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History’s Top Executioners of All Time

Khalid Elhassan June 5, 2020 34 min

17. Going Medieval on a Monster

A contemporary woodcut illustrating the types of tortures to which Peter Niers was subjected. Ranker

After his second arrest in 1581, Peter Niers was taken to the Bavarian city of Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz for a public execution. The authorities went Medieval on him, literally and figuratively. Even for an era in which torture and gruesome executions were routine, Peter Niers’ execution, which commenced on September 16^th, 1581, stood out.

Niers underwent a three-day ordeal. On the first day, torturers flayed his skin, then poured hot oil on his exposed muscles to slough off layers of flesh. On the second day, Niers’ feet were coated in grease, and his lower body was slowly grilled over a low fire. On the third day, his body was broken on the wheel, with dozens of blows that smashed his major bones to pieces. Finally, the executioners quartered him while still alive, by sawing his body into pieces. That was the end of this killer.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.