced to corporal punishment, in addition to time served, were called to be executioners. 30-40 blows of the whip often meant death, because after such a beating many died on the second or third day. Anyone who agreed to the position of executioner was exempt from flogging, that is, saving his life. But they didn’t cut his sentence for this. The executioner remained convicted and continued to serve his sentence in prison.
Initially, the criminals even continued to sit in a common cell with the rest of the inmates, but this practice was soon abandoned: too often the executioners were found dead in the morning. “He took it at night and hanged himself, his conscience probably tortured him,” the cellmates grinned and explained to their superiors. Executioners began to be housed in separate cells, and if possible, separate rooms were built for them in the prison courtyards. And yet, the shortage of personnel for executioners remained a pressing problem until the beginning of the 20th century.
SCARED SPECIALISTS
At the beginning of the 20th century, Russia was overwhelmed by a wave of revolutionary terrorism. In 1905-1906, more than 3.5 thousand high-ranking government officials were killed. In response, the authorities introduced military courts in August 1906, which preferred to impose very quick and exclusively death sentences for captured terrorists.
Due to a shortage of executioners, hanging began to be replaced by shooting. The execution was carried out by soldiers bound by an oath. District commanders reported that frequent executions had a detrimental effect on soldiers, and demanded that civilians be hanged by regular executioners in accordance with the law. But where could they get so many of them?
The few full-time executors now spent most of their time on business trips, being transported under escort from one city to another. In the kata prison, another batch of shackles was waiting.
EXECUTIONERS - "STAKHANOVTS"
The 20th century turned the world upside down. Millions of people went through the war and overstepped the commandment “thou shalt not kill.” The formulations “revolutionary necessity” and “class enemy” freed a person from the burden of moral responsibility. Hundreds, thousands of voluntary executioners appeared. They are no longer social outcasts. They were given titles and orders. Among them, their own leaders in production have emerged.
The most prominent were the brothers Ivan and Vasily Shigalev, Ernst Mach, Peter Maggo, who, listed as employees for special assignments, carried out execution sentences. Even they themselves probably don’t know how many people they executed; the victims number in the hundreds and thousands.
However, all of them are far from Vasily Blokhin. For 29 years, from 1924 to 1953, holding various positions, he was exclusively involved in executions. He is credited with 10 to 15 thousand people executed. Blokhin worked in a leather apron below the knees and a cap, and put leather leggings on his hands. For the executions he received seven orders and graduated from his service with the rank of major general.
With the death of Stalin, the era of mass repressions ended, but execution sentences continued to be given. Now they were executed for murder, rape, banditry, espionage and a number of economic crimes.
LOOK INTO THE SOUL OF THE EXECUTIONER
Who are they - people who kill not for personal reasons, but... for work? How do professional hangers and shooters feel? Today, many of those who worked in the 1960s and 1970s are alive, the state to which they pledged to remain silent is long gone, and this gives them the right to speak.
Antonina Makarova born in 1921 in the Smolensk region, in the village of Malaya Volkovka, into a large peasant family Makara Parfenova. She studied at a rural school, and it was there that an episode occurred that influenced her future life. When Tonya came to first grade, because of shyness she could not say her last name - Parfenova. Classmates began shouting “Yes, she’s Makarova!”, meaning that Tony’s father’s name is Makar.
So, with the light hand of the teacher, at that time perhaps the only literate person in the village, Tonya Makarova appeared in the Parfyonov family.
The girl studied diligently, with diligence. She also had her own revolutionary heroine - Anka the machine gunner. This film image had a real prototype - a nurse from the Chapaev division Maria Popova, which once in battle actually had to replace a killed machine gunner.
After graduating from school, Antonina went to study in Moscow, where she was caught by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. The girl went to the front as a volunteer.
Camping wife of an encirclement
19-year-old Komsomol member Makarova suffered all the horrors of the infamous “Vyazma Cauldron.”
After the heaviest battles, completely surrounded, of the entire unit, only a soldier was next to the young nurse Tonya Nikolay Fedchuk. With him she wandered through the local forests, just trying to survive. They didn’t look for partisans, they didn’t try to get through to their own people - they fed on whatever they had, and sometimes stole. The soldier did not stand on ceremony with Tonya, making her his “camp wife.” Antonina did not resist - she just wanted to live.
In January 1942, they went to the village of Krasny Kolodets, and then Fedchuk admitted that he was married and his family lived nearby. He left Tonya alone.
Tonya was not expelled from the Red Well, but the local residents already had plenty of worries. But the strange girl did not try to go to the partisans, did not strive to make her way to ours, but strived to make love with one of the men remaining in the village. Having turned the locals against her, Tonya was forced to leave.
Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg. Photo: Public Domain
Salary killer
Tonya Makarova’s wanderings ended in the area of the village of Lokot in the Bryansk region. The notorious “Lokot Republic”, an administrative-territorial formation of Russian collaborators, operated here. In essence, these were the same German lackeys as in other places, only more clearly formalized.
