Johann Reichhart: Nazi Executioner Who Guillotined Thousands in the Third Reich

Johann Reichhart was the most prolific executioner of Nazi Germany, carrying out thousands of executions during the Third Reich using the guillotine. Johann Reichhart was the most prolific executioner in modern European history and a chilling symbol of how ordinary professions became instruments of terror under Nazi Germany. Born in 1893 in Bavaria, Reichhart came from a family that had served as executioners for eight generations. Though the profession carried social stigma, it provided a steady income and official status. After serving as a soldier in World War I, Reichhart struggled financially in the unstable years of the Weimar Republic and officially became Bavaria’s state executioner in 1924.His career reached its darkest peak after Adolf Hitler seized power in 1933. As the Nazi regime expanded the death penalty to eliminate political opponents, resistance members, and so-called “enemies of the state,” Reichhart became an essential tool of state repression. He joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and carried out executions across Germany and Austria, primarily using the guillotine. Between 1933 and 1945, Reichhart executed more than 3,000 people—men and women alike—making him the busiest executioner of the Third Reich. Among his most infamous victims were Hans and Sophie Scholl, members of the White Rose resistance, executed on 22 February 1943. Reichhart later admitted that Sophie Scholl faced death with extraordinary courage. He also executed Nazi officials involved in the failed July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, as the regime turned on its own. Meticulous and efficient, Reichhart even modified execution equipment to speed up the killing process. Yet after the war, he became a deeply isolated figure. Arrested by U.S. forces, he was later briefly employed to carry out executions of convicted Nazi war criminals—an ironic final chapter to his career. In postwar Germany, Reichhart lived in poverty and social disgrace. His son later took his own life, unable to bear the weight of his father’s legacy. Johann Reichhart died in 1972, remembered not as a judge or lawmaker, but as the man who carried out Nazi justice—one execution at a time.This episode is part of the series Executioners of 20th Century.Watch the full documentary and explore hundreds of historical films at:WorldHistory.tv