Paul Irniger

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Paul Irniger during his trial in Zug, July 14, 1939

Paul Irniger (born November 4, 1913 in Goldau , † August 25, 1939 in Zug , entitled to live in Niederrohrdorf AG ) was a Swiss delinquent . He was the last person in the canton of Zug and the penultimate person to be sentenced to death and executed in Switzerland after a civil criminal trial .

Life

Irniger's mother had several criminal records for fraud and other offenses. After the early death of his father, the six-year-old grew up in the Walterswil children's home . As a teenager, he tried several times, unsuccessfully, to enter a monastery . After working as a laborer in Baden , he began an apprenticeship as a technical draftsman , which he broke off after a few months. He went to Interlaken , where he found a job in the Hotel Beau-Rivage, but started a small fire there . Subsequently, he was admitted to the compulsory education institution in Aarburg , where he learned to be a carpenter . After his release he graduated from the recruit school in Lucerne .

On December 5, 1933, Irniger took the train to Zug and from there took a taxi in the direction of Baar . He shot the taxi driver near Baar and fled with a loot of 60 francs. Shortly afterwards he was arrested for fraud and sent to the Sedel prison in Lucerne. Irniger managed to escape; he went to Einsiedeln , where he disguised as a Trappist priest read masses and made confessions in various churches. After the imposture was discovered , Irniger was imprisoned for a few months; a connection to the murder in Baar was not recognized.

After his release from prison, Irniger went to Ticino , where he met a woman and tried his hand at selling vacuum cleaners . He also committed various break-ins . On August 9, 1937, he was arrested in Rapperswil and taken to the police station. There he shot a police officer and fled towards Lake Zurich , with various people chasing him. While fleeing, Irniger also shot one of his pursuers, but was then caught by the angry population.

Irniger was brought to St. Gallen , where, in addition to the two homicides committed in Rapperswil, he also confessed to Baar's murder. He was brought to justice and sentenced to death in April 1938 for the murders in Rapperswil, but pardoned by the Grand Council of the Canton of St. Gallen and given a life sentence .

Guillotine set up for Irniger's execution in the courtyard of the Zug penal institution

Since criminal law in Switzerland was a matter for the cantons before 1942, Irniger could only be convicted in St. Gallen for the crimes committed in that canton. Irniger was also sentenced to death in the canton of Zug in the trial of Baar's murder. He withdrew the appeal to the higher court himself and waived a petition for clemency , so that the judgment became final in the first instance. Irniger was then executed on August 25, 1939 in the Zug penitentiary with the guillotine borrowed from Lucerne .

Afterlife

On June 9, 1983, at the request of Irniger's son , the Federal Supreme Court banned the broadcasting of a radio documentary on the Irniger case with reference to the privacy protection of his immediate relatives, which would be much more impaired by spreading the case on the radio than by other forms of publication.

The Canton of Zug received letters of application from 186 volunteers who volunteered to be executioners. The psychiatrist Boris Pritzker conducted extensive interviews with 115 of them. The anonymous executioner selected from these volunteers and known as Arthur X. later fell ill with paranoid schizophrenia and died in 1960 in the Burghölzli psychiatric clinic . Pritzker's conversations with the executioner candidates were first published in 1993. On the basis of the application letters and Pritzker's interviews, the play "The Last Executioner" was performed in Zug in 1998.

literature

  • 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 .
  • Erwin A. Lang : Paul Irniger: his life and his crime . EA Lang, Zurich 1939 OCLC 731899912 .
  • Boris Pritzker, Marthi Pritzker-Ehrlich; Andreas Pritzker (ed.): Swiss executioner candidates 1938/1939 . Peter Lang, Bern 1999, ISBN 3-906763-27-7 (Revised edition of: Swiss Executioner Candidates, 1938-1939, by Boris Pritzker . Haag + Herchen, Frankfurt am Main 1993).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The murderer who wanted to be a priest In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung of August 17, 2020
  2. ↑ The Death of the Taxi Murderer , article in the Observer
  3. ↑ The last beheading in Switzerland (PDF; 1.5 MB). NZZ of October 22, 1950
  4. ↑ BGE  109 II 353
  5. ↑ Martin Illi: Executioner. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  6. ↑ Arthur X: Des Henker's Fall ( Memento of the original from August 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . The Swiss Observer , September 17, 1999 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.beobachter.ch
  7. ^ Boris Pritzker: Swiss executioner candidates 1938/1939. ed. by M. Pritzker-Ehrlich, Haag and Herchen, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-86137-019-0 .
  8. ↑ The last executioner on the website of the Zuger Spiillüüt theater company .
personal data
SURNAME Irniger, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss delinquent
DATE OF BIRTH November 4, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Goldau
DATE OF DEATH August 25, 1939
Place of death train