Capital punishment in Denmark

Capital punishment in Denmark (Danish: Dødsstraf - literally "Death punishment") was abolished in 1930 but restored from 1945 to 1950 in order to execute Nazi collaborators. Capital punishment for most instances of war crimes was legally ended in 1978 (and in all cases since 1 January 1994). The last execution was in June 1950.

Currently reinstitution of capital punishment is not supported by any political party in Parliament. According to an opinion poll from 2006, one fifth of Danes supported capital punishment for certain crimes. The number was unchanged since another poll in 1999.

For the most part, Denmark followed the style of other European nations, with government-employed executioners, called skarpretter (headsman) in Denmark. The headsman had the status of a Royal government employee.

The last public execution was in Lolland of Anders "Sjællænder" Nielsen, by decapitation in 1882. The spectacle generated calls 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.

The last execution prior to 1946 was on 8 November 1892, in the courtyard of the State Prison of Horsens. 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, with his decapitation by Seistrup's axe following the third attempt.

The last headsman in office was Carl Peter Hermann Christensen who held the position from 27 August 1906 until 1 April 1926, but never performed any executions.

Starting during the first decennia of the 1800s, death penalties were increasingly commuted to life imprisonment by the Crown. After 1892, death sentences were handed down but not carried out. This also applied to the last death sentence prior to 1945 which was handed down in a civil court on 13 June 1928.

On 1 January 1933, Denmark abolished all capital punishment under the old penal code, when the new Danish Penal Code automatically came into effect, entirely replacing the older code from 10 February 1866. Under military law, however, capital punishment still remained an option.

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