Vollenweider – Die Geschichte eines Mörders

Vollenweider – The Execution Of A Killer

Switzerland, April 2004
FILM, Documentary, 74 min.

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directed by: Theo Stich
Written by: Theo Stich
Status: In distribution
Website: www.lumenfilm.ch

Sarnen, on 18 October 1940 at 1:55 a.m. Hans Vollenweider is led into the prison workshop, escorted by two policemen. Waiting there are two Protestant ministers, two cantonal officials, the cantonal physician and – though not visible to those present – the executioner. Vollenweider, executed with the guillotine, was the last person to be sentenced to death under civil law in Switzerland. The film traces the movements of the triple murderer with accounts from witnesses and even Hans Vollenweider himself, including statements he had made in letters and interrogations. Why does a person, remembered as gentle and cooperative by his schoolmates, become a treacherous murderer? What circumstances led to an execution in the canton of Obwalden in 1940? Criminal acts never cease to shock us. They require punishment, but what degree of penalty is just? Such questions have not lost their immediate importance, especially given the fact that the majority of people in Switzerland is calling for lifelong custody of dangerous criminals and recidivists.