HOME CONSTRUCTION WORKSHOP GALLERY I GALLERY II GALLERY III GALLERY IV GALLERY V LINKS CREDITS

HISTORY OF THE GUILLOTINE

Primitive ancestors of the guillotine were used in Ireland, England and Italy in the 14th and 15th Centuries. Several known decapitation devices, such as the Italian Mannaia, the Scottish Maiden and the Halifax Gibbet are well documented and may pre-date the use of the French guillotine by as much as 500 years. The following deals mostly with the modern guillotine from the late 18th Century until today. It is not meant to be a complete history, or even a complete overview of the history, as this would take hundreds of pages. Instead consider it a brief introduction to the subject, highlighted by a few good pictures.

DOCTEUR GUILLOTIN

Contrary to popular belief, Doctor Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was not the inventor of the machine. He was a medical doctor and lawmaker who, in 1790, proposed that the death penalty should be equal for all, regardless of social rank and nature of the crime, and carried out by a swift mechanical device to eliminate suffering. At first his idea was derided but later the National Assembly revived the idea and it was adopted in 1791.

The document making the death penalty "by mechanical decapitation" the law of the land in the Kingdom of France was signed both by doctor Antoine Louis, secretary of the National Academy of Surgery and by Louis the 16th, who was still King of France. The doctor was the author of the technical portion of the document explaining why this method was the only "humane" mode of execution insuring the condemned a swift and painless death. A copy of the law was distributed to all the provinces for immediate implementation. To the right are the four pages of an original 1792 copy of the law, sent to the department of Orne and hand-marked as No 76.

Quickly following the enactment of the law, the ministry of justice assigned the task of designing and building Dr. Guillotin’s machine to the same doctor, Antoine Louis, who hired Tobias Schmidt, a German harpsichord maker, to actually construct it from his design. That pair were the defacto inventors of the modern guillotine. The prototype, built by Mr. Schmidt, may or may not have had the characteristic angled blade. After a series of tests on animals and cadavers, the machine was put into service for the execution of a common criminal, Nicolas Pelletier, on the 25th of April 1792. The deadly machine quickly moved on to more famous victims such as Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, Charlotte Corday, Danton, Robespierre, and many others. Because Tobias Schmidt lost the contract for building additional machines, it is not known what his original apparatus looked like.

A great number of guillotines were manufactured in the following few years to meet the demands of the blood-thirsty Revolutionary Government. Guillotines were dispatched to every province and city in France, and soon after, to neighboring countries too.

THE REVOLUTIONARY GUILLOTINE - 1792

These guillotines were all of similar construction, built using Tobias Schmidt's principles but maybe not his actual design. They are, by and large, regarded today as "The 1792 Model Guillotine". Due to the large number of these Guillotines manufactured during the years of the great Terror (1793-1794), several machines from this early batch have survived to this day. Among the surviving “1792” machines are the ones displayed in museums in Venlo (Netherlands), Ghent and Brugge (Belgium) as well as one stored in a history museum in Luxembourg.

Newer versions of the 1792 design were built in the 1800s and can be seen in photos from New Caledonia, Reunion Island and Senegal dating from the early part of the 20th Century. The design of these machines is very similar to the oldest known 1792 version so they would fall under the general category of a 1792 model. The machine from Reunion Island, which may have been used as late as 1954, was returned to France in 1984 and is currently stored in the basement of the Musee National des Prisons in Fontainebleau.

The picture on the left shows the typical design of an early 1792 machine. The vertical posts are 4.5 meters tall and made of oak. The grooves for the blade are carved into the wood and are not lined. The boards for locking the head in place (the “lunette”) were also made of oak and had no metal liner as on later machines. Only the front rails covering the lunette tracks were made of iron. There was no mechanism to hold the lunette open or to lock it in place when closed. The front and rear support braces were also made of wood and were pinned in place with dowels making the machine very difficult to disassemble. The bascule (teeter board) was shorter than on the modern machine but tilted and slid forward as on the newer version. The slide mechanism was made up of a wood carriage traveling in wood grooves. The triangular blade was secured to a heavy oak block, which traveled up and down in the post grooves. The blade was hoisted up with a rope running over two small pulleys lodged in slots within the top crossbar. The visible asymmetry in the crossbar is the result of a pulley being fitted within the right overhang. Once aloft the mouton could be locked via a steel lever on the left post.

The lever held down on a connecting rod, which in turn held a steel pivot arm at the top of the left post, blocking a horizontal steel bar projecting from the back of the mouton. When the handle was released from the post the blade fell to the end of the wooden grooves then stopped rather abruptly. The shortcoming of this design must have become apparent rather quickly as there are reports about stuffing the grooves with fabric or leather to cushion the fall. The wood-on-wood slides in the bascule and cutting assembly also caused problems, resulting in recommendation to the executioners to grease the tracks with tallow on a regular basis.

It is likely that the early machines were damaged after a few operations, which explains why machines, like the Brugge guillotine, were so extensively modified.

