Eugene Weidmann

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Eugene Weidmann

Eugen Weidmann (born February 5, 1908 in Frankfurt am Main , † June 17, 1939 in Versailles ; common name form in France Eugène Weidmann ) was a German serial killer . He committed six murders in France . His beheading by guillotine was the last publicly consummated execution in France.

Murders and Trial

Eugen Weidmann grew up as the son of an export merchant in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen and went to school there. From the beginning of the First World War , his father did military service. Since the mother was very busy running a restaurant, the son lived with his grandparents in Cologne and began to steal during this time. At the age of eleven he returned to Frankfurt after the war and was again caught stealing from guests in his parents' restaurant, in the grammar school and in the swimming pool. When he was 16, his mother had him admitted to the newly opened Schloss Dehrn educational institution . There, too, he was noticed by theft, left the institution and emigrated to Canada . After cheating on his employer in selling cattle, he was expelled and returned to Germany. Since he wanted to be a taxi driver, his father bought him a red Horch . But he used the car to kidnap a banker in Sachsenhausen with him. This failed, and he served five years in prison for robbery in the Preungesheim correctional facility . There he worked as a prison librarian and met his future accomplices Roger Million, Jean Blanc and Fritz Frommer. After their release from prison, they decided to jointly kidnap and steal from wealthy tourists visiting France. They rented a house in La Celle-Saint-Cloud near Paris for this purpose .

The first attempt at kidnapping failed because her victim defended herself. The second attempt, the kidnapping of the New York dancer Jean de Koven, was successful. Eugen Weidmann killed and buried her on July 21, 1937 in the garden of the rented house. The group then sent the captured travelers 'checks to Millions' lover, Colette Tricot, who were to convert them into cash.

On September 3 of the same year, Weidmann had the chauffeur Joseph Couffy take him to the Côte d'Azur in his car , where he shot him in the back of the head and then stole the car. On October 4, 1937, he and Million lured Janine Keller, a self-employed nurse, into a cave through a job offer. He killed her and stole her belongings. On October 16, Million and Weidmann arranged a meeting with a young theater producer, Roger LeBlond, and promised him to invest in his performances. Instead, Weidmann murdered him with a head shot from behind and stole his wallet.

Together with Roger Million, he killed their accomplice Fritz Frommer on November 20. His next shot hit Raymond Lesobre, a real estate agent with whom he was viewing a home. He stole Lesobre's car and his wallet.

The police arrested Weidmann in early December 1937 after a shooting, after which he confessed to all of his murders. Weidmann, Million, Blanc and Tricot were tried in March 1939. Weidmann's defender was the renowned lawyer Vincent de Moro-Giafferi , who had defended Henri Désiré Landru in 1921 and later represented Herschel Grynszpan . Weidmann and Million were sentenced to death on March 31, 1939 , and Blanc to a prison term of 20 months. Millions mistress Colette Tricot was first acquitted and later sentenced to life imprisonment. President Albert Lebrun pardoned Roger Million to life imprisonment and upheld the death sentence for Weidmann.

execution

Eugen Weidmann's execution was accompanied by festival-like scenes. About 10,000 onlookers had come to Versailles on the day before the execution . The restaurants were open all night and the noise could be heard as far as Weidmann's cell in the Saint Pierre prison. The execution took place in the square in front of the prison and had to be postponed by about 45 minutes to 4:32 a.m. due to the onslaught of onlookers.

Despite a current ban on filming and photography, an amateur film was recorded from a private apartment next to the prison, which was circulated on internet portals in the 2000s. On the film is to see how after the defeat of the delinquent by two assistants at the fall board of the guillotine the executioner Jules-Henri Desfourneaux a lever the upper bezel fixed and triggers the ax. Immediately after the head has been separated, the two assistants tip the headless body sideways into the waiting chest, while another assistant ( André Obrecht ), who does the decapitation from a few meters away (so as not to be stained by the splashing blood) on the delinquent's head had observed, rushed to the guillotine to get the executed man's head out of the intended vessel. However, the lifting of the head is no longer included on the film. The executioner and assistants are dressed in black frock coats and hats. It takes less than ten seconds from the condemned man to prostrate himself on the folding board to the severing of his head.

Because of the unworthy "hysterical behavior" of the public during Weidmann's execution, Prime Minister Édouard Daladier issued an ordinance on June 24, 1939, stating that in future all executions would not be public, that is, be carried out behind prison walls.

Trivia

British actor Christopher Lee , then 17 years old, was an eyewitness to this execution.

Claude Chabrol uses the story of women who allegedly dipped their scarves in the blood of the charming serial killer immediately after their execution, in a scene in his film The Unsatisfied (Les bonnes femmes) .

The execution scene in the feature film Mathilde - Eine große Liebe (2004) is based on the amateur film Weidmann's execution.

literature

  • Roger Colombani: L'affaire Weidmann. La sanglante dérive d'un dandy allemand au temps du Front popular . Albin Michel, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-226-03687-3 .
  • Michel Ferracci-Porri : Beaux Ténèbres. La Pulsion du Mal d'Eugène Weidmann ( Eugen Weidmann's urge for evil ). Novel. Éditions Normant, Nantes 2008, ISBN 978-2-915685-34-3 .
  • Renée Jardin-Birnie: Le Cahier rouge d'Eugène Weidmann. Avec des textes inédits d'Eugène Weidmann traduits de l'allemand par Fred et M. Giesbert . Gallimard, Paris 1968.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jürgen Walburg: The serial killer from Frankfurt and his historical death; in: Taunuszeitung from August 1, 2020, p. 13.
  2. ^ Cornelia von Wrangel: A charming felon . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of June 8, 2020. p. 31
  3. ↑ MILLION, BLANC et Colette TRICOT se sont constitués prisonniers here. In: Excelsior: journal illustré quotidien: informations, littérature, sciences, arts, sports, théâtre, élégances. December 11, 1937, accessed June 14, 2020 (French).
  4. ^ Time Inc: LIFE . Time Inc, April 3, 1939 ( google.de [accessed June 14, 2020]).
personal data
SURNAME Weidmann, Eugene
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weidmann, Eugène (common name form in France)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German national who committed six murders in France
DATE OF BIRTH February 5, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Frankfurt am Main
DATE OF DEATH June 17, 1939
Place of death Versailles