Choking algae
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The choking alga is a device for execution , where killing occurs by hanging and choking on the neck. The choking algae was used particularly frequently in Austria between 1870 and 1950 , but it was also used in Hungary and Czechoslovakia during this period and afterwards .
Mode of action
The choking alga is based on the same principle as the Spanish garrotte ; In contrast to the garrotte, which was also used as an instrument for torture , the choking algae was used exclusively for execution. Instruments of this type have been around since the 17th century, and by the time of the Thirty Years War the strangling alga was known as one of several forms of gallows . The hanging was done on an alignment post with a rope attached to a hook at the top. The executioner stood on a dais behind the stake . At the execution two assistants brought the death row inmate, put his back to the stake, and lifted him up. At that moment the executioner put the noose around his neck; the Viennese executioner Josef Lang used a short double cord made of hemp , which was very soft and soaped. At the command of the executioner, the assistants then pushed the delinquent by the shoulders towards the ground. The blood supply was immediately interrupted. The delinquent remained hanging on the stake for at least an hour after the execution, then he was autopsied and buried .
history
In the Danube Monarchy , the choking alga had been the state-approved execution instrument since 1870 at the latest and was used until the end of 1918, and then in some of its successor states. According to a drawing, the last public execution of Georg Ratkay would have been carried out with such a device on May 30, 1868, after he had been sentenced to death on May 20 in an ordinary process . The verdict was announced to him on May 28th. The choke algae gained particular fame through the Viennese executioner Josef Lang . He disapproved of the Anglo-Saxon method of hanging by falling with a long rope through the opening bottom flap ( long drop ) because, in his opinion, it caused unnecessarily great and long-lasting agony. Josef Lang considered an execution lasting more than a minute to be a “raw slaughter” and was convinced that the strangulation with his method “does not cause the least pain”, in fact it induces “pleasant feelings”. As evidence, he cited an attempt at strangulation which he had once had his assistants carry out on him. It was not uncommon for photographs of the executioner and his assistants to be made as “souvenirs” after executions, such as the photo of Josef Lang with Cesare Battisti , who was executed by him on July 12, 1916 .
During the First World War , this method of execution was often used by the Austro-Hungarian army , but it was a matter of civil law executions, which were directed against actual or supposed enemies such as partisans , saboteurs , etc. However, since a platform was not always available, it was replaced by a simple wooden ladder behind the alignment post.
Between 1918 and 1933 the death penalty was abolished in Austria, but was during the corporate state under Engelbert Dollfuss on 11 November 1933 the martial law reintroduced. The executioner was now Johann Lang , the nephew of the imperial executioner who had died in the meantime. A carriage driver and a market trader acted as helpers of Johann Lang during executions . The first convict to be hanged in Graz on January 11, 1934, was Peter Strauss , who had been convicted of arson . A large number of executions for politically motivated offenses followed during the year; In June 1934, a change in the law reintroduced the death penalty for due process. Over 40 people were executed in Austria between 1933 and 1938 .
After the Second World War the choking algae continued to be used, most recently on March 24, 1950, when the robbery murderer Johann Trnka was executed in the Vienna Regional Criminal Court . It was also the last execution under Austrian law.
The execution method was also used in Germany during National Socialism. This is known from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg near Berlin .
literature
- Harald Seyrl (ed.): The memories of the Austrian executioner. Extended, annotated and illustrated new edition of the memoirs of the kk executioner Josef Lang, published in 1920 , Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-901697-02-0 (note: good details on Lang and also pictures with the choking algae ).
- Anton Holzer : The executioner's smile. The unknown war against the civilian population 1914–1918. Primus, Darmstadt 2008, ISBN 978-3-89678-375-2 .
- Anton Holzer: The other front. Photography and propaganda in the First World War. Primus, Darmstadt 2007, ISBN 3-89678-338-6 .
Web links
- www.todesstrafe.at
- Photo of a choking gait , which was also used in the Vienna Regional Criminal Court from 1933 to 1938
