Jules-Henri Desfourneaux

Jules-Henri Desfourneaux (born December 17, 1877 in Bar-le-Duc , † October 1, 1951 in Paris ) was the acting executioner of France from 1939 to 1951 .

The years up to 1939

Jules-Henri Desfourneaux came from a family that had produced executioners as early as the 17th century. As a mechanic for boat engines, he traveled to Russia and India at a young age . One of his cousins, Léopold Desfourneaux, worked as an assistant to executioner Anatole Deibler . At the end of 1908 he offered Jules-Henri Desfourneaux a position as a second-class assistant, which he accepted without giving up his position as a mechanic at the same time. Since 1871, all beheadings in France have been carried out by an “exécuteur en chef des arrêts criminels”. He had to appoint a total of two first-class assistants and three second-class assistants. In addition to the executioner himself, a first-class assistant and two second-class assistants participated in an execution . In the calendar years 1906, 1907 and 1908 there were no executions in France, as the abolition of the death penalty was discussed and President Armand Fallières pardoned all those sentenced to death during this period. When, on December 8, 1908, a bill to abolish the death penalty, introduced by the then Justice Minister Aristide Briand , was rejected by a majority in the Chamber of Deputies, executions began again. Desfourneaux's first assignment as an assistant took place at the first execution after this moratorium on January 11, 1909 in Béthune , where four bandits were beheaded. On April 17, 1909, he married Georgette Rogis, who also came from a well-known executioner dynasty and was a niece of Deibler's wife. A cousin of Georgette Rogis was André Obrecht , who joined Deibler's team as an assistant in 1922.

During the First World War Desfourneaux was drafted into the French army , and from 1919 he worked again as Deibler's assistant. The suicide of their only son René (* 1910) in 1934 weighed heavily on Desfourneaux and his wife and led to depression and alcoholism . On January 14, 1938 Desfourneaux carried out an execution himself for the first time as a representative for the sick Deibler. He triggered the guillotine for the second time on February 4, 1939, two days after Anatole Deibler died suddenly and unexpectedly. With effect from March 15, 1939, Jules-Henri Desfourneaux was then appointed executioner of the Republic.

Executioner from 1939 to 1951

Desfourneaux's first execution as acting exécuteur en chef took place on May 2, 1939 in Rouen of 17-year-old André Vitel, who had committed the robbery of his brother's wife. This was the last execution in France of anyone under the age of 18. After another execution, the last publicly executed beheading in France took place on June 17, 1939, of the German national and six-time murderer Eugen Weidmann in Versailles . A spectator secretly made a film of this execution. Here Desfourneaux can be seen how, after the delinquent was thrown down by two second-class assistants, he leverages the upper bezel on the folding board and releases the ax. Immediately after the head has been separated, the two second-class assistants tip the body sideways into the waiting chest, while the first-class assistant, André Obrecht, who does the decapitation from a few meters away (so as not to be stained by the splashing blood) on the side of the head of the Had observed delinquents, hurried to the guillotine to get the head of the executed man from 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. Since there were unworthy folk festival-like scenes in the vicinity of Weidmann's execution, the Ministry of Justice prohibited public executions. From then on, all executions were carried out behind prison walls so that they could not be seen by the public.

From 1941 onwards, women were executed again for the first time since 1887. In 1943 a woman and a man were executed for performing abortions on women . Also in the years of the Second World War, French courts that collaborated with the German occupiers and the Vichy regime imposed death sentences on political opponents, above all communists and members of the Resistance . The judgments were carried out the following day with no real possibility of appeal. After Desfourneaux executed five Resistance members in 1943, his assistants Obrecht and the Martin brothers left the team temporarily for reasons of conscience and protest. They accused Desfourneaux of being too compliant to the collaborators . On the morning of April 30, 1944, Desfourneaux beheaded nine men, one after the other, in Paris, whose only "crime" was being communists.

After that, from June 1944 to January 1947, i.e. until the early days of the Fourth Republic , the vast majority of executions in France took place by shooting. There were only three beheadings during this period, the first of which was against serial killer Marcel Petiot on May 25, 1946 in Paris. It was not until April 1947 that all executions under the Code pénal were again carried out by the guillotine .

Jules-Henri Desfourneaux died at the age of 73 on October 1, 1951 in Paris. In the 42 years of his time as an assistant executioner and executioner, he participated in 200 to 250 beheadings. André Obrecht was his successor.

Known delinquents or unusual cases

• André Vitel (May 2, 1939, Rouen ), Robbery and Murder; Last person under the age of 18 executed in France; 17 years old at the time of the commission and the execution
• Elisabeth Ducourneau (January 8, 1941, Bordeaux ), murder of her mother and her husband; first executed woman since 1887
• Marie-Louise Giraud (July 30, 1943, Paris), illegally performing abortions. The case was the basis for Claude Chabrol's feature film Eine Frauensache (1988) .
• Désiré Piogé (October 22, 1943, Paris), illegal abortion
• 1941–1944: execution of 19 men after death sentence for "communism"
• 1943: execution of 5 members of the Resistance
• Marcel Petiot (May 25, 1946, Paris), 27 recorded murders
• René Le Louarn (February 15, 1949, Saint-Brieuc ), sneaked up to women and girls in churches several times and strangled them, killing a 13-year-old girl
• Germaine Leloy-Godefroy (April 21, 1949, Angers ), murder of her husband; last woman executed in France

Web links

• Illustrated biography of Jules-Henri Desfourneaux on site.voila.fr (French)

predecessor	Office	successor
Anatole Deibler	Executioner of France 1939–1951	André Obrecht