A police patrol detained Tonya, but they did not suspect her of being a partisan or underground woman. She attracted the attention of the police, who took her in, gave her drink, food and rape. However, the latter is very relative - the girl, who only wanted to survive, agreed to everything.
Tonya did not play the role of a prostitute for the police for long - one day, drunk, she was taken out into the yard and put behind a Maxim machine gun. There were people standing in front of the machine gun - men, women, old people, children. She was ordered to shoot. For Tony, who completed not only nursing courses, but also machine gunners, this was not a big deal. True, the dead drunk woman didn’t really understand what she was doing. But, nevertheless, she coped with the task.
The next day, Makarova learned that she was now an official - an executioner with a salary of 30 German marks and with her own bed.
The Lokot Republic ruthlessly fought the enemies of the new order - partisans, underground fighters, communists, other unreliable elements, as well as members of their families. Those arrested were herded into a barn that served as a prison, and in the morning they were taken out to be shot.
The cell accommodated 27 people, and all of them had to be eliminated in order to make room for new ones.
Neither the Germans nor even the local policemen wanted to take on this work. And here Tonya, who appeared out of nowhere with her shooting abilities, came in very handy.
The girl did not go crazy, but on the contrary, felt that her dream had come true. And let Anka shoot her enemies, but she shoots women and children - the war will write off everything! But her life finally got better.
1500 lives lost
Antonina Makarova's daily routine was as follows: in the morning, shooting 27 people with a machine gun, finishing off the survivors with a pistol, cleaning weapons, in the evening schnapps and dancing in a German club, and at night making love with some cute German guy or, at worst, with a policeman.
As an incentive, she was allowed to take the belongings of the dead. So Tonya acquired a bunch of outfits, which, however, had to be repaired - traces of blood and bullet holes made it difficult to wear.
However, sometimes Tonya allowed a “marriage” - several children managed to survive because, due to their small stature, the bullets passed over their heads. The children were taken out along with the corpses by local residents who were burying the dead and handed over to the partisans. Rumors about a female executioner, “Tonka the machine gunner”, “Tonka the Muscovite” spread throughout the area. Local partisans even announced a hunt for the executioner, but were unable to reach her.
In total, about 1,500 people became victims of Antonina Makarova.
By the summer of 1943, Tony’s life again took a sharp turn - the Red Army moved to the West, beginning the liberation of the Bryansk region. This did not bode well for the girl, but then she conveniently fell ill with syphilis, and the Germans sent her to the rear so that she would not re-infect the valiant sons of Greater Germany.
Honored veteran instead of a war criminal
In the German hospital, however, it also soon became uncomfortable - the Soviet troops were approaching so quickly that only the Germans had time to evacuate, and there was no longer any concern for the accomplices.
Realizing this, Tonya escaped from the hospital, again finding herself surrounded, but now Soviet. But her survival skills were honed - she managed to obtain documents proving that all this time Makarova was a nurse in a Soviet hospital.
Antonina successfully managed to enlist in a Soviet hospital, where at the beginning of 1945 a young soldier, a real war hero, fell in love with her.
The guy proposed to Tonya, she agreed, and, having gotten married, after the end of the war, the young couple left for the Belarusian city of Lepel, her husband’s homeland.
This is how the female executioner Antonina Makarova disappeared, and her place was taken by an honored veteran Antonina Ginzburg.
They searched for her for thirty years
Soviet investigators learned about the monstrous acts of “Tonka the Machine Gunner” immediately after the liberation of the Bryansk region. The remains of about one and a half thousand people were found in mass graves, but the identities of only two hundred could be established.
They interrogated witnesses, checked, clarified - but they could not get on the trail of the female punisher.
Meanwhile, Antonina Ginzburg led the ordinary life of a Soviet person - she lived, worked, raised two daughters, even met with schoolchildren, talking about her heroic military past. Of course, without mentioning the actions of “Tonka the Machine Gunner”.
The KGB spent more than three decades searching for her, but found her almost by accident. A certain citizen Parfyonov, going abroad, submitted forms with information about his relatives. There, among the solid Parfenovs, for some reason Antonina Makarova, after her husband Ginzburg, was listed as her sister.
Yes, how that teacher’s mistake helped Tonya, how many years thanks to it she remained out of reach of justice!
The KGB operatives worked brilliantly - it was impossible to accuse an innocent person of such atrocities. Antonina Ginzburg was checked from all sides, witnesses were secretly brought to Lepel, even a former policeman-lover. And only after they all confirmed that Antonina Ginzburg was “Tonka the Machine Gunner”, she was arrested.
She didn’t deny it, she talked about everything calmly, and said that nightmares didn’t torment her. She didn’t want to communicate with either her daughters or her husband. And the front-line husband ran around the authorities, threatening to file a complaint Brezhnev, even at the UN - demanded the release of his wife. Exactly until the investigators decided to tell him what his beloved Tonya was accused of.