THE BRUGGE GUILLOTINE - 1862

To the right is a close-up of the Brugge guillotine bascule and lunette. This machine was bought by the city of Brugge from France in 1796, four years after the first guillotine execution took place in Paris. The years 1793 and 1794 had seen an incredible number of guillotine executions under the "Terror". It is estimated that over 10,000 people lost their heads under the slanted blade in those two years. Lesser and lesser crimes became punishable by death as the struggling Revolutionary Government attempted to quell internal unrest while fighting a war against all the other European nations. The Revolutionary Tribunals around France first sentenced Royalists and counter-revolutionaries to death, then

rebellious and rioting citizens, then priests and nuns refusing to pledge allegiance to the new "Cult of the Supreme Being", then people trying to flee France and anyone helping them, then people expressing any disagreement with the government, then rival factions within the Revolutionary government as political intrigue replaced the noble ideas that embodied the early movement. Some people even lost their heads because they started questioning the harshness of the law and the rising number of executions. Finally, the head of The Terror himself, Maximilien Robespierre, was removed from power by the coup of 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794) and was swiftly dispatched with his followers.

In a final ironic twist, the prosecutor of the Revolutinary Tribunal, Fouquier-Tinville, as well as the judges and jurors were themselves guillotined to close the book on that dark period in French History.
As the Terror ended and the "Directoire" took control of France, before Napoleon's rise to power, the guillotine returned to its roots as a tool of judicial enforcement. It also spread to neighboring states as a means of swift and merciful justice. This was the time when the city of Brugge purchased their guillotine from France, which must have had a large surplus after the dramatic decrease in executions.
The entire machine is shown to the left and clearly ressembles the classic 1792 model seen above. Records show that the guillotine was purchased "damaged" and the current state of the machine shows a lot of "improvements" which were probably made in Brugge between 1796 and 1862 when its' blade fell for the last time.

The nature of the improvements attest to the large number of areas which probably caused trouble over the years. The picture above shows that metal blade tracks were added extending all the way to the ground. Also notable is that the bascule was modified to tip down and the space between the support frame beams was carved out to allow dropping the body through a hole in the scaffold. The picture above shows that rollers were retrofitted to the sides of the bascule board and steel brace plates were attached to the lunette board, possibly to repair cracks in the board. On the back side of the lunette (Not shown) several additional changes were made. The lunette was steel lined, as were the later models, maybe because of damage to the back of the board but more likely because the boards were soaked with water when the machine was washed down and probably expanded or warped into the path of the blade.

Substantial bumpers were added at the end of the tracks. This improvement pre-dates the use of spring stops in the 1868 and 1872 guillotines, but must have been a major area of concern. The blade terminal velocity is in the range of 22-26 Feet/second and the weight around 90 Lbs, so stopping it in a few inches is not an easy problem to solve. Personally, I am not sure it was ever resolved very well as even the late 20th century guillotine was reported to have problems in that area. Fortunately for the executioners, the machine only had to function once or twice, in most situations, before it could be repaired. The same is not the case with scale replicas and this area definitely presents the biggest design challenge.
On the back side of the lower lunette, there was also an additional steel plate, slightly offset towards the back to provide a secondary support under the neck during the cutting. The blade would fall into the narrow slot between the two plates and stop when the wooden mouton landed on the stop blocks. The additional plate was probably the answer to the numerous reports of partially severed necks in early executions. Full metal tracks replaced the old wood grooves from top to bottom. The Brugge guillotine does give a lot of insight into the gradual developments that led to the modern guillotine.

To the left are pictures of the original mouton and lunette from one of the revolutionary guillotines, which was used in Paris. It was bought by Madame Tussaud, from executioner Clement Sanson in 1858. The lunette appears to be made of stacked oak planks, while the mouton has a very noticeable slanted lower edge which was used on many of the 1792 guillotines. The steel holding bar, secured to the back of the mouton, rested on a pivot attached to the left upright until the pivot turned and allowed the blade to drop. The rope hook and the top-mounted lead weights are also visible in the photograph. These artifacts were later damaged in a 1925 fire at the museum.

EXECUTION IN ARRAS - 1869

The photo below was taken on "La Grande Place" in Arras, most probably on October 21th, 1869 just before the execution of Charles Carpentier. This execution was carried out by "Monsieur de Paris", Jean-Francois Heidenreich, assisted by the regional executioner from Amiens, Nicolas Roch. Both were soon to become head executioners for all of France. Heidenreich was nominated to the top position in late 1870 and Roch was chosen as his successor when he died in 1872.

The guillotine is visible and has the assymetrical chapiteau of an 1792 model. Two carriages are waiting at the foot of the guillotine and a white shadow is visible on the steps leading up to the machine. This could be the white shirt of the condemned blurred by motion during the exposure of the plate. Carpentier was sentenced to death for the murder and robbery of a farmer coming home from the market with his earnings.
One remarkable thing about the picture is the use of an high scaffold, which was eliminated in 1870, at the same time as the Berger-designed guillotine was chosen to replace the old 1792 machine. From then on all executions were to take place at ground level to reduce the "spectacular" aspect of the events, which is clearly visible here. According to the local newspaper "l'Avenir", it took all night to erect the scaffold and the guillotine. This was the main reason it was eliminated when the guillotine and the executioner started to travel all over France.
Only once again, in 1923, did a French executioner operate on a scaffold, as Anatole Deibler was called to execute a German murderer in Sarrebruck, then occupied by France, and operated in full daylight on a scaffold as was the German tradition.
This photo was part of a pair of pictures sold for viewing on a stereoscope, a primitive 3-D optical device. I have not seen it published before so it is probably quite rare.

