Lucerne guillotine

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Lucerne guillotine
Construction year 1836
Manufacturer Johann Bücheler
Revision Escher-Wyss (1845)
height 3.93 m
Width × depth 74 cm × 212 cm
material Profiled wooden frame, slide rails and guillotine made of steel
equipment Replacement hatchet in wooden box (Inv.No. HMLU 02930), delinquent board, lunette , three transport boxes and wooden box for the corpse and stretcher
Whereabouts Historical Museum Lucerne
Inv no. HMLU 9450

The Lucerne guillotine (until 1869 the Zurich guillotine ) was a Swiss execution machine and is now in the foyer of the Lucerne History Museum . This guillotine was used to carry out all nine civilian executions in Switzerland from the reintroduction of the civil death penalty in 1879 until it was abolished in 1942, including the last one on October 18, 1940 against Hans Vollenweider in the canton of Obwalden .

description

Instructional model of the Lucerne guillotine including the scaffold originally supplied

The almost four meter high wooden frame has been preserved in the original and is still operational. It was transported in three gray-green boxes. When erected, the guillotine is 3.93 meters high. The drop knife runs on two steel rails attached to the inside of the wooden frame. The guide geometry makes tilting of the drop knife, which could occur if the guillotine is improperly set up, almost impossible.

The bezel is provided with a snap lock and designed so that it completely encircles the delinquent's neck. It used to be one of the tasks of the executioner's assistant to hold the condemned person by the head so that he could not wriggle under the guillotine.

The collection also includes some black cloths with which the place of execution could be "dignified". Also included were a scaffold , the whereabouts of which is not known after 1902, and a detailed instruction model on a scale of 1: 5 (Inv.-No. HMLU 2980), on which the assembly and use of the original can be demonstrated.

The following is handwritten on the wooden box with the original blade: “Used: In Lucerne Muff Tobias on May 2, 1910 at 9 o'clock in the morning. Lucerne, January 20, 1915 Wütschert Anselm 9 a.m. In Altdorf : Bernet Clemens on October 22, 1924. In Zug : Paul Irniger , b. November 4, 1913, August 25, 1939, ¼ 5 o'clock. In Sarnen : Vollenweider Hans , b. February 11, 1908, October 18, 1940, 1:55 a.m. "

history

The Lucerne guillotine dates from the first half of the 19th century. The “mechanic and glazier” Johann Bücheler from Kloten manufactured this machine in 1836 on behalf of the Canton of Zurich based on a Geneva model. Bücheler became an outlawed man through the construction of the guillotine and could no longer find work. He built a model model that was about four feet tall and tried to get further orders with it. He also wanted to make money by displaying the model. When he showed it in Kloten taverns, it was confiscated by the governor's office. The model is now in the Criminal Museum Zurich the Zurich cantonal police .

While the guillotine came into use in Geneva soon after the French Revolution , it was only introduced in the cantons of Zurich and Lucerne in the mid-1830s. It is not known whether the guillotine could be used in its original condition, but as early as 1845 the Canton of Zurich commissioned the Escher-Wyss company to make it functional, and spent 821 francs on it.

The first Lucerne guillotine, also manufactured by Bücheler and practically identical to the Zurich model, was destroyed again on April 18, 1842 after a petition to the cantonal government as a "revolutionary instrument of murder"; Lucerne returned to be beheaded with the sword of execution. The Geneva guillotine was last used on April 24, 1862 for the execution of the robbery murderer Maurice Elcy . It is now in the Musée d'art et d'histoire in Geneva.

Eleven executions were carried out on the Zurich device by 1865, the last of which was the sixfold child murderer Heinrich Götti on May 10, 1865. After the death penalty was abolished in the canton of Zurich in 1869, it was sold to the canton of Schaffhausen for 2,200 francs . It was never used there, but rented it out to other cantons several times. In 1904 a death sentence was passed in the canton of Lucerne, so that the guillotine from Schaffhausen was borrowed in the event of an execution. Schaffhausen refused to do this, however, since the guillotine had been returned from the Canton of Lucerne "in an uncleaned condition" after the last execution. Lucerne therefore bought the Schaffhausen guillotine for 1,000 francs; she was borrowed from Lucerne for all subsequent executions.

While executions were generally carried out publicly in Switzerland before 1874, after the reintroduction of the death penalty in all relevant cantonal penal codes, executions in camera were provided for, in Lucerne in the prison at Baselstrasse 20.

The Valais Grand Councilor Gustav Loretan (1848–1936) from Leuk spoke out on May 29, 1894 for the pardon of Ms. Crésence Zen-Klusen from Ried-Brig and remarked: «Since January 10, 1868, on which day the death sentence against Hély Freymond was carried out in Moudon , Canton of Vaud , until the last cases in the cantons of Lucerne and Schwyz, the death penalty was no longer carried out. " Zen-Klusen was subsequently pardoned by the Grand Council.

