Meet the executioner Dragutin: He hanged 108 convicts and was the first Serbian Reality Star (PHOTO)
Karlo Dragutin Hart was the subject of constant public interest and newspapers often wrote about him. He had a gift for the public life and he always wore a tailcoat, top head, and gloves at work
The first Yugoslav executioner was Alois Seyfried, an Austrian. He was born on May 27, 1856, from father Franz and mother Carolina, born Herger.
When, on December 1, 1918, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was created, the new authorities needed a professional executioner to take prisoners to death in the western provinces, in which the death penalty was carried out according to law by hanging. As the only professional, Seyfried remained in the service of the new state.
The last "patient" was Alija Alijagic, whom he hanged in Zagreb on March 7th that year.
Alijagic was known for his assassination of Milorad Draskovic, Minister of Internal Affairs in the Government of the Kingdom of SCS in Delnice in 1921.
The murder trial of the Minister of Police began on October 6, 1921. The co-accused were members of the Red Justice Rodoljub Colakovic, Dinko Lopandic, Nikola Petrovic, Marinkovic and Stevo Ivanovic. Alijagic was sentenced to death and hanged in 1922. Since his grave was a gathering place for the communists, the authorities exhumed him in 1925 and transferred him to the village of Turij near Bihac.
There is no complete biographical information about executioner Seyfried. It is recorded about him: "An old gentleman in a dark suit and a half-cylinder, a bit hump on his back, came in front of us. He held his left hand on the back. His red face with scattered blue veins, with many wrinkles and spots, resembled the physiognomy of alcoholics. On his right hand, the old man held his leather suitcase and gloves.
-I am not scary for everybody. I am just performing my duty, just all other officials... However, the hardest moments for me are when I have to hang political perpetrators, which is not so rare right now, at the time of war... But I will never be able to forget the hanging of three participants in the assassination of the Blessed Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand and his former wife, Sofia. These were the hardest moments of my life."
- So, Mr. Seyfried, you were the one who hanged the assassins ?! - Dr. Eberle interrupted, just to say something.
- Unfortunately - replied the executioner - that's right! In particular, I will remember one of them, the late teacher Cubrilovic. His character will always float before my eyes. Believe me, gentlemen, it was not a man, it was a saint. He approached the hangers on his won, he took off the collar, he put the rope around his neck, saying that he forgives me his death...
Florian Mauzner was born in 1872 in the village of Jalzabet, Varazdin (Croatia), from father Djura, skinner, and Mother Teresa. The family moved to Bosnia in 1879, because the father found employment as a skinner in Zenica.
From 1893, Florian began to work occasionally as an assistant to the executioner Seyfried in executions, and in 1915 he became his deputy.
Unlike his predecessor, Mausner was a man unconcerned and uninteresting. One journalist describes him as a forty-year-old "face with no expression" in a half-cylinder, black short fur, and gray pants. "If it were not an executioner, he would be a trader. He was really tried to be that, but it didn't work out for him."
THE AGONY OF THE HANGED PERSON LASTED FOR 12 MINUTES
On one occasion, he said that he never wanted to see the sentenced before the execution: "I don't care about how it looked like at all. It's not that terrible I guess. I presume that there were even more terrible people than him". He didn't like that the journalist called him the executioner, because: "My real calling is performed or death penalty". However, he wasn't so good at his job. During execution in Osijek, the agony of the man lasted for 12 minutes, so the local medic said "You don't know to hang people! Shame! That is not hanging, that is torture!", and Mauzner "scornfully smiled".
Like many European executioners, Mauzner always had photographs of hanging and convicts, which he probably signed and sold to interested ones. When, in 1927, he traveled to Pancevo to hang Zarko Lackovic, rapist and killer of two girls, he was robbed at the Slavonski Brod railway station during the transfer from "Bosnian" to "Belgrade" train. Thieves took 1,600 dinars, official identification and "many photos" of hanged criminals.
Mausner served as an executioner for six years and died suddenly, from a heart attack, on October 21, 1928, while he was staying with his brother, also a Sarajevo skinner.
"I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR DEATH"
Karlo Dragutin Hart was born on July 28, 1879, in Karlin district in the present Czech Republic, from father Ivan. By nationality, he was a Roma. He settled in Sarajevo after the First World War, probably as a demobilized Austro-Hungarian soldier. His Czech name, Karl, in Bosnia was pronounced as Karl or Karlo, and he later changed into Serbian Dragutin.
Karlo Dragutin Hart, the famous executioner of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, performed the most of the executions at the prison of the Penitentiary Institute in Sremska Mitrovica.
Numerous archives remained about the personality of Karl Dragutin Hard, and newspapers from those times. There were texts that he traveled all over the country, there was a ritual before every execution. When he got the report about the place and the date of the execution, his assistant would pack a suitcase with a black suit, long white gloves and a top hat, which he inherited from his "idol and teacher", Seyfried. The rope and black mask for the convict were nicely packed under the suit.
In the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, there was no classic G gallows, but the executions were carried out in an Austro-Hungarian way - the hangings were performed on a pillar, stuck into the ground, and a nail was hammered on the top, with the rope hanging from it. There was a chair for the convict, and the executioner was standing on the ladder behind the pillar.
- I am holding the convict with my left hand, I am putting the rope around his neck with my right hand and I put a mask over his head. Absolute quiet. Everybody present removed their heats. The assistant kicks the chair under the convicts, he grabs his legs, and janks him to the ground. I am standing behind the ladder and I am pulling the rope. I take the convict by the hand. I monitor the pulse and I determine when the heart is no longer ticking, I take off my gloves, I throw them under the feet and I say: "I am not responsible for your death!" - described Hart.
He was the subject of constant public interest and newspapers often wrote about him. He had a gift for the public life and he always wore a tailcoat, top head, and gloves at work. He had a journal about executions for years, which is preserved, but it is not clear where it is located right now. Just like his predecessor, he carried photos of the convicts which he hanged and he probably sold them to the people or newspapers.
It was noted that Karlo Dragutin Hart assisted in the execution of the famous thug, Jova Stanisavljevic Caruga, who escaped the Mitrovica prison where he served his sentence.
As Hart said, Caruga was brave at the beginning, but during the reading of the sentence, he was getting more nervous and more scared, the executioner had to pull him up to the gallows because he was resisting.
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(Telegraf.co.uk / I.C. )