West Germany’s last execution

Richard Schuh is executed in Tübingen for robbery and murder

Richard Schuh (born 1920) eked out a living with odd jobs after his release from American captivity after the Second World War. Always short of money, he murdered a lorry driver on 28 January 1948 in order to take the vehicle’s tyres and sell them on the black market. Schuh was soon tracked down, tried and sentenced to death. Appeals both for clemency and a reduction of the sentence to life imprisonment were rejected. Aged 28, Richard Schuh was executed by guillotine in the inner courtyard of Tübingen prison on 18 February 1949.

Three months later, the new Basic Law, which acted as a constitution for West Germany, abolished the death penalty.