The farmer was beside himself.

He was meant for a life in the field, not the jail cell, but he had been convicted of murder,

and now he had been sentenced to die.

He probably never saw his life heading in this direction, but desperation had made him do some unspeakable things.

This farmer had met a peasant girl who had been traveling the country and hired her to work

in his house. She confided in him that she had been saving some money to go to America.

The farmer, deeply in debt, saw in the girl a temporary relief for his financial woes. So one dark night, he coaxed

the girl to follow him from their house. Her body was found sometime later, and the investigation's

trail led pretty obviously right back to our farmer. In the days leading up to his execution,

he had become a nervous wreck, so much so that it was actually delayed. Yet the

final day had now arrived. But in the same way that he had counted down the days in dread,

many others were waiting too, not with fear, but with curious anticipation. In fact, extra trains

had been scheduled to accommodate the thousands of people who were flooding

in from all over Germany, who wanted to catch a glimpse of the farmer's final breath.

When the time for his execution came, the farmer was taken from his cell by soldiers and

escorted up the scaffolding platform by two priests.

The three men began to pray, and the crowd fell silent.

The farmer, meanwhile,

fell deathly pale. With the prayer finished, the priests helped lift the farmer up and situate him in a wooden chair, while his arms and legs were bound so that he would be unable to move.

The faces in the crowd made for his last glimpse of the world, just before the blindfold was

placed over his eyes.

Next, a leather strap was fastened under his chin and extended upward over his head.

...