The HORRORS Of Pole Hanging Execution

It was an execution method that was deployed at the end of World War II, in particular within two nations, to punish their evil overlords and people who tortured them for years. Inside Czechoslovakia and Hungary, at the conclusion of the Second World War, pole hanging was used to take the lives of a number of powerful figures, including former politicians and prime ministers, and even some of the most powerful members of the Third Reich.

Pole hanging might sound straightforward, hanging like a gallows, but just using a pole instead of a crossbeam. But it was far from straightforward and required an expert executioner and his assistant to carry out the method successfully. Often though, this went very wrong. For many reasons, pole hanging has been described as one of the most brutal execution methods in history.

But if this was the case, then why was it still used? And why was it deployed to bring the lives of some of the most powerful people of the 20th century to a brutal end? This is the horrors of pole hanging. Pole hanging was a short drop variant of the standard hanging method, but it utilized different equipment. Being short drop, it meant that the condemned person would usually strangle on the pole, and the short drop would not be sufficient to snap the neck of the condemned.

Now, it originated in lands which were under the influence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the late 19th century, and it was also known as the Vienna gallows or the strangling gallows or the Austrian gallows. It had many different steps, and this was one reason why the pole was troublesome when compared to something like the standard gallows.

First, the condemned person was brought over in front of a large crowd to their execution pole or post. This was usually a wooden post in the ground that stood around 3 m high. Then the executioner, working with an assistant, would secure the condemned to the post and then begin the procedure. They attached the rope around the feet of the victim and then placed it through a pulley at the bottom of the pole.

The condemned was then held at the top of the pole and was secured in place using a chest sling across their middle, and they would then be suspended off the ground. Then a small noose was placed around the neck of the condemned, and this was secured to a hook mounted at the top of the post. At this point, the condemned could not fall due to the chest sling, but when this was released, the victim jerked downwards on the small drop, and the assistant executioner, using a foot rope at the bottom, helped to guide the fall.

But the main executioner would be actually stood behind the post and would then attempt to manually dislocate the neck by shoving the head to one side when the body hit the bottom of the short drop. I know, it sounds complicated, doesn’t it? But this method was actually very popular inside Hungary and Czechoslovakia, and it was used also during the First World War en masse, and after World War II, the method began to be used as liberated countries sought to punish traitors, collaborators, and men who had instigated terror regimes over them. Both of the nations faced rough German occupation or governments that collaborated, and they both suffered the loss of hundreds of thousands of persecuted people, innocent people who were sent to concentration camps. The pole hanging method may have been restored as the preferred method to punish war criminals as they wanted to break free from the chains of Nazism, and they wanted to not use methods such as the German guillotine or Fallbeil.

Now, one of the main reasons why pole hanging was so rough was because it was incredibly public, and it was a method which was performed in front of huge crowds and in front of thousands of people. Even children flocked to see this method used in cities such as Budapest, and people would clamber out of windows to get a good view of the proceedings.

For example, the pole hangings of the members of the Arrow Cross Party, the collaborationist Hungarian political party, was witnessed by many, and they saw some of their former government officials, including Prime Minister Ferenc Szálasi, succumb to his end. Also, after the method had been carried out on one of the condemned, the next person was brought out, and they had to see those experience pole hanging before they did.

Those who went before them would be covered over usually by a white sheet. Another problem with this method was it also went often very wrong. Some executioners claimed that they could deploy the method very efficiently and quickly, and they thought that this could bring someone’s life to an end within less than a minute.

This was very optimistic though, as it usually went very wrong and left someone slowly strangling to death, and their gasps of air and their twitching bodies fighting for their lives would be seen by the whole crowd who were allowed up close. For many of the witnesses, this was justice. For example, one man who suffered the pole at Pankrác Prison was Kurt Daluege, a Nazi official who was responsible for massacres of Czech villages, in particular after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.

Daluege was also the chief of the Nazi Order Police, and he was someone who had ordered the deaths of thousands of Czechs. He was pole hanged, and the crowd cheered as he was secured to the post, but he took many minutes to succumb to his death once the drop had been put in place.

The small drop was not sufficient to snap necks, and this method also required the executioner forcing the neck to the side to try and manually dislocate this. It required expert coordination with the assistant and timing to bring the life to an end instantly, and it was very rare that this was successful. There were, in fact, too many variables that could go wrong.

But shockingly, pole hanging was even used upon women, too. One woman, a young woman in particular who suffered this fate during the war was Lilly Bern, who was accused of the strange crime of carrying a weapon during what was at the time a war. She was though a member of a resistance group, and inside of Hungary, she was sentenced to death in a military court and was then publicly pole hanged.

Her hanging was performed in front of an army barracks, and she slowly strangled on the post, and the sight of the lifeless body of the young woman was a terrible one. Also, Herta Käspärova suffered this fate. She was different and was a collaborator who worked for the Gestapo inside of Czech lands, and she helped translate interrogations, and with this, her work led to many people’s deaths as they were shot for betraying the German occupation.

But she had a significant amount of power, and Käspärova even ordered the Germans and the SS to shoot some men who had bullied her at school. Later, this came back to haunt her, and at her trial, she said, and I quote:

“I know that I caused the deaths of several people. I acted out of revenge.”

In the evening of the 13th of September, 1946, she was pole hanged, and when she saw the post for the first time, she felt her knees and fainted and actually had to be carried out by the guards. She screamed and winced and was terrified. The drop did not kill her instantly, and for a number of minutes afterwards, her body was seen violently twitching and quivering until death was finally confirmed by a doctor. Pole hanging was a method which was used upon dozens of war criminals at the end of the Second World War, and there were much more reliable methods which were used by the allies.

But to Czech and Hungarian governments, they wanted to inflict a significant amount of pain. Pole hanging was not pain-free, neither was it quick. It did not necessarily take into account the condemned having a rapid death, and it was something that could prolong suffering for some time. Eventually, it was outlawed and banned inside of these countries, and it is today a thing of the past.

But pole hanging has to be one of the worst methods ever used to bring someone’s life to an end.