Nuremberg: The work of the executioner Franz Schmidt – Bavaria

From a very special point of view, Franz Schmidt – posthumously probably the most notorious executioner of the old empire – even wore humane traits. At least that’s how it was passed on in Nuremberg for a long time, while more recently the reading has prevailed that his supposedly philanthropic campaign against the sinking of women in the Pegnitz was probably due to a pragmatic consideration. Child murderers were affected by this executioner’s method, but the Pegnitz was flat, it required all sorts of effort, the practice was considered time-consuming. And Schmidt was a full professional, hundreds of people died from his hand, according to his own records.

So the man had to divide his strength properly. What would he have thought of the fact that, ex post, he not only became a prime example of executioner activities of all kinds – but that his Nuremberg official apartment also became a tourist attraction? One does not know. In any case, the executioner’s house, including the executioner’s footbridge and Weinstadel, is not just one of the postcard hotspots in the medieval metropolis.

Since 2007, the house has also housed several documentation rooms, which are very popular with city guests because you can shoot fascinating pictures in the old battlements across the river in the direction of the Deutsches Museum here, the Chain Bridge there, absolutely instagrammable.

The small museum, which has just been brought up to date with the latest museological status, is more likely to attract audiences in search of the horror age with its name. “Hangman’s house” sounds like a museum chill, but if you want to see very specific, murderous tools, “you have to go to Rothenburg ob der Tauber”, says the landlord Bernd Windsheimer, managing director of the association “Geschichte für Alle”. Rothenburg has its extremely popular “crime museum”, which is a completely different house number in terms of exhibitions.

The hangman’s house has its Franz Schmidt and with it the man who brought with him leisure, meticulousness and the necessary letter skills to keep an impeccable hangman’s diary about his profession – and thus brought it to fame no later than a century and a half after his death. The literary age of Achim von Arnim and Clemens von Brentano was not only addicted to the blue flower, the black romanticism also promised a delightful approach to the soul. And there the annals of F. Schmidt, this recognized Nuremberg smuggler and early death master from Germany, offered all sorts of dark points of contact.

Especially since Master Franz was to some extent exculpated biographically. In 1553 his father, a citizen of Hof, had been forced to execute three villains involved in a murder plot, in the absence of a professional executioner. The man was previously a forest worker, completely innocent – but became to a certain extent “dishonest” due to the retraining initiated by the margrave. From then on, honorable work was out of the question. An unfortunate situation that he at least tried to alleviate by pursuing a consistent career path. He was soon promoted to executioner over the entire bishopric, which was ruled by the Bamberg prince-bishop, that was something. It goes without saying that his son would continue this practiced profession.

Open detailed view

Today one would speak of a normal professional biography, based on a family tradition. Especially since in Nuremberg – blessed with the enlightened city flair of the Middle Ages – an executioner was significantly less outside of the recognized urban society than elsewhere, says the curator Lena Prechsl. This gave him the opportunity to reflect. His diary is not a classic “ego document”, as the relevant Franz Schmidt researcher Joel F. Harrington once put it. Rather a sober chronicle of the execution. But the professional executioner already allowed himself further thoughts. His diary ends with the note “What you thus, bedenck das end”.