The guillotine from Kiev Museum of the War

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10437321@N00/357518904/

Kiev(Ukraine)- exposition about nazi concentration camps.
I suppose the guillotine is probably original and taken by Russians from Germany.
Michael .... What is your opinion?

I found this photo a month ago and started researching it. It is actually the original Munich fallbeil that both Franz and Johann Reichhart used before WW2. You can see a picture of it on my website. The picture is from 1925 or 1926. The shape of the bascule is un-mistakable and different from any other fallbeil I have seen.
http://boisdejustice.com/History/Reichhart_Fallbeil.JPG
How it ended up in Kiev is a mystery...

Congratulations Michael ! The fallbeil from Munich is doubtless the same guillotine as exposed now in Kiev. Probably a Red Army's booty from Germany.
I found one more photo:
http://www.mykiev.info/pics/vov-museum_4_full.jpg

piotr a écrit:

Congratulations Michael ! The fallbeil from Munich is doubtless the same guillotine as exposed now in Kiev. Probably a Red Army's booty from Germany.
I found one more photo:
http://www.mykiev.info/pics/vov-museum_4_full.jpg

hi guys!
no, definitely not! it's not the munich machine model "mannhardt", build in the 19th century, because the "munich fallbeil" was thrown into the river isar by american soldiers just after the war!
but of course, the machine in kiew was certainly made after the same prototype, if not even by the workshop of johann mannhardt in munich.
a bientot ici,
d

I think it is unlikely that it is not the original Munich fallbeil. The shape of the bascule and the adjustable foot rest match too exactly for it to be a second fallbeil similar to the old Munich machine. I don't think there were multiple identical machines in Germany prior to the Tegel design. If you compare the older fallbeils from Ludwigsberg, Wolfenbuettel, Brandenburg and Munich you will see they are similar but different enough not to be mistaken for eachother.

I have heard the story of the fallbeil being thrown in the river by US troops, but it is unlikely that the Munich fallbeil from 1945 was the old 1870s machine as the Nazi execution centers standardized on the new Tegel machines. It is more likely that the old machine was retired and used in a concentration camp where the Kiev museum states it was found, while the US troops threw its replacement, a Tegel-type machine, into the river.

A fallbeil similar to the one now in the Great Patriotic War Museum was transferred from Bruchsal Prison to Plotzensee on Feb.17, 1937 following RMJ Gurtner's order of Dec. 28, 1936 that all future executions be carried out by fallbeil (some were still carried out with hand axe).
I have doubts that the Kiev machine is the same one in Kiev.
Do you have information on Mannhardt?

In May 1944 yet another style fallbeil was transfered from Strasburg to Bruchsal. That machine was used to execute 55 people between June 1944 and January 1945. That is a rather sophisticated all-metal machine with a metal bascule.

The Plotzensee machine seen in a 1943 picture is definitely not the Munich machine. It is a completely different design and has a blade shield and no bascule. I could be a Tegel machine, but the photo is not complete enough to tell for sure.

I don't know how it could have landed in Kiev but because of the really unusual carved wood bascule, the adjustable footrest, the soft fabric shield, the shape and location of the side handles on the bascule, the knob on the lunette, the shape of the legs, the bolting pattern, the shape of the blade carriage, either this IS the Munich fallbeil or it is an EXACT duplicate of it. I have 7 or 8 different pictures of that machine taken between 1890 and 1929. Considering that it was built in the 1870s and used by successive executioners in Bavaria it is not likely that a second one identical to it existed and remained hidden and un-modified for 70 years only to appear in Kiev after the war.

I believe it would be more productive to research HOW it ended up in Kiev. This is a German fallbeil and it came to Kiev from Germany, why wouldn't it have come from Munich since it looks like an exact duplicate of it and the Munich guillotine hasn't surfaced anywhere else?

Rottger, is there any reason to believe that the Munich guillotine was still in Munich in 1937? When were the Tegel machines produced? Could the machine actually have already been in Bruchsal in 1937, moved to Plozensee, then to an unspecified concentration camp where it was found by the Russians?

La discussion portant sur les Fallbeil, je viens de trouver sur le Web une page a propos d'un film de 2001: "Leo and Claire", qui raconte la relation d'un juif aise avec une "pure aryenne" a l'epoque nazie, relation qui se termine par l'execution du personnage masculin, apparemment sur la Fallbeil. Quelqu'un at-il vu ce film et sait-il si l'on y voit une machine authentique? Il semble que ce soit inspire d'une histoire authentique.
Piotr, any comment about this story?

Henri a écrit:

La discussion portant sur les Fallbeil, je viens de trouver sur le Web une page a propos d'un film de 2001: "Leo and Claire", qui raconte la relation d'un juif aise avec une "pure aryenne" a l'epoque nazie, relation qui se termine par l'execution du personnage masculin, apparemment sur la Fallbeil. Quelqu'un at-il vu ce film et sait-il si l'on y voit une machine authentique? Il semble que ce soit inspire d'une histoire authentique.
Piotr, any comment about this story?

