Eugen Weidmann

Christopher Lee, who was then seventeen years old, witnessed the event. Nearly half a century later, he portrayed headsman Charles-Henri Sanson in a 1989 French TV drama about the French Revolution, in which his character made prolific use of the device.

Chapter "Death On A Quiet Boulevard" in Tom Fallon: "Craftsmen In Crime", published by Frederick Muller Ltd., London 1956.

The murder trial of Weidmann, Million, Blanc and Tricot in Versailles in March 1939 was the biggest since that of Henri Désiré Landru, the modern-day "Bluebeard", 18 years earlier. One of Weidmann's lawyers, Vincent de Moro-Giafferi, had previously defended Landru. Also present was the French novelist Colette, who was engaged by Paris-Soir to write an essay on Weidmann.

On 17 June 1939, Weidmann was beheaded outside the prison Saint-Pierre in Versailles. The "hysterical behavior" by spectators was so scandalous that French President Albert Lebrun immediately banned all future public executions. (Executions by guillotine continued out of public view until the last such execution, of Hamida Djandoubi on 10 September 1977.)

Their first kidnapping attempt ended in failure because their victim struggled too hard, forcing them to let him go. In July 1937, they made a second attempt, Weidmann having made the acquaintance of Jean De Koven, a 22-year-old New York City dancer visiting her aunt Ida Sackheim in Paris. Impressed by the tall, handsome German, De Koven wrote to a friend: "I have just met a charming German of keen intelligence who calls himself Siegfried. Perhaps I am going to another Wagnerian role – who knows? I am going to visit him tomorrow at his villa in a beautiful place near a famous mansion that Napoleon gave Josephine." During their meeting they smoked and "Siegfried" gave her a glass of milk. She took photos of him with her new camera (later found beside her body, the developed snapshots showing her killer). Weidmann then strangled and buried her in the villa's garden. She had 300 francs in cash and $430 in traveler's cheques, which the group sent Million's mistress, Colette Tricot, to cash. Sackheim received a letter demanding $500 for the return of her niece. De Koven's brother Henry later came to France offering a 10,000 franc reward from his father Abraham for information about the young woman.

Eugen Weidmann (5 February 1908 - 17 June 1939) was a German criminal and serial-killer who was executed by guillotine in France in June 1939, the last public execution in France.