Imperial Valley press., 1914-04-21
MOVEMENT BEGUN TO
ABOLISH AXE IN GERMANY

(By United Press Staff Correspondent
Berlin, April 21.-Agitation has
been started in Germany to abolish
the axe and the block. OF all civilized
and cultured peoples, Germany is the
only country in the world today which
has retained and still clings to this
ancient form Of executing the death
sentence of the law. Even Russia, so
often characterized as benighted, has
adopted hanging, France, often term
ed the most enlightened nation, also
still clings to its traditionally grew
some beheadings in preference to the
less spectacular and more refined
form of hanging, adopted by the
greater portion of the civilized world,
and to electrocution in vogue in the
United States. But France makes
some claim for refinement in the trag-
edy of human life by the fact that
it executes the laws sentence with a
machine, the mechanical guillotine,
merely set in motion by human agen-
cy. The machine does the rest.
In Germany society still rids itself
of undesirables by the simple though
primitive operation of severing the
head from the body with an axe
swung by brawny arms, just as was
done in England in the dayA9f Mary,
Queen of Scots, Queen Elizabeth and
Henry VIII. The human butcher
block has long been abolished in Eng
land. In Germany the idea has been
and still is to large extent, that ir
order to make human execution a
check upon crime and to prove a
deterrent to murder, it should be sur
rounded with as much terror as pos
sible. Advocates claim that the glis-
tening axe and the blackrobed block
are greater symbol of that terror of
the final act of the law, than the
hangman's moose.
In Germany the law provides that
the sentence of death must be eXecut-
ed through decapitation or beheading.
1t leaves to the different states the
choice between the guillotine and the
headsman. with his axe and block
Many of the German states have Sc
lected the guillotine as the less brut-
slizing and the lesser one of two evils.
The axe and block have played No
such part in German history that
they have in England. Perhaps there
in lies one of the reasons that there
has not been popular revulsion
against their use. For centuries be-
heading by an axe in the hands of
the "public executioner," has been the
legal means of putting condemned
humans to death in Germany. Yet
today it is safe to say that not one
person in 25 if asked, could give the
name of the public eXecutioner. The
same could hardly be said in France
where "Deibler" is a national char
acter.
Prussians of the aggressive ruth
less type who made Prussia the main
factor in the empire, oppose the abol-
ishment of ancient forms of Prussia
execution. They claim that the Ger
man axe and block method is no more
inhuman than the form of executions
in other countries. 1t is contended
by some that the axe is more human
than the rope. In German behead-
ings, the condemned man has little
opportunity to see anything OF his
executioner or of the means employed.
In Berlin the executions take place
in the courtyard of the Ploetzensee
penitentiary.
A large fiat flagstone on which the
headsman stands in order to have
a firm footing marks the spot When
the hour arrives, warders enter the
cell of the condemned man and quick
ly cut away the collar of his shirt
in order to leave the neck hare. He
is led outside. AS he enters the court
yard through ia small door, he is
quickly wheeled about so that his
back is toward the fatal spot and he
faces two officials who read to him
that the sentence of law is about to
be executed.
He is seized by two strong warders
who half carry, half drag him back
wards to the block. This latter, at
least in Berlin, differs from the old
English headnRan block. Instead Of
being forced neel down in 'front.'
3, he e ne