Capital Punishment in Germany - After World War II

After World War II

After World War II, limited executions of common and war criminals were carried out on West German soil. The last common criminal to be executed in the Western Zones under German authority was Richard Schuh (murder and robbery) on February 18, 1949; in West Berlin the last execution was of Berthold Wehmeyer (murder, rape and robbery) on May 12, 1949. Despite the newly-founded Federal Republic's protests, the Western Allied powers continued for some time to inflict the death penalty in their separate jurisdiction, the last war criminals being executed on June 7, 1951 in the Landsberg prison. Until 1990, some "criminal actions against the Allied Occupating Powers' interests" remained capital in West Berlin, being under Allied jurisdiction without complete force of the Basic Law. However, no capital sentences under this authority were carried out.

East Germany abolished the death penalty in 1987. The last execution in East Germany is believed to have been the shooting of Werner Teske, convicted for treason, in 1981; the last execution of a civilian (after 1970, capital punishment was rare and almost exclusively for espionage) was Erwin Hagedorn, for sexually motivated child murder. By then, GDR courts had inflicted the death penalty in 227 cases. 166 were executed, of which 52 for assumedly political crimes (espionage, sabotage etc.), 64 for crimes under Hitler's rule and 44 for common criminality (mostly, murder under aggravated circumstances). Most of these took place during the 1950s; three known executions took place in the 70s and two in the 80s. The guillotine (called the Fallschwertmaschine, "falling sword machine") was used for the last time on former SS doctor Horst Fischer in 1966, after which it was replaced by an "unexpected shot in the neck" (unerwarteten Nahschuss). The GDR was notable for its secrecy about its executions, even when the death warrants had been issued in show trials; death certificates mostly noted but "heart failure".