After that, the dashing, dashing veteran turned gray and aged overnight. The family disowned Antonina Ginzburg and left Lepel. You wouldn’t wish what these people had to endure on your enemy.
Retribution
Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was tried in Bryansk in the fall of 1978. This was the last major trial of traitors to the Motherland in the USSR and the only trial of a female punisher.
Antonina herself was convinced that, due to the passage of time, the punishment could not be too severe; she even believed that she would receive a suspended sentence. My only regret was that because of the shame I had to move again and change jobs. Even the investigators, knowing about Antonina Ginzburg’s exemplary post-war biography, believed that the court would show leniency. Moreover, 1979 was declared the Year of the Woman in the USSR.
However, on November 20, 1978, the court sentenced Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg to capital punishment - execution.
At the trial, her guilt in the murder of 168 of those whose identities could be established was documented. More than 1,300 more remained unknown victims of “Tonka the Machine Gunner.” There are crimes that cannot be forgiven.
At six in the morning on August 11, 1979, after all requests for clemency were rejected, the sentence against Antonina Makarova-Ginzburg was carried out.
If today there are legal norms and laws, courts and lawyers, whose job is to fairly punish people for their atrocities, then in the past everything was completely different. The death penalty was a perfectly legal instrument of power almost everywhere. Even if this profession seems so “exotic” to us, people with their own shortcomings, peculiarities and oddities, executioners do not cease to be. In this collection, we have collected ten of the most unusual “oddities” of executors from different times.
1. Forever nostalgic
From 1948 to 1962, a certain Fernand Meyssonnier performed the duties of executioner in Algeria, who by the end of his career executed more than two hundred criminals. While working, he collected a huge number of items from his “wards”: about five hundred things related to atrocities and the punishment of convicts. After his retirement, Meyssonnier planned to open the first European “Museum of Punishment and Punishment”. It didn’t work out...
2. Most effective
Executioner Albert Pierpoint, who executed more than four hundred people, was recognized as the most effective executioner in England. Even though such a position did not exist, he was given the title of "official executioner" of the kingdom. After Pierpoint retired, he became an innkeeper and wrote a memoir. Moreover, the executioner was a racist. His statement to the English Royal Commission that foreigners behaved badly before being hanged went down in the history of capital punishment.
3. The most sudden
New York executor T. Gilbert, apparently driven to despair, decided to commit suicide in a rather unexpected way. During the execution of one of the convicts, Gilbert threw the electrodes in the death room and ran away. He was found dead in the prison basement - the executioner shot himself in the head.
4. The most resourceful
D. Lang, the official executioner of the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, Franz Joseph I, went down in history for coming up with a humane and gentle method of strangulation. Innovations in the field of capital punishment at that time were equated with a feat. When the American military tried to win Lang over to their side in 1915, he refused, arguing that “the Yankees were torturing animals.”
The first assistant to the executioner Albert Pierpoint - Dernley was always on the alert. In order not to fall into the hands of enemies and to avoid all kinds of reprisals, the English executor Sid Durnley always traveled and moved around the country with fake passports issued in different names.
6. The most saddened
The Swedish executioner Shelin was very upset by his salary. In 1823, when he was tasked with beheading two criminals, the executioner was overjoyed. True, it later turned out that one of the prisoners was his son, so the minister appointed another executor. To which Shelin stated that he was being deprived of his salary, which he received on a piece-rate basis - for each severed head.
7. The most hasty
The London executioner D. Dunm, apparently, was in a hurry on business, so he hanged one of the prisoners ahead of time. However, everything turned out to be not so simple: literally a few minutes after the execution, the ex-criminal was pardoned. When the commission arrived at the place of execution, it found that he had been hanging on the rope for about fifteen minutes. Despite this, Danmu managed to bring the convict back from the other world, for which the latter received the nickname “half-hanged.”
8. Most kind
Charles Henri Sanson is a hereditary executioner. After his father died in 1754, Charles replaced him. People who knew him spoke of him as a real gentleman: he was kind, well-mannered and pleasant. Proof of this was the execution of Charlotte Corday in 1793. To protect the convict from falling, Sanson persuaded Corday to stand in the middle of the cart, and not on the edge. After the death of the woman, Sh. A. Sanson spoke about the deceased with the most flattering words.
9. The most manic
The Brest executioner Khantse was distinguished by his “charm”. After the execution, he admired the work done, laying out the heads of the condemned in a perfectly straight line on the edge of the scaffold. Deciding to once again admire the fruits of his labor, Hanze laid out 26 heads of victims along a specially marked line. This happened on December 11, 1794.
10. The most illogical
Over the years of work from 1884 to 1892, executioner James Barry cut off more than two hundred heads. At the same time, he continued to be a preacher. Apparently, for Berry there was no difference between reading the psalms and carrying out a death sentence. The most paradoxical thing was that Berry's favorite sermon was the one where he called for the abolition of the death penalty.
Compiled from the book “The Death Penalty: History and Types of Capital Punishment from the Beginning of Times to the Present Day” by Martin Monestier.