EXECUTING NAZIS: THE STORY OF A VERY BRITISH HANGMAN

It was Friday the thirteenth and there werethirteen prisoners, all of them awaiting execution.

Albert Pierrepoint: a very British hangman

They had been dubbed the ‘Beasts ofBelsen’: 10 men and three women who had sent tens of thousands of concentrationcamp victims to their deaths. Now, it was their turn to die.

There was never any doubt as to who wouldundertake the executions: Albert Pierrepoint was Britain’s most experiencedhangman. He had got the job of executioner in 1932, following in the footstepsof his father and uncle. He'd proved so reliable and efficient that within nine years he waspromoted to Chief Executioner. He even perfected the art of doubleexecutions, hanging two men at the same time.

Guilty: the beasts of Belsen

Pierrepoint's most celebrated executions came in the wake of the Nazi war crime trial of the 'beasts of Belsen. The convicted prisoners included Irma Grese, a vivacious young blond girl who'd joined the SS at an early age and worked enthusiastically at Belsen, lashing herJewish prisoners to death with her riding whip before they reached the gaschambers.

Also convicted was Juana Bormann, who had treated her prisoners with horrific violence, setting her vicious Alsatianon the weak and sickly. Many of them were gnawed to death.

‘First she egged the dog on and it pulledat the woman [victim’s] clothes,’ said one of the witnesses at her trial. ‘Then she wasnot satisfied with that and made the dog go for her throat.’

Irma Grese: mass murderer who smiled

She, like Irma Grese was found guiltyand convicted to hang.

Albert Pierrepoint had executed scores ofpeople over the previous decade but he had never hanged 13 in one day and norhad he despatched anyone quite so evil as this bunch. He was particularly keen to meet IrmaGrese, whom he regarded as the worst of the lot.

‘She walked out of her cell and cametowards us laughing,’ he wrote. ‘She seemed as bonny a girl as one could everwish to meet.’

When asked her age, she paused and smiled.Pierrepoint also found himself smiling, ‘as if we realised the conventionalembarrassment of a woman revealing her age.’

These ‘Belsen’ executions were to be ratherdifferent from Pierrepoint’s previous ones. He was put in total charge frombeginning to end - a job that required meticulous planning. ‘I had to supervisethe weighings and measuring of the condemned thirteen in order to work out mydrops.’

He had never done this before: in Britainit was done by prison officers.

When Pierrepoint had first arrived at Buckeburgprison, where the criminals were held, he was appalled to see 13 graves being dug for the condemned prisoners.

He felt that this was unseemly. ‘I complainedabout it to a prison official but was told that nothing could be done to stopit.’

Timothy Spall is Pierrepoint the in movie

He then went inside the prison to meet thecondemned men and women. ‘I walked down the corridor and the thirteen Belsenfaces were pressed close to the bars.’

Pierrepoint was taken aback. ‘Never in myexperience have I seen a more pitiable crowd of condemned prisoners.’

The first to be weighed and measured wasJosef Kramer, who had killed thousands of victims. He was sullen and gave monosyllabic answers to Pierrepoint’s questions.

Kramer: no regrets

The next prisoner, Dr Fritz Klein, had been convicted of killing up to 300victims at a time in the gas chambers. Pierrepoint found him full of energy and not a bit contrite. ‘[He] came walkingbriskly down the corridor and efficiently complied with the formalities.’

Once all the prisoners had been weighed,Pierrepoint had to work out the length of rope. If the drop was too long, itwould tear their heads off. Too short and it might not kill them.

Pierrepoint was woken at 6am on Friday 13December, 1945. He decided to execute the women first, beginning with IrmaGrese. She proved a model of calmness, walking slowly to the trap and standing onthe white chalk mark. 
‘As I placed the white cap over her head, she said in herlanguid voice: ‘Schnell.’’ The trapdoor crashed from under her feet and herbody twisted as the rope broke her neck. Pierrepoint’s first prisoner was dead.

He hanged the two other women beforepausing for a refreshing cup of tea. Then, he set to work on the men, adjusting thescaffold for the double executions.

Always keep a note of your executions

First to go were Josef Kramer and FritzKlein. They were roped together and also roped by their necks. ‘I adjusted theropes and flew to the lever,’ recalled Pierrepoint. Twenty five seconds later,both were dead.
The executions took many hours and it was dark by the time all the prisonershad been despatched. Pierrepoint was exhausted but he nevertheless went to amess party that night. He was proud to have hanged the ‘Beasts of Belsen’.

He would subsequently be appointed to executea further 190 Nazi war criminals, including Bruno Tesch, inventor of the gasZyklon B. Pierrepoint was by now so efficient at his job that he could despatch his clients - cell togallows - in under 60 seconds.

Pierrepoint was eventually retired at theage of 72, due to failing eyesight. Home Office officials cancelled hiscontract when they learned that he almost noosed his assistant and sent him through thetrapdoor by mistake. 

