Eugene Weidmann

Eugen Weidmann , born the February 5th 1908 with Frankfurt (Germany), dead the June 17th 1939 with Versailles was an assassin, last nobody with being guillotinée as a public in France.

Gang leader as of adolescence, it makes many stays in reformatories. Young person adult, it leaves Germany for Canada, where he continues his exactions, which is worth to him to spend some time in prison before being returned in its native land, in 1932. There, it erects scaffolding a plan to kidnap a rich person heir, but the blow fails and Weidmann is found behind the bars for nearly six years. In its prison, it meets two French, imprisoned for traffic of currencies: Roger Million and White Jean. The three men sympathize. Million and White are released the first. Weidmann, profiting from a handing-over of sorrow for good behavior in 1937, share to join them with Paris.

There, the three accomplices (as well as the mistress of White, Colette Tricot) decide to make kidnapping with repetition: the World Fair has just opened, the streets are full with rich person foreign idlers… The leader will be of course Weidmann: very beautiful, of a great trick and especially very intelligent (he speaks perfectly English and French, and this without accent), the man does not have any sorrow to be made engage as interprets with the exposure under a false name, " Karrer". The band also rents, like pied-à-terre, a villa, " Voulzie" with That-Saint-Cloud.

One is unaware of the exact reasons of the crimes which followed: does fear of the kidnappers vis-a-vis their victims, envy immediate money, sadism of Serial killer, obedience with the orders Nazis (the parents of Weidmann were national-Socialists)? This last point will be often evoked as being the secret reason of the murders of Weidmann.

July 21st, 1937, the removed first nobody is the American dancer Jean de Koven, fallen in a glance in love with Weidmann-" Karrer" and that it did not have any sorrow to take along at his place, with " Voulzie". But hardly entered the villa, Jean is killed of two balls by Weidmann. Only spoils recovered on it: an almost empty wallet.

Five other people will be killed by Weidmann (and also per Million) for ridiculous sums. September 6th, the Couffy taxi driver falls under the balls from the assassin. October 4th, Jeannine Keller is killed by Weidmann and Million. October 16th, Roger Leblond. November 20th, Fritz Frommer, another swindler familiar of Weidmann, is cut down in its turn per Million and Weidmann. Lastly, Raymond Lesobre will be the last killed by Weidmann, on November 27th, 1937.

At the beginning of December, following a lodged complaint by the uncle de Frommer, the police force goes up the trace of named " Karrer". The interpellation of Weidmann will be very animated: it wounds the two police officers before being wounded in its turn.

He acknowledges his crimes rather quickly and denounces his accomplices. After more than one year of instruction, in March 1939, the quartet appears before the Court of Assizes of Seine-et-Oise. March 31st, the verdict falls: lenient on a side (payment for Colette Tricot, 20 months of prison for White Jean), very severe of the other (death for Million and Weidmann).

June 16th, Roger Million is pardoned by the president of the Republic Albert Lebrun; the following day, June 17th 1939, at the entry of the prison of Versailles, Eugen Weidmann is guillotine by the Bourreau Jules-Henri Desfourneaux.

An error (perhaps deliberated) made that the execution took place with 45 minutes of delay. The sun was already quite high in the sky when Weidmann appeared with the eyes of all, and from the journalists benefitted from it to take the most important series of photographs of a capital execution. Moreover, the attitude of certain people after the execution was shocking: some of enters precipitated, says one, with the foot " veuve" to soak their handkerchiefs in blood. The government is moved some, and as of on June 24th, the president of the Council Edouard Daladier promulgated an Order in Council abolishing the public capital executions. From now on condemned to death would be carried out in the enclosure of the prisons to the shelters of the glances of crowd. Measurement was effective as of the following execution, that of Jean Dehaene, on July 19th with Saint-Brieuc.

Thus Eugen Weidmann remained in the history of French justice as being last the guillotine as a public.

External bond

Photographs of the execution of Eugene Weidmann
Images of the execution of Eugene Weidmann seen of the back in height (the decapitation itself is not seen)

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