Diary of a Hangman

Product Information

I am glad that I read this book, but, unlike “The Faithful Executioner”, I don’t see myself revisiting it in the future.

Sometimes difficult to get through because of repetitiveness, and some sections seem to drag on, due to perhaps Meister Schmidt's particular feelings on a specific execution or torture. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.Likewise, certain cases they omit various details I would have liked to read, lists of stolen items, lists of murders committed by someone, etc.

but there is a really good essay about the german criminal justice system in the 1500s and 1600s in the beginning of the book. I thought it was going to be slightly different and offer a look into the executioner and not just a chronological listing of the people he killed. George Schorpff of Ermb, near the hohenstein, a lecher, guilty of beastliness with four cows, two calves and a sheep. Keller's part about Schmidt was a good introduction to the actual diary and gave me some perspective on certain entries or absence thereof (*cough cough* the brother-in-law).I loved reading it and having the main character help me take on a perspective that doing his this job didn't mean that he believed everything he was told, and that it meant a lot to him to make a living, although it was a low life status. A job that was not glamourous, but nevertheless very necessary, and came with benefits and risk as well. the executioner's section is a very dry, statement-of-the-facts account of the crimes people committed and the way he executed them. so this is every death that passed through the criminal justice system of nuremberg from 1573 to 1617.

This particular edition of the diary has an excessively long introduction that felt like modern moralizing rather than objective presentation in many parts. Led out to execution on a tumbril, her body nipped thrice with red-hot tongs, then beheaded with the sword, standing; her head fixed on a pole above and her body buried under the gallows.

Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now.