I
chose the Gallows as the Weapon of the Fortnight as on this date, October 16,
1946, The Nuremberg executions took place, shortly after the conclusion
of the Nuremberg Trials. Ten prominent members of the political and military
leadership of Nazi Germany were executed by hanging: Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick,
Alfred Jodl, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Wilhelm Keitel, Joachim von Ribbentrop,
Alfred Rosenberg, Fritz Sauckel, Arthur Seyss-Inquart, and Julius Streicher.
Information
is from Wikipedia.
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Franz Strasser, former NSDAP-Kreisleiter
NSDAP of Kreis Kaplitz, was sentenced to death by hanging during the Dachau
Trials for killing five American POW (downed airmen). Dachau File Number: US017
Strasser on January 2, 1946, in the War Criminals Prison No. 1 in Landsberg,
Germany, shortly before his execution. German Catholic priest Karl
Morgenschweis is praying for him. Morgenschweis was the catholic priest at
Landsberg jail. See also United States vs. Franz Strasser, Case No. 8-27.
This photograph was taken by US Army photographers on behalf of the Office of
Chief of Counsel for War Crimes (OCCWC).
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A
gallows (or scaffold) is a frame, typically wooden, used for execution
by hanging, or as a means of torture before execution, as was used when being hanged,
drawn and quartered. The gallows took its form from the Roman Furca when
Constantine the Great abolished crucifixion.
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Gallows in Tombstone Courthouse State
Historic Park, Tombstone, AZ. Taken 8/12/03 by Pretzelpaws with a Canon 10D
camera and cropped using the Gimp.
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Forms of hanging
A gallows can take several forms.
·
the simplest form (as often used in the game "Hangman") resembles an inverted
"L" (or a Greek or "Г"), with a single upright and a
horizontal beam to which the rope noose
would be attached.
·
the horizontal crossbeam is supported at both ends.
·
temporary gallows.
·
the infamous Tyburn gallows was triangular in plan, with
three uprights and three crossbeams, allowing up to 24 men and women to be
executed simultaneously when all three sides were used.
Occasionally, an improvised gallows is used,
usually by hanging the condemned from a tree or street light. Hangings from such improvised
gallows are usually lynchings rather than
judicial executions.
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In use: execution of Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell,
David Herold, and George Atzerodt, convicted of conspiracy in
the assassination
of Abraham Lincoln, on a gallows constructed for the occasion
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Types
Permanent
Gallows
may be permanent to act as a deterrent and grim symbol of the power of high
justice (the French word for gallows, potence, stems from the Latin word
potentia, meaning "power"). Many old prints of European cities
show such a permanent gallows erected on a prominent hill outside the walls, or
more commonly near the castle or other seat of justice. In the modern era the
gallows were often installed inside a prison; freestanding on a scaffold in the
yard, erected at ground level over a pit, enclosed in a small shed of stone,
brick or wood, built into the gallery of a prison wing (with beam in brackets
on opposite walls), or in a purpose-built execution suite of rooms within the
wing and close to the condemned cell.
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A view of the Gallows in Rutland County
Museums Poultry Hall
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Temporary
Gallows
can also be temporary. In some of the cases, they were even moved to the
location of the crime. In England, pirates were typically executed using a
temporary gallows, at low tide in the intertidal zone, then left for the sea to
wash over them during the following high tides.
The only
surviving New Drop gallows in the UK are in Rutland County Museum. The gallows
were portable and were set up at the gaol when needed. These gallows were first
used in 1813 to hang two burglars. The New Drop design was not very effective
as the drop was too short to break the neck cleanly.
Portable
If
a crime took place inside, e.g., a building, gallows may be erected—and
the criminal hanged—at the front door. In some cases of multiple offenders it
was not uncommon to erect multiple temporary gallows, with one noose per
condemned criminal. In one case a condemned strangled to death in agony for
forty minutes until he finally died from asphyxiation.
Horse and cart
Hanging
people from early gallows sometimes involved fitting the noose around the
person's neck while he or she was on a ladder or in a horse-drawn cart underneath.
Removing the ladder or driving the cart away left the person dangling by the
neck to slowly strangle. Later, a "scaffold" with a trap-door tended
to be used, so victims dropped down and died quickly from a broken neck rather
than through strangulation, especially if extra weights were fixed to their
ankles.
During
the era of public execution in London, England, a prominent gallows stood at Tyburn,
close to the site of later, standing Connaught Square. Later executions
occurred outside Newgate Gaol, now the Old Bailey.
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