Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman

http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/2006/04/27/pierrepoint_lasthangman_feature.shtml

This film portrays the life and times of Albert Pierrepoint - Britain's most prolific hangman. From 1932 until he resigned in 1956 he executed some 608 people.

Following World War II, the British occupation authorities conducted a series of trials under British military law of concentration camp staff, and from the initial Belsen Trial, death sentences were handed down in November 1945 to those guards who committed crimes while working at the Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz concentration camps. It was agreed that Pierrepoint would conduct the executions and, so he flew to Germany in December 1945 to execute those sentenced to hanging in the Belsen Trial.

Amongst those that he hanged in Germany were Josef Kramer, Fritz Klein, and Irma Grese.

Josef Kramer, in May 1944, was put in charge of the gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau compound. He was to hold that position until December 1944, when he was transferred out to become the Commandant of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Although it had no gas chambers, Kramer's rule was so harsh that he became known as the 'Beast of Belsen'. At his trial, Kramer testified, "I had no feelings in carrying out these things because I had received an order."

Fritz Klein was a German physician at Auschwitz and then at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He infamously carried out medical experiments on prisoners similar to that of Josef Mengele. Klein famously stated at his trial, "My Hippocratic oath tells me to cut a gangrenous appendix out of the human body. The Jews are the gangrenous appendix of mankind. That's why I cut them out."

Irma Grese was one the most notorious of the female Nazi war criminals. Grese worked at the Nazi concentration camps of Ravensbrück, Auschwitz, and was a warden of the women's section of Bergen-Belsen. In her trial, survivors provided detailed testimony of murders, tortures, and cruelties Grese engaged in during her years at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. They testified to acts of sadism, beatings and arbitrary shootings of prisoners, cruelty of prisoners by her trained dogs, and to her selecting prisoners for the gas chambers. She pled not guilty and used the defense that she was just following orders. She testified that she regarded the inmates of the concentration camps as subhumans and saw nothing wrong in her wartime actions. Irma Grese, at 22, was the youngest woman to die judicially under English law in the 20th century.

Over the next four years, he was to travel to Germany and Austria 25 times to execute 200 war criminals. The press discovered his identity and he became a celebrity, hailed as a sort of war hero, meting out justice to the Nazis.

But by the time he hanged convicted murderer Ruth Ellis in 1955, public sentiments had changed. Ruth Ellis, a nightclub hostess and small-time actress, shot and killed her lover in 1955 when she found out he was cheating on her, for which she was found guilty, given a mandatory death sentence for the crime, and hanged. Ruth Ellis was the last women to be executed in Britain.

There was a significant amount of controversy around her trial, to which she told the Bishop of Stepney, Joost de Blank, just prior to her death, “It is quite clear to me that I was not the person who shot him.” The hanging of Ellis helped strengthen public support for the abolition of the death penalty.

Pierrepoint is often referred to as Britain's last hangman, but this is not true. There were 37 further executions before the abolition of the death penalty for murder in Britain in August 1964. Britain still allows the death penalty for treason, however.

Pierrepoint’s opinion on capital punishment changed along with Britain’s, but he kept his opinions to himself on the topic until his 1974 autobiography, Executioner: Pierrepoint , in which he commented:

“All the men and women whom I have faced at that final moment convince me that in what I have done I have not prevented a single murder. And if death does not work to deter one person, it should not be held to deter any.”

"I have come to the conclusion that executions solve nothing, and are only an antiquated relic of a primitive desire for revenge which takes the easy way and hands over the responsibility for revenge to other people...The trouble with the death penalty has always been that nobody wanted it for everybody, but everybody differed about who should get off.”

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Answer the following questions on a separate sheet of paper in complete sentences:

1) Why do you think Pierrepoint doesn’t talk about his job, never boasts or tells stories of his hanging achievements, hides it from his wife, and abhors newspaper publicity?

2) In your opinion, did Pierrepoint deserve to be hailed as a sort of war hero for meting out justice to the Nazis? Explain.

3) Is executing Nazi war criminals any different morally than executing Ruth Ellis? Explain.

4) What led to Pierrepoint to say the following years after his resignation: "I do not now believe that any one of the hundreds of executions I carried out has in any way acted as a deterrent against future murder. Capital punishment, in my view, achieved nothing except revenge.”

5) Is hanging a cruel and unusual form of punishment, or is it a humane form of execution? Explain.

6) In your opinion, did Pierrepoint enjoy what he did or simply treat it as work? Explain.

7) Would you consider Pierrepoint a murderer? Explain.

8) Why do you think he treated the condemned with such professionalism and respect, made certain that their deaths were instantaneous and pain-free, and cared meticulously for their bodies after the executions?

9) Would you consider this film to be anti-capital punishment or pro-capital punishment? Explain.

10) Many Japanese and Nazi leaders and camp guards were executed by various Allied courts following World War II, but now leaders found guilty of genocide, from Rwanda to Serbia to Cambodia, under the United Nations and the International Criminal Court have life imprisonment as a maximum punishment. Why has this changed? Do you agree with the change? Explain.