Alois Weiss, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Alois Weiss

German executioner

Date of Birth: 16-Oct-1906

Place of Birth: Ruma, Vojvodina, Serbia

Date of Death: 26-Feb-1969

Profession: executioner

Nationality: Germany

Zodiac Sign: Libra

Alois Weiss (or: Weiß) (16 October 1906 in Ruma/Austria-Hungary – 26 February 1969 in Straubing/Germany) was the executioner at the Gestapo Pankrác prison in Prague during the Second World War. The former storehouse helper from Munich and assistant to the Munich executioner Reichhart was the chief executioner of the Pankrác prison from February 1943.
Until 1945, 1,079 persons were executed in the so-called Sekyrárna (axe room).
His assistants were the Czechs Alfred Engel, Robert Týfa and Jan Krížek, who changed his name to Johann Kreuz.
Later, the Gestapo changed the assistants; newly added were Antonín Nerad from Prague-Braník and Otto Schweiger, the brother-in-law of Weiss.
After the war, Weiss lived in the Federal Republic of Germany.
He died in Straubing, 62 years old. During executions, the executioners mostly followed this procedure: one held the hands of the condemned to prevent him from moving when the guillotine blade descended.
The second stood at the feet of the prisoner and untied his hands after the beheading.
The two additional assistants pulled the body to a trunk to the right of the place of execution, took the head out of the basket and laid it next to the body.
After that, Weiss wrote in the execution book the name of his victim.
As can be gathered from the notes, an execution took three minutes.
The victims were cremated in Prague's Strašnice Crematorium.