NEW CALEDONIA GUILLOTINE - 1910

The machine on the right is another strange hybrid derived from modifications of an older model. This machine operated in the “Bagne” (penal colony) in New Caledonia, located in the South Pacific, east of Australia. Hardcore French criminals were sent there, as well as to Guyana, to serve their sentence before helping populate and develop the colony. If during the course of their detention, they committed a grave crime, like murdering a guard, they could be sentenced to the ultimate punishment. The machine is a 1800s version of the 1792 model, with the narrow top crossbar and the slightly lighter construction. What makes this machine more unusual is the addition of two improvised cross braces between the uprights as well as lateral braces extending to grade on both sides of the uprights. Both of these features appeared as permanent improvements in

the 1872 model, with bolted steel braces at both locations. We can conclude that prior to the improvements there must have been real problems keeping the oak posts aligned and keeping the uprights vertical, possibly exacerbated by the tropical climate of the island. The mechanism on the left post is the classic 1792 design, although the top pivot should face the opposite direction. The bascule and lunette appear to be of original 1792 design with none of the improvements made on the Brugge machine. The picture was taken in 1910 according to the caption on a postcard showing the same person and machine. Apparently, the old machine was still used 40 years after the invention of the modern machine. It is likely that most of the improvements found in the "modern" guillotine design of 1872 had already been made by individual executioners over the past 80 years.

THE FIRST BERGER GUILLOTINE - 1868

Alphonse Léon Berger was the executioner of Corsica and also a skilled carpenter and cabinetmaker. Learning of his unique talent combination, the French government ordered a new guillotine from him in 1868. This machine, while preserving the same operational functions as the 1792 model, was completely new from overall dimensions, to mechanical features, to appearance. The materials and construction style of the early industrial revolution are very apparent and Berger made extensive use of steel, brass, copper and zinc for his apparatus. There are some clear visual ties in the oak and steel construction to its American cousin, the electric chair. The most unique features of the new machine are the "spike and claw" release system housed inside the cross bar and the spring stops embedded in the uprights. The new machine is about 2 feet shorter than the old, a bit more compact in length, but wider due to a massive cross beam added to the base for lateral stability. The machine is also designed to be quickly disassembled for transportation to the locale of execution to eliminate the need for stationary machines in each province and town. The primary feature distinguishing

the 1868 model from the better-known 1872 design was the location of the mechanism, which was mounted in the front part of the chapiteau and required the spike to overhang the front of the mouton. The mechanism itself worked flawlessly but the location was a problem: The open lunette was located in the path of the metal spike protruding from the mouton: with the lunette open the two would collide as the blade fell. The flawed design was corrected in Berger's subsequent machines by relocating the mechanism to the back half of the chapiteau. The picture to the right is a restored photograph of one of the two original 1868 Berger machines identified by the distinctive notched top lunette (Where the spike would otherwise hit the lunette), the indented cross brace (To let the spike through) and the front mounted mechanism. Other noticeable differences from the more common 1872 model include the oversized lunette hole, the lunette release mechanism located much higher on the left post, the round headed bolts holding down the chapiteau, the rectangular bascule board without the familiar semi-circular cut-out and the box-like shield around the zinc tub. Less noticeable is the fact that the posts are about half a meter taller than on the later version of the machine. One of the original 1868 machines was shipped to Algeria where it was used until 1959. The picture was most likely taken in Tunisia in the 1900-1915 timeframe.

The subsequent two improved Berger machines, under construction in 1871, were burned by the angry mob during the bloody "Commune" uprising in Paris, as they were a symbol of government repression. The final version of Berger's machine was completed in 1872.

LA VEUVE DE SAINT-PIERRE 1889

The only time the guillotine was used in North America was on the 24th of August 1889 when Auguste Neel, a fisherman convicted of murdering another fisherman the year before, was executed in the French town of Saint-Pierre, located a few miles off the coast of Newfoundland. The events are loosely portrayed in the movie "La Veuve de Saint Pierre" which was released in 2000. To read about the real story and see pictures of the actual guillotine used in 1889 click here.

VARIOUS EXECUTIONS - 1897 TO 1910

This picture was taken in Lons-le-Saulnier in 1897, when murderer, Pierre Vaillat was executed by Louis Deibler assisted by his son, Anatole. The "fourgon" (Horse-drawn closed carriage), seen on the right, was used to transport the guillotine to the place of execution, sometimes as far as 500 miles from Paris where the machine was stored. After the execution, it was also used to take the body away for medical examination and burial.

This picture is one of the earliest photos of a Berger guillotine but some even older ones exist, including one of the guillotine on a scaffold taken in Marseilles in 1868. See the photo on the website L'Art de Bien Couper (The art of cutting well). That picture is of too poor quality to determine if the guillotine is an 1868 Berger or the old revolutionary type, but I am guessing it is the latter.