I don't know that film but this was true story :-(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katzenberger_Trial
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/26066/edition_id/504/format/html/displaystory.html
http://www.randomhouse.com/images/dyn/cover/?source=9781586420703&height=300&maxwidth=170

http://www.odeonfilm.de/leoundclaire/index.html

Boisdejustice a écrit:

Rottger, is there any reason to believe that the Munich guillotine was still in Munich in 1937? When were the Tegel machines produced? Could the machine actually have already been in Bruchsal in 1937, moved to Plozensee, then to an unspecified concentration camp where it was found by the Russians?

It is quite possible the old fallbeil which you refer to as the "Munich" fallbeil was still in use in Bavaria in 1937. With the RMJ decree that mechanized beheading be the standard throughout the Reich, a study was undertaken to determine the condition of extant fallbeils in the interest of repairing those repairable (most were in bad shape). Simultaneously others were built, some by private craftsmen, some by machine tool builder and some in the Tegel Prison workshops. Tegels were being built until about 1943-44. I know of only two fallbeils reported to have been used in the camps.

The post by Piotr "for Fallbeil builders" appears to have an incredible document: The design drawing of the Munich fallbeil! It is a pdf document so I have trouble exporting the text to a web-translator but some of the answers we have been looking for are certainly there. There is no date on the document itself neither is there a fabricator name. But there are hand notations, especially around the missing gutter and canvas shield as if the constructor lightly noted something he was going to add.

Note that drawing calls for a flat bascule plank. Apparently the craftman added the deeply carved cradle that you can see on the Munich and Kiev pictures.

There is no doubt however that this is the famous Munich/Kiev/Bruchsal machine.

Boisdejustice a écrit:

The post by Piotr "for Fallbeil builders" appears to have an incredible document: The design drawing of the Munich fallbeil! It is a pdf document so I have trouble exporting the text to a web-translator but some of the answers we have been looking for are certainly there. There is no date on the document itself neither is there a fabricator name. But there are hand notations, especially around the missing gutter and canvas shield as if the constructor lightly noted something he was going to add.

Note that drawing calls for a flat bascule plank. Apparently the craftman added the deeply carved cradle that you can see on the Munich and Kiev pictures.

There is no doubt however that this is the famous Munich/Kiev/Bruchsal machine.

Hi Michael

link to the html(for web translator)
http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:B32oEZb0kpEJ:www.gda.bayern.de/publik/nachr/pdf/an52.pdf+schw%C3%A4bischen+Museum+guillotine&hl=pl&ct=clnk&cd=2&client=opera
BTW-I found more information about Munich-Kiev fallbeill ;I'll post them today evening

The guillotine "from Kiev" earlier was in Breslau(now Wroclaw) until May 1945(?)
in German and later Nazi prison ) at Kleczkowska street.
869 people were murdered there.
"In Breslau gab es eine Guillotine, unter der Bürger Breslaus, die sich dem Festungsbau verweigerten, aber auch Antifaschisten und Häftlinge des KZs ermordet wurden. Diese Guillotine steht heute im Kiewer Museum des 2. Weltkrieges."
http://www.sozialistische-gedenkstaetten.de/A_Polen/Wroclaw/geschichte/Geschichte.shtml


Below is poor quality picture guillotine from Wroc?aw
http://img115.imageshack.us/my.php?image=16476005io1.jpg
I suppose: Munich fallbeil=Breslau fallbeil=guillotine from Kiev(captured by Red Army)
Prison in Wroc?aw today:
http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grafika:Wiezienie_Wroclaw_od_strony_Reymonta.jpg

The inclined rear bascule leg is unique among the fallbeils so even with the poor picture quality I am pretty sure it is the same machine.

Are we talking about the War Museum situated below the huge statue of Mother Motherland in the Kiev Memorial Park? I visited it 5 years ago and do not remember seeing this fallbeil.

Alecto a écrit:

Are we talking about the War Museum situated below the huge statue of Mother Motherland in the Kiev Memorial Park? I visited it 5 years ago and do not remember seeing this fallbeil.

https://www.dark-tourism.com/index.php/glossary/15-countries/individual-chapters/484-rodina-mat-a-war-museum-kiev


"The central exhibit in the first room is a guillotine, complete with the basket to catch the head. It is integrated into a larger arrangement with barbed wire and striped concentration camp clothes. To the right is a large diorama on the topic of concentration camps, involving the slogan “Jedem das Seine” from Buchenwald (rather than the better known “Arbeit macht frei”). More on the camps and the Holocaust is displayed in several glass display cabinets, including items such as small children's shoes and camp clothes. On the left a gallows throws a sinister shadow onto the wall. "
????

Thanks Piotr, that's indeed the museum I visited. For personal reasons, I didn't check the concentration camp part of the exhibits. That's why I missed the fallbeil.

Alecto a écrit:

Thanks Piotr, that's indeed the museum I visited. For personal reasons, I didn't check the concentration camp part of the exhibits. That's why I missed the fallbeil.

Fallbeill is now in Kiev, but the blade in Wroclaw museum(Poland)

I see, thanks!
I wonder why it was dismantled. The blade looks in good condition.