Friedhof Am Wehl

The “Pied Piper” town of Hameln (or Hamelin, the British spelling) on the river Weser in Germany had featured a "Zuchthaus" or penitentiary since 1935. It was taken over by the British and operated by the Control Commission for Germany (British Element). The original Allied Control Commission had been established by agreement of the 5th of June 1945, to deal with Axis war criminals and to provide local governance.
On the 14th June, 1945, a Royal Warrant (0160/2498 A. O. 81/1945) was issued, providing Regulations for the Trial of War Criminals. The full text can be read here. Paragraph 9 states that “A person found guilty by a Military Court of a war crime may be sentenced to and shall be liable to suffer any one or more of the following punishments, namely:-
(i) Death (either by hanging or by shooting);
(ii) Imprisonment for life or for any lesser term;
(iii) Confiscation;

War crime defendants were tried by British Military courts at No. 30 Lindenstrasse in Lüneburg, the Curio-Haus in Hamburg, at Wuppertal and elsewhere, e.g. Georg Otto Sandrock and three others who were tried by a British Military court in Almelo, Holland, on 24th - 26th November, 1945 for the murder of Pilot Officer Gerald Hood who was a Prisoner of War (PoW). On the 28th of October 1949 the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs told Parliament that nine hundred and thirty-seven persons have been tried on war crimes charges by British Military Courts in the British zone of Germany. Six hundred and seventy-seven of them have been convicted, 230 being sentenced to death. One hundred and seventy four death sentences had been carried out by this date, although not all at Hameln.

Albert Pierrepoint was appointed by the British Army to carry out the hangings and the army directed that he was to be treated as the equivalent rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He was flown over to Germany on each occasion and collected by Jeep to be driven to the prison.

A gallows was set up in the West wing of the main prison building (see "Westflügel" on the map). This wing was kept separate from the rest of the prison. The gallows was modelled on the design of the one at Pentonville prison in London which had trap doors wide enough to permit double (side by side) hangings which were the norm here. Prisoners were permitted the services of a minister of their religion prior to execution.

A total of 191 men and ten women were hanged at Hameln, plus one man, Teofil Walasek, who was shot. Albert Pierrepoint carried out all of the hangings, assisted by Company Sergeant Major Richard Anthony O'Neill (later Regimental Sergeant Major), Sergeant James Hunter CRMP, Edwin James Roper and Alexander Hurry (no military rank known). A British female prison governor or deputy governor had to be present at female executions. The deputy governor of Strangeways prison, Miss Wilson, was present for the first three on the 13th of December 1945.
146 men and the 10 women were hanged for war crimes, including 64 for the murders of Allied airmen and prisoners of war. In addition there were 42 Displaced Persons (DP in table below) comprising 25 Polish men, five Russians, five Yugoslavians, a Latvian, a Croat and one Ukrainian and three others whose nationality is unclear. Most of these Eastern European men were Displaced Persons from forced labour camps, and in many cases the details of their crimes are unknown. Two British soldiers who had been convicted of murders were hanged here after trial by courts martial. There was also Lithuanian born Franc Safranauskas, hanged for the murder of his wife, Anela.

Male hangings were typically carried out in pairs at approximately half hourly intervals. All ten women were executed singly as were a small number of men, including the two British soldiers.

After execution the bodies were placed in simple coffins which were assembled on site from flat packs. Each coffin was lowered into the grave dug in the prison yard and a foot of soil shovelled in on top. A three inch deep layer of charcoal was added as a marker so that future grave diggers would know that there was already a coffin below. Bodies were buried three deep and were marked only with a number.
The graves were most probably between the perimeter wall and the south western wall of the west wing, in the small courtyard shown as "Kl. Westhof" on the map. This space became full after the 91st execution, so from the 26th of June 1947 burials took place at the Am Wehl Cemetery in Hameln. The bodies of the two British soldiers were buried in Hanover War Cemetery.

At least in the case of the first set of executions (of the Belsen concentration camp staff) extra security was ordered. As the prison sat on the banks of the River Weser, the tow path was closed. Extra armed sentries were also posted.

Experiments were carried out by F.E. Buckland, the assistant director of pathology, British Army of the Rhine, on some of the war criminals executed at Hameln and these found, that although the prisoners were rendered unconscious by the drop, the heart could continue to beat for up to 25 minutes after execution. This created a problem because it meant that it would take far longer to carry out the batches of executions if each prisoner had to be left on the rope for an hour, as was standard British practice. It was thus proposed that the medical officer present would inject 10cc of chloroform into the prisoner 30 seconds after the drop had been given. It was found that if the chloroform was injected directly into the heart, it immediately stopped beating and if injected intravenously into the arm the heart would stop in seconds. This procedure was first used at the execution of the 10 men and three women on the 13th of December 1945.

On the 8th of March 1946 when eight men were hanged it was decided not to inject chloroform. The medical officer listened to their hearts with a stethoscope in the normal way and recorded his results. These showed that it took between 10 and 15 minutes for audible heart beats to cease. On the 15th of May 1946 a further ten executions were carried out and this time the condemned were wired up to an electrocardiograph, which recorded the electrical activity of the heart. It showed that impulses were produced for a further ten minutes; taking the total time to 25 minutes. During this series of executions, two men started breathing and had to be injected with chloroform. In one case, this took place 7 1/2 minutes after execution. It is thought that this was the last time chloroform was used.
Despite evidence of heart activity for up to 25 minutes, Buckland concluded that, in future executions, bodies should be left hanging for 15 minutes, or until a heartbeat was no longer audible, instead of the customary hour. This would make it "possible to effect dual executions at half hourly intervals".

In 1950, the British returned Hameln prison back to German control. In March 1954, the German authorities began exhuming the bodies from the prison yard, identifying the remains for reburial in individual plots. The 91 bodies at Hameln were exhumed and reburied in consecrated ground in Am Wehl Cemetery.

The West wing, where the gallows and the condemned cells stood, was demolished in 1986. Hameln prison is now a hotel. The buildings that have survived to this day and are still used are the gatehouse ("Tor-Gebäude"), the hospital ("Lazarett") to the east, the Administration Building ("Verwaltungsgebäude") to the west, and the Main Building ("Hauptgebäude Vorderflügel").