A few other pictures of pre-1900 executions can be found on the same website. The 1897 picture does show the top mounted pulley, the distinctive 3-bolt mouton and the metal claw under the crossbar. The brass lined lunette, the body basket and the metal braces on the uprights are also visible. There are no visible differences between this guillotine and the ones seen below in newer pictures. It does appear that from 1872 to 1909 the guillotine did not undergo any significant changes, if any at all. The only one that has been rumoured to have occurred is the addition of rollers to the mouton in 1899, however all the moutons I have been able to examine, including some from before 1899 had rollers.

I have included this picture because it is of exceptional quality. It is taken in 1899 before the execution of Alois Zuckermeyer in Remiremont, located in the Vosges mountains of Northeastern France. This was Anatole Deibler's third execution as chief executioner, having replaced his father earlier that year. The photo gives a very clear picture of the scene and shows many details of the machine. The weather is rainy as indicated by the shiny pavement and the many umbrellas. This has not deterred the crowd of spectators piled up everywhere in sight of the Guillotine even on the slick wet roofs of every house. The military holds the crowd back as they await the arrival of the fourgon with Zuckermeyer and the executioners. Deibler may be standing to the right under the sign reading "SIMON". In most cases assistants fetched the condemned and made the trip in the carriage while Deibler waited for them at the machine. Zuckermeyer had raped and murdered a seven year old girl.

The newspaper article on the left relates the execution of Henri Besse and Pierre Simorre in February 1909 at Albi in Southern France. The title states that "the assassins of guard Mouttet died with courage". The rest of the story, related in Sylvain Larue's book "Les Grandes Affaires Criminelles du Tarn", is that Besse and Simorre, both small time crooks, did not know eachother before they were sent to the Albi prison. Besse had been sentenced for burglary in 1908 and Simorre for rape that same year. They were both awaiting deportation to Guyana at the prison in Albi, when they connected. They decided that neither of them was ready to take the trip to the "dry guillotine", the Bagne, which, in those years, meant certain death for a high percentage of the deportees. They planned to escape by overpowering the guards who numbered only three for the entire small regional prison. They managed to overpower both guards on duty, but the third guard alerted the gendarmes who recaptured the two inmates within the prison walls. In the process, one of the guards, Mouttet, died from a blow to the head with a paving stone.
Besse and Simorre were sentenced to death on October 28th, 1908. The execution took place in front of the same prison where the murder was committed.

This photo of the guillotine being erected at the prison for the Besse and Simorre execution is not very well known. Note that the door and lantern above the door can also be seen in the newpaper photo above although the paper places the guillotine on the wrong side of the door.
In the photo the specially-built ladder, with the top cross bar and metal stakes, is leaning against the wall of the prison. It can often be seen in the background of execution photos. It was used to install the chapiteau and was designed to lock into two holes in the guillotine frame with the cross bar spanning the uprights so it was very stable when an assistant climbed up with the heavy chapiteau. Andre Obrecht makes a note about that exercise being quite dangerous and one of his assistants nearly breaking his neck in the process. He notes: "Petit George (Ribour) is a good butcher but a bad acrobat - avoid putting him on the ladder in the future".
The horse-drawn carriage in the foreground would have left La Sante prison in Paris, where "Les Bois de Justice" were stored after 1911, a day or two earlier and travelled by train to Albi. The travels and arrival of the guillotine was followed by the population always eager to discover the location and time of an upcoming execution. The carriage was a rather non-descript transport vehicle of the time and could easily be overlooked. Deibler tried his best to conceal his own arrival often travelling and registering under a false name. Nevertheless the attendance at these "events" grew larger and larger over the years.
Many thanks to Sylvain Larue for the information and newpaper clipping.

This is an undocumented (and unknown?) picture of the guillotine in a execution setting. Apparent from the thick line of spectators, the person hanging in the tree and the one laying on the roof is that this is taken before the execution. I am seeking information on this picture as to the date, location and the person(s) executed. If anyone has any of this information or recognizes the location, please E-mail me. I am pretty sure this photo was taken in France and in a smaller town. The advertizing painted on the building to the right refers to a "Gd Hotel de la Croix" (Grand Hotel of the Cross) and "Verde Soeurs" (? Sisters) in the second line. The caps worn by the Police/Gendarmes point to a timeframe of 1904-1916 before the stiff cylindrical "kepi" was introduced. One likely candidate would be the execution of Henri Riboulet in Montbrison on December 1, 1909.
The rest of the picture is typical of a "Deibler-era" execution. The guillotine assembly is almost complete. The person in the light suit appears to be working on something sitting on the bascule, possibly removing the blade from its case in order to install it. The basin and shield sit in front of the machine, to the right, waiting to be moved into place. The body basket is not visible in the picture, probably being unloaded from the fourgon outside the field of vision. The "pelerines" (ponchos) of the Gendarmes and the lack of leaves on the trees would point to spring or fall and the light suit of the guy working on the guillotine as well as the boater's straw hat worn by the man in the foreground would be more typical of a location in the South of France, but that is only speculation on my part.

