Throughout History one of the most brutal and shocking methods of execution has been
by axe. Henry VIII during his time in power as the Tudor King of England, executed two
of his wives but only one of them would die by the axe. Throughout Hitler’s time in
power in Germany, he and his Nazi party sentenced thousands of people to death in a number of
different ways. They used methods such as the guillotine and firing squads to take the
lives of those who resisted and dissented against the Nazi regime, and to speak out
against Hitler was incredibly dangerous. Inside of prisons many people were beheaded using
the guillotine, and this was considered a very quick and reliable method of killing.
The Nazis sentenced many people to death using it, including well known resistors such as
Sophie Scholl, and the executions using guillotine took just a matter of seconds from when a
condemned person entered the execution chamber to when the blade of the guillotine was released.
But as mentioned even after Hitler’s rise to power, some executioner’s were still
using the hand axe to complete executions. One woman who was sentenced to death in this
brutal and bloody manner was Benita Von Falkenhayn, who was a German baroness that worked as a
spy for the Second Polish Republic. But what is the story of her brutal execution? To support
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Benita von Falkenhayn was born in Berlin to a noble family, which had possession of Altenklingen
Castle, and they had held this in the Swiss Thurgau region for centuries. They were well
known across European circles, As a young woman, she married a retired Senior Leftenant
named Muller Eckhardt, but then after this two year marriage she then remarried to a
childhood friend, Senior Leftenant Richard von Falkenhayn. He was a relative of the First
World War general Erich von Falkenhayn, who was known for the failure at the Battle of
Verdun. However following the marriage to her second husband, Benito took her husbands
surname becoming Benita von Falkenhayn. But after a 7 year marriage, the couple divorced
on the 18th December 1930 by mutual agreement. Within two years and on the 18th October 1932,
Benita was married yet again, this time to an aircraft engineer Baron Josef von Berg.
Her legal name from this was Baroness Benita Ursula von Berg, and with this she became
a German baroness for a short period of time, however things would go tragically and brutally
wrong in this marriage, as Benita was divorced by her husband and through a court proceedings,
after she had been arrested.
But in the late 1920s, Benita had become close with a Polish intelligence agent, Major Jerzy
Sosnowski, and the two had met at the horse races, and he and Benita had an affair. What
the Major would do is to use Benita as a spy for the Polish government, and he would force
her to socialise with employees of the Ministry of the Reichswehr, the German Army to obtain
secret information and documents regarding the German preparations for the future invasion
of Poland that began the Second World War. Sosnowski was described as a ‘extremely
handsome young man who served gallantly in the Austria Army and who loved women and excitement.’
Benita was infatuated with him, and these parties that they would attend were huge and
would set the rumour mills in Berlin spinning. The young and Handsome baron became a key
player in Berlin’s social circles, and his quick success did arise suspicion within different
people.
Benita von Falkenhayn would learn information regarding the future invasion of Poland, and
would pass this on. However from around 1932, she was being monitored and spied on herself
by the Abwehr intelligence agency. But Sosnowski’s cover would be broken on the 27th February
1934, and Falkenhayn was arrested with her friend Renate von Natzmer, Sosnowski’s other
lover. It was said that, ‘Baron Sosnowski gave another party, officially for his latest
protegee, a dancer. Berlin's half-world knew what to expect. With glittering eyes they
hurried to his apartment. This time a whole cordon of secret police were waiting at the
door. Many times had the Baron Sosnowski been suspected of espionage. No charge ever stuck.
He blamed his luck on a curious signet ring that he always wore. Several weeks before
this last party he lost his ring pulling the Baroness von Berg's puppy from a canal. All
the guests, over 50, were rushed to jail, many of them kept there for days without a
chance to change the evening clothes that they had come in. Then the weeding out started.
One of the first to be released was Baroness von Berg's first husband, von Falkenhayn.
He turned out to be a member of the secret police himself.
As iron Nazi secrecy clamped down, the Sosnowski case became a lurid legend, strictly censored
in the German Press.’
After being imprisoned for a year, on the 16th February 1935 the women were brought
in front of the people’s court. This was a heavily nazified court established following
Hitler’s seizure of power which sentenced many dissenters and resistors to death. The
court proceedings would usually result in nazi judges screeching and screaming in the
faces of the defendants before they were told they would be killed for their crimes. It
was a way in which Hitler ensured he stayed in control and in power, and struck fear into
the hearts of the German population. But Benita along with Renate von Natzmer were both sentenced
to death and were found guilty of espionage and treason, as it was said their actions
threatened the national security of Nazi Germany. It was said of the trial that, ‘In Berlin
last week the Sosnowski case finally reached its grim denouement before the People's Court.
This is packed exclusively with Hitler appointees, five of them aviators. Only the Realmleader
can alter its judgments, which take precedence over the German Supreme Court, kicked by Nazi
New Justice into discard. Normally the People's Court lets its sentences of death be known
only after the guilty heads have been chopped. Last week by a great exception underground
Berlin grapevines got out word that the Court had sentenced Baroness von Berg and Frau von
Natzmer to death, had let off with life imprisonment Baron Sosnowski and two unnamed female employees
of the Defense Ministry. Only one question remained, would the two doomed German women
die by the Nazi ax, or by the method to which spies are traditionally privileged, a firing
squad?’
But it was by the brutal axe that Benita von Falkenhayn would meet her bloody end and death.
Two days after receiving the death sentence, their appeal was rejected and it was only
Hitler who could intervene. However there was only very few executioner’s in Germany
who could perform an execution by axe, almost as if it was a medieval execution. The man
for the job was Carl Gropler, who was the last axeman in Germany, and inside of Plotzensee
Prison Benita would be executed. She was summoned from her cell on the 18th February 1935, and
she was then it’s believed tied and secured to ensure she did not move. She would have
been placed on a wooden block to allow the executioner to perform her execution swifter,
but there was much that could go wrong with using an axe. Throughout history executioner’s
such as Jack Ketch took many swings of their axe to take the head clean off, and many botches
occurred. Gropler the executioner used a hand axe, and he beheaded and executed Benita von
Falkenhayn, and she was one of the last people to be executed by axe in Germany. Later when
Hitler heard of the brutality of the execution, he viewed it as an archaic and dated execution
method, and he didn’t want Nazi Germany and his regime to be considered medieval.
He outlawed execution by axe and then ordered that from then on executions should be performed
using hanging or the guillotine.
The officials initially denied that Benita had been executed by axe, and they then did
a u turn and admitted they had been beheaded. It was said that the backs of their heads
were shaved bald to allow the executioner to get a better swing, and it was said that,
‘Baroness von Berg and Frau von Natzmer were led in coarse, nondescript prison garb
to the blood-caked block from which so many heads now roll in the sawdust. The headsman,
incongruous in his yellowish celluloid shirtfront, his old silk hat and his red-spotted tailcoat,
raised the gleaming ax. Twice it swished down to sever a lovely neck and send the blood
of a German woman spouting high. According to Nazis, the Baroness von Berg was the first
female aristocrat to lose her head to their New Justice.’
Benita von Falkenhayn was the German Baroness who was used by a Polish officer for information
inside the military circles of the pre Second World War Germany. Hitler’s brutal regime
would execute her in a terrible and bloody way, and her execution is one which is forgotten
about but deserves to be known.
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