Guillotine

:This article is about the execution machine. See paper guillotine for the office equipment. See Guillotine (metalwork) for the metal-working tool, and cloture for the parliamentary motion.

Related Topics:
Paper guillotine - Guillotine (metalwork) - Cloture

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The guillotine is a machine used for the mechanized application of capital punishment by decapitation.

Related Topics:
Capital punishment - Decapitation

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It consists of a tall upright frame from which is suspended a heavy trapezoidal blade (approx 40kg). The blade is hauled to the top of the frame on a stout cord and held in place while the victim have their head placed in a restraining bar. The cord is released and the heavy blade falls a distance of 2.3m, severing the head. (Heights and weights are the French standards.)

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Guillotine-like devices, (gibbets), existed and were used for executions in Britain before the French Revolution, and there are accounts of similar devices in Italy and Switzerland dating back to the 16th century. However, the French developed the machine further and became the first nation to use it as a standard execution method. On April 25 1792, highwayman Nicolas J. Pelletier became the first person executed by guillotine.

Related Topics:
Gibbet - Britain - French Revolution - Italy - Switzerland - 16th century - April 25 - 1792 - Highwayman

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Antoine Louis, member of Académie Chirurgical, took the first practical steps towards the creation of the guillotine. It was from his design that the first guillotine was built. The guillotine was first called "Louison" or "Louisette", but the press preferred Guillotine as it had a nicer ring to it. Antoine Louis was born in Metz 1723, and he died in Paris in 1792.

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It takes its name from Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a French doctor and member of the Revolutionary National Assembly, on whose suggestion it was introduced. Dr. Guillotin proposed the use of a mechanical device to carry out the death penalty. The descendants of Dr. Guillotin have since changed their surname because of the association with a method of execution. Guillotin died on the 26th of May in 1814, not on the guillotine, but of a carbuncle in his shoulder. On October 8 1795 a warrant for an arrest was issued against Dr Guillotin. (This warrant is on display at Le Musée de la Préfecture de Police in Paris)

Related Topics:
Joseph-Ignace Guillotin - Doctor - National Assembly - Carbuncle - October 8 - 1795

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The basis for his recommendation is believed to have been his perception that it was a humane form of execution, contrasting with the methods used in pre-revolutionary, ancien régime France. In France, before the guillotine, members of the nobility were beheaded with a sword or axe, while commoners were usually hanged, or more gruesome methods of executions were used (the wheel, burning at the stake, etc.). In case of decapitation, sometimes it took repeated blows to completely sever the head. The family of the victim or the victim themselves would sometimes pay the executioner to ensure that the blade was sharp in order for a quick and relatively painless death. The guillotine was thus perceived to deliver an instantaneous death without risk of misses. Furthermore, having only one method of execution was seen as enforcing the value of equality between citizens. There is however some debate as to the humane nature of the guillotine, as some authorities believe that the victim can remain conscious for up to 30 seconds after decapitation.

Related Topics:
Humane - Ancien régime - France - Nobility - The wheel - Burning at the stake

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During the French Revolution, as many as 20,000 people may have been executed. In France, executions by guillotine were also regarded as a public entertainment that attracted great crowds of spectators.

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The guillotine was from then on the only legal execution method in France until the abolition of the death penalty in 1981, apart from certain crimes against the security of the state, which entailed execution by firing squad.

Related Topics:
Legal execution method in France - 1981 - Firing squad

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The last public execution was of Eugene Weidmann, who was convicted for five murders. His head was chopped off on June 17, 1939 at 4:32 in the afternoon outside the prison Saint-Pierre rue Georges Clemenceau 5 at Versailles, which is now the Palais de Justice. The scandalous behaviour of some of the onlookers on this occasion, as well as the fact it was secretly filmed, caused the authorities to decide that executions in the future were to take place in the prison courtyard. The last execution was of Hamida Djandoubi and took place on September 10, 1977 in Marseille.

Related Topics:
Eugene Weidmann - June 17 - 1939 - Versailles - Hamida Djandoubi - September 10 - 1977 - Marseille

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The guillotine was not, however, a French invention—although Guillotin is often named as its inventor, similar devices have been used in Scotland (see: maiden (beheading)), Italy and Switzerland before 1600. This type of device also has had a history as a farm implement used for killing poultry in Germany, England, and Persia before being introduced as a method of capital punishment.

Related Topics:
Maiden (beheading) - Germany - England - Persia - Capital punishment

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The guillotine is known in German as Fallbeil, "fall-axe", and it has been used in various German states since the 17th century, becoming the usual method of execution in Napoleonic times in many places in Germany. The Nazis employed it extensively: twenty guillotines were in use in Germany and (from 1938) in Austria. They added a unique twist: the condemned persons were executed face up, with their eyes forced open to watch the blade descend. This is similar to how French revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre was said to have been executed at the guillotine during the French Revolution. In Nazi Germany beheading by guillotine was the usual method of executing criminal convicts as opposed to political convicts, who were usually either gassed, hanged or shot. The Nazis have been estimated to have guillotined some 40,000 convicts; twice the number that were beheaded during the French Revolution; for an example see White Rose. Guillotine remained after the WWII as the method of execution in East Germany and Austria until the abolition of capital punishment. Also Sweden has used guillotine before the abolition of capital punishment in 1910.

Related Topics:
Napoleon - Germany - Nazi - Austria - Maximilien Robespierre - French Revolution - White Rose - East Germany - Sweden

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Interestingly, a derivative of the guillotine known as a "Bagel Biter" (the name is a trademark) is commonly used for slicing bagels and other difficult-to-slice breads, and is often known colloquially as a guillotine. However, it uses a wedge-shaped blade instead of the trapezoid-shaped blade used by the real thing.

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