THE BAGNE GUILLOTINE

The picture to the right is another famous Berger guillotine, one that was sent to French Guyana around 1900. It replaced the venerable 1792-type machine that had been in service since the mid-1800s at the main penitentiary in St Laurent-du-Maroni. The old machine, rumored to be the original built by Tobias Schmidt, was sent to Ile Royale, where the maximum security units, holding trouble-makers was located. This story is rather speculative since little information exists on the Bagne guillotines. They were returned to France in the early 1950s, when the Bagne was closed, and seem to have vanished. They may have been put in storage somewhere or simply added to the inventory of the French executioner. One Berger guillotine remains in Guyana to this day but it was the one from the Cayenne Civil Prison, which had never been used.

The new Berger apparatus was used to execute almost 300 prisoners in French Guyana over the next 52 years, mostly sentenced to death for murdering civilians or guards while in detention. The executioners were prisoners themselves and the most famous of them, Isidore Hespel, was ultimately freed long enough to murder a civilian and return to the penitenciary to be decapitated by his own machine. The machine seen in this picture is another classic 1872 Berger. Chapiteau, mouton, release mechanism, pulley and bascule seen in this picture all match up to the metropolitan machines photographed below and in the "Gallery" pages. This photo appears to be a re-enactement because the atmosphere and the actors seem much too relaxed. In a real execution this phase (condemned lined up on the bascule plank) lasts but a second.

The machine was assembled on a set of concrete pads within the main holding facility in St Laurent, also known as "Le Camp de Transportation". The prisoners were forced to witness the executions while kneeling around the guillotine. That scene was reconstructed for the famous Steve McQueen movie "Papillon". The picture on the right shows such a scene, although it also appears to be staged. Several photographs of the same execution, taken at the exact same time from different angles have emerged, suggesting that the photographer had plenty of time to move around and reposition the "actors". The guy strapped to the bascule must have had a heck of a time, especially if they eventually finished the job, but I think he was not a "bagnard" at all, but rather a guard or a civilian participating in order to bring home a great souvenir photo.

LES CHAUFFEURS DE LA DROME - 1909

The following group of photographs is probably the best set of pictures taken of a guillotine execution. They were taken in Valence (South eastern France) on the 22nd of September 1909. The triple execution took place much after sunrise contrary to protocol and the daylight gave the photographers a great picture opportunity. The condemned assassins, Pierre Berruyer, Octave David and Urbain Liottard ran the gang known as "Les Chauffeurs de la Drôme" (The "Heaters" from the Drôme region), named for their practice of burning their victim's feet to make them reveal where they had their money stashed. The first picture on the left shows Octave David being led up to the bascule by the two of Deibler's assistants, probably "Big" Louis Rogis and Leopold Desfourneaux. Anatole Deibler, with the very recognizable "bouc" (goatie) stands ready at the lever, while Adolphe Deville is waiting to pull the man's head into the open lunette. David wears the usual white shirt with the collar cut off and is tied up tight around the arms and legs so he is almost being dragged forward. During this period in French history the Guillotine was set up in a public area close to the prison, but often required a short ride in the horse drawn "fourgon" to the place of execution. In this case the guillotine was assembled right outside the Valence prison gates, on the streetcar tracks, and the condemned men were walked directly out of the prison gates.

In the next scene, the blade is down and soiled. Justice has been served! Deville is bending over handling the tin tub and preparing to transfer a severed head into the big zinc lined basket, where it will join the body. Deibler stands behind the basket and holds it open while the two other assistants are looking on. The splatter shield has been moved aside to retrieve the tub and sits on the ground to the right. The bare-headed officer in the foreground appears to be strolling casually over to look at the proceedings...

In the third shot, Deville and Deibler are cleaning the machine in preparation for the next "customer". Deibler has partially raised the mouton using the rope and pulley system while Deville is washing the blade with a sponge. This macabre ritual, using two buckets and a sponge, which left the surrounding area soaked in blood and water, has been recorded by witnesses to the French executions in several books and newspaper articles. Contrary to contemporary executions in other countries, the French did not do much to spare the condemned from the gruesome scene of preceding executions. The large basket was designed to hold four bodies and at this point there is already one body (or two) in it, which the next man will see as he prepares to meet the same fate.

In the last picture Deibler is unhooking the rope from the mouton after having locked it into position in the jaws of the mechanism. The rope will then be stored on hooks attached to the left upright so it won't interfere with the freefall of the blade. First assistant, Adolphe Deville, is bending over and appears to be washing his hands in one of the water buckets, most likely after handling the nasty sponge washing job. The machine will soon be ready to dispense justice to the next assassin.

This set of pictures caused great outrage in French government circles as it was illegal to photograph executions. André Obrecht, nephew of Anatole Deibler and future chief executioner himself, recalls seeing these pictures as a child and having nightmares about his uncle cutting people's heads off.

THE GRIM REALITY

This picture depicts the real "work" of the guillotine. The body resting on the morgue slab is Albert Fournier, triple murderer and rapist, executed by Anatole Deibler, at Tours, in February 1920 . WARNING the picture is very graphic.

