Editing Hanging (section)

===Short drop===
The short drop is a method of hanging in which the condemned prisoner stands on a raised support, such as a stool, ladder, cart, horse, or other vehicle, with the noose around the neck. The support is then moved away, leaving the person dangling from the rope.<ref name="Hughes2012">{{cite book |last=Hughes |first=Robert |title=The Fatal Shore: The epic of Australia's founding|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fv_X8HYL4QQC&pg=PA33 |access-date=29 September 2014 |date=11 January 2012 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday |isbn=978-0-307-81560-6 |pages=33ff |quote=Before the invention of the hinged trapdoor through which the victim was dropped, he or she was 'turned off' or 'twisted' by the hangman who pulled the ladder away.|archive-date=6 May 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160506184941/https://books.google.com/books?id=fv_X8HYL4QQC&pg=PA33|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Potter1965">{{cite book|last=Potter|first=John Deane|title=The Art of Hanging|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=snRAAAAAMAAJ&q=%22turned%20off%22&pg=PA23|access-date=29 September 2014|year=1965|publisher=A. S. Barnes|page=23|isbn=978-0-498-07387-8|quote=...&nbsp;condemned persons still mounted a ladder which was turned round, leaving them dangling. This led to the phrase 'turned off'—they were literally turned off the ladder.|archive-date=26 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160426072557/https://books.google.com/books?id=snRAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA23&q=%22turned%20off%22|url-status=live}}</ref>

Suspended by the neck, the weight of the body tightens the noose around the neck, effecting [[strangulation]] and death. Loss of consciousness is typically rapid and death ensues in a few minutes.<ref>{{cite journal |title= Agonal Sequences in a Filmed Suicidal Hanging: Analysis of Respiratory and Movement Responses to Asphyxia by Hanging |journal=Journal of Forensic Sciences |volume=52 |issue=4 |pages=957–959 |doi=10.1111/j.1556-4029.2007.00459.x |pmid=17524058 |year=2007 |last1=Sauvageau |first1=Anny |last2=Racette |first2=Stéphanie |s2cid=32188375 }}</ref>

Before 1850, the short drop was the standard method of hanging, and it is still common in [[suicides]] and extrajudicial hangings (such as [[lynchings]] and [[summary execution]]s) which lack the specialised equipment and [[Official Table of Drops|drop-length calculation tables]] used in the newer methods.[[File:Biskupia Gorka executions - 14 - Barkmann, Paradies, Becker, Klaff, Steinhoff (left to right).jpg|thumb|Execution of guards and [[kapo]]s of the [[Stutthof concentration camp]] on 4 July 1946 by short-drop hanging. In the foreground are the female overseers: [[Jenny-Wanda Barkmann]], [[Ewa Paradies]], [[Elisabeth Becker]], [[Wanda Klaff]], [[Gerda Steinhoff]] (left to right).]]
==== Pole method ====
[[File:Hromadná poprava Srbů.jpg|thumb|Mass execution using "pole-hanging" of Serbs by the [[Austro-Hungarian army]] in 1916]]
A short-drop variant is the [[Austro-Hungarian]] "pole" method, called {{lang|de|Würgegalgen}} (literally: strangling gallows), in which the following steps take place:

# The condemned is made to stand before a specialized vertical pole or pillar, approximately {{convert|3|metres|ft}} in height.
# A rope is attached around the condemned's feet and routed through a pulley at the base of the pole.
# The condemned is hoisted to the top of the pole by means of a sling running across the chest and under the arms.
# A narrow-diameter noose is looped around the prisoner's neck, then secured to a hook mounted at the top of the pole.
# The chest sling is released, and the prisoner is rapidly jerked downward by the assistant executioners via the foot rope, thus resulting in strangulation and death. 

This method was later also adopted by the successor states, most notably by [[Czechoslovakia]], where the "pole" method was used as the single type of execution from 1918 until 1954, when the prison hosting Czechoslovakia's executions, [[Pankrác Prison]], constructed an indoor gallows that exclusively accommodated short-drop hangings to replace the pole method.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Olga Hepnarová - The Last Woman Executed in Czechoslovakia |url=https://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/hepnarova.html |access-date=2024-10-28 |website=Capital Punishment UK}}</ref> Nazi war criminal [[Karl Hermann Frank]], executed in 1946 in [[Prague]], was among approximately 1,000 condemned people executed by the pole hanging method in Czechoslovakia.<ref name="KHF">{{cite web|url=http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/05/22/1946-karl-hermann-frank/|title=1946: Karl Hermann Frank|date=22 May 2009|website=Executedtoday.com|access-date=8 October 2017|archive-date=19 October 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171019024441/http://www.executedtoday.com/2009/05/22/1946-karl-hermann-frank/|url-status=live}}</ref>