The last execution with this device, including guarding and compensation payments to the police during the court hearing, doctor, clergy and executioner cost 600.75 Fr. The following week the Obwalden friend of the people reported : «The execution took place on Friday at two o'clock in the morning. The time was kept top secret. The two reformed pastors provided the last assistance. Vollenweider went quietly and withdrawn to death. He took advantage of the last few hours to prepare and showed active repentance ... This closes the files on a human life. Three serious crimes are atoned for with the highest punishment. May the Lord be a gracious judge to the dead! "

Political framework

Before 1942, all cantons in Switzerland had their own criminal law; there was no civil penal law valid for the whole of Switzerland. With the penal law of 1835, killing exclusively by guillotine came into force in Zurich, and other types of execution such as the sword or the gallows were thus prohibited. In 1848 the death penalty for political offenses was banned in the federal constitution and abolished in principle with the constitutional revision of 1874. Individual cantons had already abolished it: Freiburg 1868, Neuchâtel 1864, Zurich 1869, Ticino and Geneva 1871, Basel-Stadt 1872, Basel-Land 1873 and Solothurn 1874. However, in 1879 the possibility of the death penalty was reintroduced by referendum, with the exception of political offenses ; as a result, ten cantons and half-cantons reintroduced the death penalty.

On December 21, 1937, the Federal Assembly passed a Swiss Penal Code (StGB) that was valid for the whole of Switzerland and repealed the cantonal penal codes. It provided for the definitive abolition of the death penalty. The Criminal Code came into force on January 1, 1942; Up to that day, the cantonal criminal law of each individual canton was in force. This was preceded by a referendum on July 3, 1938 , in which 54 percent of the Swiss electorate voted for a nationwide criminal law without the death penalty in peacetime. Since it was an optional referendum , the additional status was not necessary for acceptance; this would have clearly missed the original.

During the Second World War , 17 executions by shooting were carried out under military criminal law between 1942 and 1944 , the last on December 7, 1944 against the spies Walter Laubscher and Hermann Grimm in Eggwald near Bachs . In 1992 the death penalty was also abolished in wartime.

gallery

  • The Geneva guillotine served as a template for the construction of the Lucerne guillotine

  • For the execution of Etienne Chatton in Friborg in 1902 , still on the platform of the scaffold

  • For the execution of Klemens Bernets in Altdorf in 1924

  • On the execution of Paul Irniger in Zug in 1939

  • Position of the guillotine in the bezel

  • Box with guillotine and brief description of the delinquents

literature

Web links

Commons : Guillotine of Lucerne  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brief Zurich Constitutional History 1218–2000 , State Archives of the Canton of Zurich, Chronos, Zurich 2000, p. 82.
  2. ↑ swissinfo.ch: Swiss guillotine as a showpiece , June 30, 2003
  3. ↑ a b The last execution in Switzerland , Sissach executioner's museum. Report from the NZZ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) from October 22, 1950.
  4. ↑ It is a typographical error, the name of the executed person was Matthias Muff .
  5. ↑ a b c Judging and Punishing. Information folder for teachers  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Historical Museum, Lucerne, September 2011, vol. 2, p. 7.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.historischesmuseum.lu.ch  
  6. ↑ Brief Zurich Constitutional History 1218–2000 (PDF) , State Archives of the Canton of Zurich, Chronos, Zurich 2000, p. 82.
  7. ↑ Device description on todesstrafe.ch
  8. ↑ History of the guillotine on todesstrafe.ch
  9. ^ State Archives of the Canton and City of Geneva: La guillotine (French)
  10. ↑ Peter Holenstein : "I died another one" . In: Die Weltwoche , edition 19/2015.
  11. ↑ Pil Crauer: The life and death of the unworthy servant of God and murderous vagabond Paul Irniger . Lenos, Basel 1983, ISBN 3-85787-095-8 . Page 267
  12. ↑ Gustav Loretan, speech before the Grand Council in: Bulletin des seances du Grand-Conseil du Canton du Valais, Session ordinaire de mai 1884 ( Memento of the original from November 1, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , P. 88. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.vs.ch
  13. ↑ Carlo von Ah: The last cut . Pro Libro Luzern 2010, ISBN 978-3-905927-13-9 , pp. 337–339.
  14. ^ Rolf Löffler: Shot on Hitlerplatz . In: Bieler Tagblatt , September 11, 2012
  15. ^ Peter Noll : traitor to the country. 17 CVs and death sentences 1942–1944 . ISBN 978-3719306816 .
  16. ↑ The history of the death penalty in Switzerland on todesstrafe.ch