Here are some of the heads claimed by the guillotine over the years (Left to Right, Top to Bottom): Abel Pollet (1909), Canute Vromant (1909), Albert Fournier (1920), Jean Van de Bogaert (1905), Theophile Deroo (1909), Joseph Vacher (1898), Charles Swartewagher (1905), Auguste Pollet (1909), Lénard, Oillic, Thépaut and Carbucci (1866), Louis Lefevre (1915) - Lefevre's head underwent a brain autopsy after the execution, which explains the incision across the forehead (Not a botched execution as claimed by a French scandal newspaper) WARNING the pictures are very graphic.

EUGENE WEIDMANN - 1939

The picture to the left is probably the most famous picture of the guillotine ever taken. It is a photograph of the last public execution to take place in France. The date is June 17, 1939, the location is Versailles, southwest of Paris and Eugene Weidmann, six-time murderer, is about one second away from losing his head. The new chief-executioner, Henri Desfourneaux, is poised to pull the lever. His first assistant, later to become chief executioner himself, André Obrecht, has just stepped back from the lunette after positioning Weidmann's head between the uprights. The Berger guillotine in the picture is very similar to the 1909 model above but does have a sort of wood shield around the base of the bascule. This same arrangement feature can be seen in the pictures of the Gorguloff execution in 1932 and on the last pictures of the guillotine taken at Fresnes in 1981, but not on other execution pictures from before 1932, so it is probably a an add-on piece improvised by Deibler at the time. The execution took place later in the morning than scheduled giving the photographers plenty of time and light to get lots of pictures and to shoot one of the only known motion pictures of a guillotine execution. The machine was improperly assembled and the bascule jammed when tilted to horizontal requiring the Martin brothers to drag Weidmann forward on top of the jammed plank. This is clearly visible here as his feet lay on top of the board instead of hanging over the edge as they would normally. As the headless body was tipped in the basket the bascule board started tilting up and almost caused the body to fall off. A huge crowd gathered the night before, but was kept

out of the street by a police barrier so the larger view of the execution scene, on the right, shows only a half circle of a few hundred spectators, the ones with official passes, allowing them through the police blockade. The government downplayed the story and to this day the picture with the small crowd is still used to dispell the "myth" of the near-riot situation that occured that morning. The reality was that around 30-40,000 rowdy, drunken, screaming and singing "would-be" spectators spent the night partying in the surrounding streets. The photo below was taken at 1:30 am about 100 yards from where the guillotine would be set up. After the execution was over and the guillotine had been dismantled, this bloodthirsty crowd invaded the area. Reports of women dipping handkerchiefs in the bloody water on the sidewalk were, in fact, true. It is not known if the crowd's undignified behavior, the illegal photography and filming, the flashy press coverage or the new executioner's apparent incompetence prompted it, but the government put an end to public executions by the following month. All executions, through 1977, would take place behind the prison

walls and beside a few pictures of the guillotine being dismantled after the 1946 Petiot execution, in the Sante prison courtyard, there are no known pictures or film of the French guillotine during that time period. The secrecy around the executions became such that the prison courtyards were ordered covered with a black tarp prior to the erection of the timbers of justice to prevent any viewing from above. At the time of the abolition of the death penalty, in 1981, there was a short relaxation of the rules allowing a few people, including Jean Ker, to view and photograph the instruments in Fresnes prison before the total blackout was reinforced. To this day, the whereabouts of the two last French guillotines is unknown and access to them is prohibited.

THE LAST GUILLOTINE - 1981

When Jules Henri Desfourneaux died in 1951, André Obrecht was chosen as the new chief executioner of France among 400 candidates for the job. He had been assistant to both Anatole Deibler (His uncle) and Desfourneaux, but had resigned twice, in 1943 and 1947, because of strong personal disagreements with the latter. During Obrecht's tenure not much was known about the guillotine and the executions hidden behind the prison walls. Obrecht's memoirs were only published after his death in 1985. In 1981, the public got a brief glance at Obrecht's guillotine before the government ushered it away to secrecy. From the three 1981 pictures shown here (Taken at Fresnes) we can make a few observations: The machine is very old. The lateral metal supports have been drilled like swiss cheese. The blade has been widened to the point of almost touching the uprights.

But something else struck me: the strange assymetry in the blade bolts, with one bolt significantly offset to the right. This is particularly visible in the picture of the mouton (Left, Middle) when compared with the close-up picture of the 1907 mouton (Left, Bottom). At first I assumed this was part of the blade modifications made by Obrecht, but eventually I realized it made no sense for him to move the mounting holes in order to widen the blade. Then I came across the 1905 picture of a Berger blade (Right, Middle) with the same offset in the bolting pattern. The blade is authentic and has the keyed holes that prevented the bolts from turning when the nuts on the back of the mouton were tightened down. It has a center reinforcement strip, which was not used on all Berger blades, but... it fits the hole pattern in the 1981 mouton. Installed as shown in the 1905 picture it would have been visibly offset toward the side with the long edge, with a significant gap between the short side and the other upright, which may explain why Obrecht had a strip of steel welded to the short side, to "balance" the blade between the uprights.

