Franz Friedrich Carl Gröpler (22 February 1868,

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; ) is the Capital city, capital of the Germany, German States of Germany, state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is on the Elbe river. Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archbishopric of Mag ...

– 30 January 1946,

) was

Royal Prussian The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918. Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signi ...

executioner An executioner, also known as a hangman or headsman, is an official who effects a sentence of capital punishment on a condemned person. Scope and job The executioner was usually presented with a warrant authorizing or ordering him to ...

() from 1906 to 1937.Blazek (2010). Responsible for carrying out

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence (law), sentence ordering that an offender b ...

in the Prussian provinces, he executed at least 144 people, primarily by beheading with an

axe An axe (; sometimes spelled ax in American English; American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences, see spelling differences) is an implement that has been used for thousands of years to shape, split, a ...

, but also with

guillotine A guillotine ( ) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by Decapitation, beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secur ...

s. Gröpler was one of the most famous executioners in Germany.

Life

Franz Friedrich Carl Gröpler was a child of the railway worker and service man Heinrich Gröpler and his wife Auguste, born Anton, in Magdeburg. He was first a musician, then spent five years as a postal worker. Gröpler learned the horse butcher's trade and business and ran a laundry in Magdeburg named Aegir.

Executioner

He wore a traditional tailcoat, top hat, and white gloves.Blazek (2010), p. 63. Gröpler was first assistant to the main Prussian executioner Lorenz Schwietz. When the Prussian executioner Alwin Engelhardt was dismissed in 1906, Gröpler took over his duties. Together with his successor , Gröpler was one of the last executioners in Germany performing executions by beheading with an axe. Depending on local circumstances he also operated the guillotine. Once Gröpler said before an execution to a prison officer: "Well, ... you passed an ugly night in the cell. Or don't you believe in God? I – yes! Otherwise I could not do that. Thou shalt not kill – who sheds blood, his blood shall be shed again – our laws are his (God's) laws –. In this knowledge I fulfill my duties." The prison officer had been on death watch with a man condemned to death in his last night, discussing with him, prior to his decapitation, whether there was any sense in having a clergyman attending executions.

Theodor Lessing Karl Theodor Richard Lessing (8 February 1872 – 31 August 1933) was a German philosopher. He is known for opposing the rise of Hindenburg as president of the Weimar Republic and for his classic on Jewish self-hatred (''Der jüdische Selbsth ...

nicknamed Gröpler, who had executed

Fritz Haarmann Friedrich Heinrich Karl "Fritz" Haarmann (25 October 1879 – 15 April 1925) was a German serial rapist and serial killer, known as the Butcher of Hanover, the Vampire of Hanover and the Wolf Man, who committed the sexual assault, murder, mutil ...

in 1925, "the red judge". In April 1924 Gröpler signed a contract that made him the sole executioner in Northern Germany. In addition to a regular salary of 136

gold mark The German mark ( ; sign: ℳ︁) was the currency of the German Empire, which spanned from 1871 to 1918. The mark was paired with the minor unit of the pfennig (₰); 100 pfennigs were equivalent to 1 mark. The mark was on the gold standar ...

s per month, he was paid 60 gold marks for every execution, and 50 gold marks were paid to each of his agents. At the end of the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

, Gröpler had only a few execution orders. This only changed with the increasing number of executions since the takeover by the Nazis in 1933. Gröpler renewed his annual contract with a salary of 1,500

Reichsmark The (; sign: ℛ︁ℳ︁; abbreviation: RM) was the currency of Germany from 1924 until the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, and in the American, British and French occupied zones of Germany, until 20 June 1948. The Reichsmark was then replace ...

s per year and a fee of 50 Reichsmark per execution. That Gröpler performed the

Nazi salute The Nazi salute, also known as the Hitler salute, or the ''Sieg Heil'' salute, is a gesture that was used as a greeting in Nazi Germany. The salute is performed by extending the right arm from the shoulder into the air with a straightened han ...

during the executions at each interim report earned him an admonition to refrain from such practices. On 2 July 1931 the 48-year-old German

serial killer A serial killer (also called a serial murderer) is a person who murders three or more people,An offender can be anyone: * * * * * (This source only requires two people) with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separat ...