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VOLCANO OF DEATH: A MIRACULOUS TALE OF EXTREME SURVIVAL

There was no hopeof escape.

An avalanche of toxic gas: Mount Pelee erupts

At exactly 8.02amon 8 May, 1902, there was a cataclysmic explosion on the Caribbean island ofMartinique. The island’s volcano - Mount Pelee - had ripped itself open, forcinga gigantic mushroom cloud into the sky. Seconds later, an avalanche ofsuperheated gas and dust began thundering down the slopes of the volcano.

Directly below,and in the path of the boiling flood, lay St-Pierre, a town of some 30,000inhabitants. As everyone glanced at the torrent of toxic debris heading towardsthem at great speed, they realised that survival would depend entirely uponluck.

The avalanche hadpicked up such momentum that it was to reach St-Pierre in less than a minute.The temperature of the flow was in excess of 1,000 degrees centigrade and itwas vaporising everything in its path.

First hint of danger: a burst of smoke

Among theterrified inhabitants of the town was Léon Compère Léandre, a local shoemaker.He had heard the massive explosion and immediately turned to look at themountain.

‘I felt a terriblewind blowing, the earth began to tremble, and the sky suddenly became dark,’ helater wrote. ‘I turned to go into the house, with great difficulty climbed thethree or four steps that separated me from my room, and felt my arms and legsburning, also my body.’

Don't inhale: it's deadly

As he collapsed inagony, four other people burst into the room, ‘crying and writhing with pain.’It was clear that they’d suffered massive internal injuries from the noxiousvolcanic gasses.

‘At the end of 10minutes one of these, the young Delavaud girl, aged about 10 years, fell dead,’recalled Léon. The others fled the building, hoping to find some avenue ofescape.

Léon went intoanother room, ‘where I found the father Delavaud, still clothed and lying onthe bed, dead. He was purple and inflated, but the clothing was intact.’

Léon was by nowdesperate. According to his account, he was ‘crazed and almost overcome’.Unable to move, he lay on a bed, ‘inert and awaiting death.’

There were a fewwitnesses to the ensuing disaster: people who were on boats at the time of theeruption. One described how the mountain was ‘blown to pieces, there was nowarning.’ Another said simply: ‘the town banished before our eyes.’

Absolute devastation: yet a few survive

There was no hopeof outrunning the avalanche. Everyone in the centre of town was killed inseconds - gassed and burned to death by the noxious and fiery fumes.

One hour after thedisaster, Léon suddenly work up. He had lost consciousness at the moment theavalanche struck and was only dimly aware of what had happened.

Now, he walked outthrough the charred remains of St Pierre and eventually reached a nearbyvillage where he amazed the locals with his story.

How he managed tosurvive the furnace that rolled over the town remains a complete mystery. Theonly certainty is that the storm of gas and boiling dust had left himunscathed.

Survival in prison: Cyparis

Léon was not theonly survivor: one other man escaped the inferno and he was able to recount howhe had cheated death on that grim May morning.

Louis AugusteCyparis had been incarcerated in the city’s prison on the day before theeruption, having been involved in a violent pub brawl. He was locked into anunderground cell with windowless stone walls. The only ventilation came from agrating in the metal door that faced away from the volcano.

Cyparis heard theviolent explosion of the volcano and realised at once that it had erupted.According to his account, the daylight (which he could see through the grate)vanished: day switched to night in an instant.

Seconds later,scorching air and burning ash entered his cell. He urinated on his clothes andstuffed them into the hole, but this did not prevent him receiving severeburns. But he survived the ensuing avalanche, which buried him alive under theburning ash.

Cyparis's cell: the only volcano-proof building in town

The rescueoperation began within hours of the eruption. The warship Suchet reached the burning town at 12.30pm. But the heat was so ferociousthat it could not land until 3pm, when the captain managed to get ashore.

Mount Pelee today

He was staggeredby what he found. Not a building, nor a tree was still standing. Everything wascharred beyond recognition. The entire 30,000 population was dead.

Cyparis was foundfour days later by a rescue team who heard his lonely cries coming from underthe rubble. He eventually recovered from his burns, was pardoned for his crimeand joined Barnum and Bailey’s circus.

The only othersurvivor of that terrible morning in May was a young girl named Haviva daIfrile. But her escape is even more mysterious than that of Léon CompèreLéandre. She was found adrift in a boat, unconscious but alive.

She had norecollection of how she got there.

UK paperback

NOW PUBLISHED IN PAPERBACK

Wolfram: The Boy Who Went to War available here for just £5.30

And for my American readers, it is now published under the title: The Boy Who Went to War: The Story of a Reluctant German Soldier in WWII available here

Newly published US edition

'Idiosyncratic and utterly fascinating... an extraordinary tale of hardship, horror and amazing good fortune' James Delingpole, The Daily Mail