Editing Decapitation (section)

== Technology ==
=== Guillotine ===
[[File:Heads on pikes.jpg|left|thumb|Aristocratic heads on pikes – a cartoon from the [[French Revolution]]]]

Early versions of the guillotine included the [[Halifax Gibbet]], which was used in [[Halifax, West Yorkshire|Halifax]], England, from 1286 until the 17th century, and the "[[Maiden (beheading)|Maiden]]", employed in [[Edinburgh]] from the 16th through the 18th centuries.

The modern form of the [[guillotine]] was invented shortly before the [[French Revolution]] with the aim of creating a quick and painless method of execution requiring little skill on the part of the operator. Decapitation by guillotine became a common mechanically assisted form of [[capital punishment|execution]].

The French observed a strict code of etiquette surrounding such executions. For example, a man named Legros, one of the assistants at the execution of [[Charlotte Corday]], was imprisoned for three months and dismissed for slapping the face of the victim after the blade had fallen in order to see whether any flicker of life remained.<ref>[[François Mignet|Mignet, François]], ''History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814'', (1824).</ref> The guillotine was used in France during the French Revolution and remained the normal judicial method in both peacetime and wartime into the 1970s, although the [[firing squad]] was used in certain cases. France abolished the death penalty in 1981.

The guillotine was also used in [[Algeria]] before the [[France|French]] relinquished control of it, as shown in [[Gillo Pontecorvo]]'s film ''[[The Battle of Algiers (film)|The Battle of Algiers]]''.

==={{lang|de|Fallbeil}} ===
[[File:Auguste Vaillant execution.jpg|left|thumb|French anarchist [[Auguste Vaillant]] just before being guillotined in 1894]]

Many German states had used a [[guillotine]]-like device known as a {{lang|de|Fallbeil}} ("falling axe") since the 17th and 18th centuries, and decapitation by guillotine was the usual means of execution in [[Germany]] until the abolition of the death penalty in [[West Germany]] in 1949. It was last used in communist [[East Germany]] in 1966.

In [[Nazi Germany]], the {{lang|de|Fallbeil}} was reserved for common criminals and people convicted of [[political crime]]s, including [[treason]]. Members of the [[White Rose]] resistance movement, a group of students in [[Munich]] that included siblings [[Sophie Scholl|Sophie]] and [[Hans Scholl]], were executed by decapitation.

Contrary to popular myth, executions were generally not conducted face-up, and chief executioner [[Johann Reichhart]] was insistent on maintaining "professional" protocol throughout the era, having administered the death penalty during the earlier [[Weimar Republic]]. Nonetheless, it is estimated that some 16,500 persons were guillotined in Germany and [[Austria]] between 1933 and 1945, a number that includes [[resistance fighter]]s both within Germany itself and in [[German-occupied Europe|countries occupied by Nazi forces]]. As these resistance fighters were not part of any [[regular army]], they were considered [[unlawful combatants|common criminal]]s and were in many cases [[cattle car|transported]] to Germany for execution. Decapitation was considered a "dishonorable" death, in contrast to [[execution by firing squad]].{{citation needed|date=December 2011}}

[[File:Ambrogio Lorenzetti 005.jpg|thumb|A fresco by [[Ambrogio Lorenzetti]]]]