Because the bolt pattern would be easy to spot even on a picture from far away and because the blade for the machine already existed in 1905, I searched through all my old guillotine pictures for a machine with offset bolts. I finally came across one picture (Right, Bottom), probably from the execution of Pierre Joseph Merger at Arras in 1891, showing the same bolt offset. This picture has been touched up but the bolt location is visible on the original print also. The old picture confirms that the machine Obrecht and Chevalier used until 1977 was probably an older machine, pre-dating the 1907-1909 Deibler machine and different from the one used in 1939 (Weidmann) and 1946 (Petiot).

Both of the "Obrecht" modifications are mostly cosmetic and are the last known changes made to the venerable 1872 Berger guillotine. I can only guess that his purpose may have been to leave "a mark" on his trade, a sort of "signature" to differentiate "his" guillotine from earlier (and later) ones. Note also that the assembly job for the Fresnes photos was botched: The lower C-brace and the bumper springs are missing so there is no way to operate the machine without causing serious damage.

THE HAMBURG FALLBEIL 1856-1933

The French guillotine spread to surrounding countries at the time of the Revolution, either through the spreading of French law to areas conquered by the armies of France or through the legal reform that the Revolution inspired. Despite the excesses of the Terror, many of the basic ideas of the Revolution were progressive and sound. Some areas of Germany embraced the legal reforms and adopted a uniform death penalty statute and the guillotine by the early 1800s. In German, the guillotine was renamed "Fallbeil", literally translated "Drop-Axe". Over the years the German Fallbeil evolved along its own path separately from its' French cousin. Early Fallbeils were identical to the 1792 guillotines that inspired them, but by the mid 1800s Prussia used mostly a short fallbeil constructed entirely of metal. The picture on the left is quite different. Although the machine is tall and made mostly of wood it is not a French design at all but a completely German design used in Hamburg from 1856 to 1933. The blade shape, release mechanism, U-shaped mouton, bascule frame extensions with the fabric funnel and the dual cross braces clearly separate it from the 1792 design. The permanent scaffold included a trap hatch allowing the body to be dropped into a box in the room below. In the background the tall prison walls can be seen, topped with cloth screens to prevent any viewing of the execution from the outside. The machine only was used in 18 executions from 1856 to 1917. After this time, the executions started becoming more frequent and when the Nazis took power in 1933 the Fallbeils started working around the clock claiming far more victims than the guillotine did during the Terror years of the French Revolution.

THE MUNICH FALLBEIL

This photo shows a much more characteristic German Fallbeil with the all-metal frame and mechanism. Only the bascule and support "table" of the machine are made of wood. The metal "sledge", a sort of gliding frame to which the blade is attached, is shaped like and upside down "U" and comes to rest at the base of the tracks in two boxes stuffed with felt and leather, thus dampening the impact of the 68 kg "drop axe". A winch with a hand crank (Laying on the floor under the machine) and a steel cable are used to raise the blade assembly. The condemned stepped on the footrest before being strapped, with two leather belts, to the cradle-shaped bascule. The upper lunette board was held open by a simple pin on a chain and the release was a vertical lever arm tilting the big curved "hook" which can be seen going through the hole in the top of the blade.
This machine was designed in 1854 and operated through 1945. It was used in Munich by both Franz Xaver and Johann Reichhart, the most well-known German executioners. This photo is most likely taken in 1926 in the courtyard of the Regensberg Prison. The man on the right holding the lunette pin is Johann Reichhart. The man in the top hat, at the execution lever, is possibly his brother, Michael, who was also chief-executioner for a short time. It may have been taken after their uncle Franz retired, but before Johann became the chief-executioner. The third man could be Donderer, the assistant who got Reichhart into trouble by having a side job demonstrating the fallbeil at a curiosity exhibit in Munich. Donderer got fired and Johann got reprimanded.
Johann went on to become quite infamous for executing many political opponents of the Nazi regime, including members of the "White Rose" movement and many of the conspirators of the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler. After the Allied victory, he continued his grim trade for the other side by hanging Nazi War Criminals at the Landsberg prison.
This actual fallbeil may have been captured by the Soviets at the end of WWII and could be the one exhibited at the War Museum in Kiev.

THE HANOI EXECUTION VIDEO - APPROX 1915

A new incredible filmed document has surfaced in the last 5 years, documenting the guillotine execution of two men. The people who made the film public have asserted that it is the 1933 execution of Veteau and Martin, by Anatole Deibler, in the city of Angouleme. The film is of poor quality but an incredible document from a historical standpoint. As I viewed it, I came to the immediate realization that it could not be the execution it claims to be. The first issue is the type of the equipment used. The jerky pictures, grainy quality, wildly varying speed and exposure from frame to frame points to a hand-cranked camera of pre-1920 vintage not what would typically be used in 1933. The opening scene, pictured on the right, shows the guillotine in a brightly lit dirt venue in front of a prison gate. Deibler carefully notes in his "carnet" that Veteau and Martin were executed at 3:50AM on July 20th, in total darkness. The architecture of the prison, with the vertical slit wall openings, the arched gateway and the characteristic base stonework is near identical to the modern shot of the "Maison Centrale" in Tonkin (Hanoi) shown below. The first letter of the word "MAISON" can be discerned over the door inside the red circle. Click here for an older photo. The "Maison Centrale" later became known to captured US aviators as the "Hanoi Hilton". Other issues such as the clothing worn by the spectators and the unpaved city street do point to a colonial setting rather than to a 1933 French provincial town. The guillotine is definitely a real model 1872 Berger and there is little doubt about the authenticity of the footage itself. The following scene takes place right after the opening general scene above, before either of the two executions has been filmed. The camera has been moved closer and becomes completely stationary for the remainder of the sequence. This camera is obviously on a fixed tripod and not handheld by an amateur standing in the middle