Peter Kürten Peter Kürten (; 26 May 1883 – 2 July 1931) was a German serial killer, known as The Vampire of Düsseldorf and the Düsseldorf Monster, who committed a series of murders and sexual assaults between February and November 1929 in the city of Dü ...

, who once described himself as the ''Vampire of Düsseldorf'' and as ''a wild animal'', was executed in the

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

prison, Klingelpütz, with the '' Fallbeil'' (guillotine). The execution was carried out by Carl Gröpler. The ''Fallbeil'', that he had brought with him from Magdeburg, had not been used for five years.Blazek (2010), p. 75. ''

Time Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...

'' quoted on 13 July 1931: "Herr Groepler, a stolid individual whose profession forces him to lead a rather unsocial existence, left his cosy home in Magdeburg last week with a bag of tools and a coil of new rope. He took the train to the Prussian State Prison at Klingelpuetz, near Cologne. In the prison yard he disappeared into a dusty, dilapidated shed. Prisoners tense in their cells heard him hammering, hammering, filing metal all day long." One of the last executions with the axe were the executions of the Baroness Benita von Falkenhayn and her friend

Renate von Natzmer Renate von Natzmer (1898 in Borkow (Kreis Schlawe, Pomerania) – February 18, 1935 in Berlin) was a German noblewoman who worked for the army during the Weimar Republic and Third Reich. She also worked for Polish intelligence. In the early ...

. The two had been sentenced by the People's Court on charges of espionage and were beheaded by Gröpler on 18 February 1935 in

Plötzensee Prison Plötzensee Prison (, JVA Plötzensee) is a men's prison in the Charlottenburg-Nord locality of Berlin with a capacity for 577 prisoners, operated by the State of Berlin judicial administration. The detention centre established in 1868 has a lon ...

. Carl Gröpler is credited with at least 144 executions in his 30 years of service. In 1937, he was forced to retire. He was replaced by his assistant, the

knacker A knacker (), knackerman or knacker man is a person who removes and clears animal carcasses (dead, dying, injured) from private farms or public highways and renders the collected carcasses into by-products such as fats, tallow ( yellow gre ...

Ernst Reindel from

Gommern Gommern () is a town in the Jerichower Land district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is situated approximately southeast of Magdeburg. On January 1, 2005, the municipalities Dannigkow, Dornburg, Karith, Ladeburg, Leitzkau, Menz, Nedlitz, Vehlitz a ...

Death

In 1945, Carl Gröpler was arrested by the Soviet military at his residence in Magdeburg. The arrest was presumably based on the 1934 execution of four

communists Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, d ...

, which Gröpler had performed in Hamburg Remand Prison. Gröpler died in custody on 30 January 1946.

Notable executions

*27 August 1921: Friedrich Schumann, serial killer *15 April 1925:

, serial killer *17 November 1925: Fritz Angerstein, mass murderer *2 July 1931:

, serial killer *18 February 1935: Benita von Falkenhayn and

, spies *23 May 1936:

Adolf Seefeldt Adolf Gustav Seefeldt (6 March 1870 – 23 May 1936), known as The Sandman, was a German serial killer. Life Early life Born as the seventh and youngest child of his parents, Adolf was initially trained as a locksmith, then as a watchmaker ...

, serial killer

External links

"Prussia's executioner, Max Groepler of Magdeburg, who for 23 years has wielded the ax in the name of justice, yesterday resigned his grim office"
'' The Hammond Times'', 18 December 1936.

Sources

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gropler, Carl 1868 births 1946 deaths German executioners People from Magdeburg German people who died in Soviet detention German prisoners of war in World War II held by the Soviet Union