Capital punishment in Denmark

The spectacle generated called for the abolishment of the death penalty, particularly since the headsman, Jens Seistrup, had to swing his axe several times in order to complete the job.

Jens Nielsen, sentenced to a long prison term for arson, allegedly wished to commit suicide by provoking his execution and accordingly made three attempts to murder a guard over the years.

Between 1945 and 1947, three special laws were enacted to bring capital punishment back into the penal code,[4] to address crimes committed during the occupation of Denmark.

These were ex post facto laws and were part of the purges (Danish: Retsopgøret) attempting to meet public opinion demanding severe punishment for wartime offenders, in particular certain informants and those HIPO and Gestapo officers responsible for brutal murders or torture.

The sentences were carried out by firing squads of 10 voluntary police officers, either in Undallslund Plantage (17), close to Viborg or on the military training grounds at Margreteholm, Christianshavn, Copenhagen (29).

[6][7][8] (See: Freetown Christiania#Barracks and ramparts) The last person to be executed in Denmark was Ib Birkedal Hansen, shot by firing squad on 20 July 1950.

[9] Shortly before the German surrender, however, the Freedom Council worked with a clandestine committee of lawyers to elaborate a proposal for a war crimes Act that included the death penalty.

Steincke of the Social Democrats, himself a lawyer, expressed the general viewpoint in this way:[10] If anyone in 1939 had claimed that in six years from then I would be endorsing a bill about the death penalty, with retroactive force no less, I would not have regarded him as sane.

Contrarily, proponents in the 1945 debate argued that if the death penalty was not re-applied, war criminals would be subject to mob justice or lynchings.

The amendments reserved capital punishment for crimes committed with particular malice during wartime (murder, treason and denunciation, limited to offenders over the age of 21).

[17] Subsequent polls have shown varying levels of support for reintroducing capital punishment, generally amounting to one fifth or one fourth of the population.