Lorenz Schwietz was born on July 25, 1850, in Groß Döbern, today’s Dobrzeń Wielki. He began his professional career as a butcher. He first honed his craft in Wrocław and then in Racibórz. However, he returned to Wrocław, where he opened his own butcher’s shop and ran a small business from 1886 onward. It was precisely this experience working with the slaughter of cattle and livestock that prepared him to become an executioner.
Assistant to Germany’s Most Famous Executioner
Lorenz Schwietz became an assistant to Julius Krautz, Germany’s most famous executioner. Julius is credited with creating the attire widely associated with the profession: a tailcoat, white gloves and a top hat.
A chain of events—the killing in self-defense by Krautz of his assistant during a bar brawl and the departure from the profession of another executioner family, the Reindels—allowed Schwietz to fulfill his dream of an executioner’s career.
An Executioner in the Prussian Justice System
On June 21, 1900, Schwietz officially received his appointment as a Royal Prussian executioner. He made his debut as early as August, carrying out death sentences in areas east of the Elbe.
He arrived at the execution site with his own axe, a red-lacquered bench for the condemned person and a wooden block on which the condemned laid their head. Schwietz had three assistants, whom he always took with him to help carry out the execution. The entire executioner’s team traveled by train at the state’s expense. They were entitled to third-class travel.
On the evening before the execution, the executioner met with the condemned person. The meeting was necessary so that the executioner could learn the prisoner’s temperament and will to live. This determined what measures would be needed to make the condemned finally place their head on the wooden block.
Schwietz formed an opinion of the person’s physical and mental condition, including in case resistance was expected.
What Did the Executioner Say About His Profession?
Schwietz was a pragmatic man. He claimed that he felt no remorse and saw himself as an instrument of earthly justice. From the interviews he gave, one can gather that he knew his profession well and correctly judged that it was not the moment of death itself, but the preceding hours and the awareness of its inevitability, that determined the cruelty of the sentence. And allegedly, after each execution, he carved the name of the person he had executed into his axe.
The number of 123 executions carried out by Schwietz may shock people today. Who were the condemned? Here are three selected cases illustrating his everyday work. In January 1908, he beheaded Friedrich Straß in Bartenstein for murder, robbery and arson. In February of the same year, he executed Friedrich Ziegan from Szczecin for killing a forester while poaching. In April, he beheaded Pauline Scholz from Hirschberg, who was found guilty of poisoning and embezzling property.
Schwietz’s Fate After His Executioner’s Career Ended
Schwietz’s life after ending his career as an executioner was not easy. After his wife’s death in 1923, inflation and the economic chaos of postwar Germany consumed his savings. He even broke a professional taboo by publicly displaying his axe, decorated with the names of those he had executed, in exchange for payment, but this brought him no financial relief. He suffered from loneliness and spent his final years in isolation, resigned, until his suicide in May 1925.
A year before his death, he published a memoir titled “Executioner Schwietz of Wrocław’s Diary of His 123 Executions.” The publication offers insight into the thought process and soul of a man whose life became completely intertwined with the fate of people sentenced to death.
The fate of Schwietz’s associates was also noteworthy. Three of his assistants became executioners, including Carl Gröpler, who left a strong mark on Germany during the Nazi era. After Schwietz’s resignation, his place was taken by Paul Spaethe, who tragically ended his life in 1924.