of a crowd of onlookers. There are no people between the movie camera and the guillotine. Considering the outrage caused by the filming of the Weidmann execution in 1939 (Done secretly from an apartment window) it is impossible to imagine how a professional cinematographer could have been allowed to set up a fixed camera, practically overhanging the zinc tub, in France in 1933... This is the kind of thing that could only happen in a colonial setting far away from the eyes of the French government. The scene shows an aide leaning into the basket and also the blade in the dropped position. In the red circle we can clearly see that the blade is bloody, which is inconsistent with the fact that this scene precedes the first of the "two" executions. Immediately following this scene a bucket of water is thrown on the bascule and blade, obviously to wash off the blood of the first victim (before the "first" execution). Noteworthy also are the facts that the ropes are not "stored" on the hooks as they would normally be but instead are draped over the back of the bucket and also that there is no shield around the tub (Possibly an arrangement between the photographer and the executioner?). Such "sloppiness" is not likely from Deibler's well-trained team of professionals. After this, the first condemned man is brought forward and as he is "tilted" on the bascule one of the aides whips open the basket and reveals what we already suspected, the foot of a corpse in the basket (in the red circle). This is the final confirmation that we are dealing with a triple, not a double execution. Other notable facts are that the condemned men wear no shoes and that the executioner's aides wear loose fitting canvas uniforms similar to what was worn at the Bagne in Guyana. My best guess is that the film clip is from 1915 to 1920 and shows a triple execution of "forcats" at the Maison Centrale in Tonkin, Northern province of French Indochina. This does not lessen the historical value of the document in my view so I felt I should help set the record straight.

THE HANOI GUILLOTINES

From around 1900 to 1952 the French used guillotines in Indochina, both to punish common criminals, but also to execute political prisoners, which were causing unrest in the colony. There were at least three guillotines used in Indochina, one built in 1930 and used in Saigon until 1960 and two older machines used in Maison Centrale in Hanoi, later known as the "Hanoi Hilton" and "Hoa Lo Prison". The machine on the right has been known for a while. It is the one exhibited at Hoa Lo prison museum and probably the machine that is seen in the old film clip discussed above. It is in quite good condition although it is improperly assembled: The blade is installed backwards, the C-brace designed to surround the lower part of the posts is mounted at the mid height where the cross-brace should have been and the lateral and rear T-braces have been swapped, leaving both sets crooked.
This machine does have special retainer plates to hold the buffer springs in place and keep them from buckling. This is possibly a local fix to the ever present spring problem as these plates are not used on any other Berger guillotine. The machine is definitely a very close relative of the machines used in France, most probably being constructed by the same Paris shop that built the metropolitain machines.

The second guillotine from Maison Centrale is probably the one that is now being exhibited at the Revolutionary War Museum and shown in the photograph on the left. It is another Berger type machine, painted black or dark grey. It also has been improperly assembled, with the blade mounted backwards and the C-brace sitting in mid-air between the posts. This guillotine is much less known than the one at Hoa Lo Prison and I didn't discover its' existence until a few months ago. It is equipped with an unusually large head tub, which includes an elevated back wall and stepped sides which make the front part of the tub much wider than the spacing of the posts. This design would preclude the installation of the standard photographer's shield used in France. It is likely that the oversized tub with the high ledges was designed to completely replace the shield.
The machine also has the same spring buffer retainer plates as the one at Hoa Lo. The construction is otherwise typical of that of a standard 1900 era Berger model from France. The hinged sideboard is missing but the hinges are still visible on the side of the bascule support. The base frame is of the type with the transversal tension rods as all the older guillotines, visible on the picture below and to the right.
Other interesting details that can be seen are the embedded bolts holding the laminated posts together, visible on the photograph to the left.

The photograph on the left shows very good details of the mouton and spike construction. The spring retainer plates can be seen inside the post on the right side.
The photograph on the right, shows the bascule plank which appears not to have the semi circular cut-out of the later Berger models. It also gives a very clear picture of the three hinges lining up along the right side of the base frame. These hinges allowed the post and the front and rear brace to tilt outward as one unit. Whether this was used as a means of erecting the posts or just a way to install and remove the mouton is still a bit unclear although the design is clearly purposeful.
Visible on the left side of the frame is the steel ball, located at the end of the rear tensionning rod. A lever was inserted through the hole in the ball and used to turn the rod which pulled the frame together. This was particulary useful to take up slack as the wood aged and contracted over the years.