Pullman

Pullman (pronounced pool-muhn or pull-minn)

(1) A range of railroad sleeping cars produced by the Pullman Palace Car Company which operated in the US between 1867 and 1968.

(2) A generic term for up-market coaches and train carriages.

(3) A term used by certain automobile manufacturers to describe lengthened versions of their limousines; most associated with Humber in the UK and Daimler-Benz in Germany.

(4) A type of long, square bread developed to be baked in the small kitchens of rail cars.

(5) As Pullman case, a type of large suitcase.

(6) In architecture, a long, narrow room, a visual allusion to the interior of a railway carriage.

1867: From the name of Chicago-based US engineer and industrialist George Mortimer Pullman (1831–1897).  It was first applied to the luxury railway coaches the Pullman Palace Car Company introduced in 1867, first in Chicago, later used across the US.  Describing up-market coaches and train carriages, the name became widely used in a number of countries.  In England, the origin of the surname Pullman was topographical meaning “a dweller by the pool (or stream) while in German (as a variant of Puhlmann) it was occupational for a bottle blower, the construct being Pulle (bottle) + Mann (man) and appears to be an Ashkenazic Jewish form.  Pullman is a noun; the noun plural is pullmans (with initial capital if used as proper noun).

Interiors of Pullman train carriages.  The target market was the folk who now either fly first-class or use private aviation. 

Bristol Type 26 Pullman.

The Bristol Pullman first flew in 1918, designated originally as the Type 24 Braemar Triplane, a four-engined heavy bomber.  Tests soon revealed performance deficiencies and, as the Type 25 Braemar II, a second prototype took to the air in 1919, now with four, more powerful straight-12 Liberty engines and though it proved satisfactory the end of World War I (1914-1918) meant the Air Ministry no longer required a long-range bomber so Bristol reconfigured the third prototype as the Type 26 Pullman, a 14-passenger transport.  The use of the Pullman name was an allusion to the luxury of trains but, weight being of greater significance in the air than on railway tracks, the fittings were notably less extravagant.  Although exhibited to acclaim at the Olympia Air Show in 1920, the projected price was too high for the embryonic civilian airlines of the era and the Pullman never entered production, the sole prototype dismantled in 1921; it was though, in a sense, the first “modern” airliner but the wildly ambitious Type 40 Pullman (an enlarged 40-passenger version), never advanced beyond the drawing board.  Whether the Type 25 it would have been an effective heavy bomber has been debated.  The top speed was claimed to be 122 mph (196 km/h) which was competitive with the fighters of the time and the service ceiling was said to 15,000 feet (4575 m), a height which even some of the early heavy bombers of World War II (1939-1945) struggled to match but whether these numbers would have been achievable when fully loaded, under combat conditions, isn’t known.

Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman & Pullman Landaulet

Lindsay Lohan with 600 Pullman during the filming of Liz & Dick (2012).

Since the inter-war years (1919-1939) Daimler-Benz had used the "Pullman" designation for variants of its sedans with larger passenger compartments but now it's most associated with the 600.  A symbol of the post-war Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) in the FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany) 1949-1990), Daimler-Benz first showed the Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100; 1963-1981) in September 1963 at the Frankfurt Motor Show although deliveries didn’t begin until the following year.  Known as the Größer Mercedes (Grosser Mercedes) in the tradition of the 770 K (W07; 1930-1938 & W150; 1938-1943)), it was what had by the 1960s become an automotive rarity, a genuinely new car with few carry-over components from previous vehicles and was a technological tour de force, even eschewing (relatively) noisy electric motors for accessories like windows and sun roofs, instead controlling them via a swift and silent hydraulic system which extended to the closing of doors and trunk (boot).  Powered by a 6.3 litre (386 cubic inch) SOHC (single overhead camshaft) V8, which powered it to a top speed of 128 mph (205 km/h); (124 (200) for the heavier Pullman), it rode on air suspension which, in addition to the expectedly cushion-like ride, permitted the 600 a competence in handling and roadholding exceeding many of the sports car of the era, some of which couldn’t match its straight-line speed.  Remarkably, this was achieved with the use of swing axles at the rear although years of refinement of the anti-squat, anti-dive geometry and a compensating device above the differential tamed the worst of the tendencies inherent in what was, even in the early 1960s, seen as an inherently flawed design.

In this context, in the English-speaking world, the use of “grosser” is sometimes misunderstood.  In German, groß means “large” while the Kompatativ (comparative) is größer and the Superlativ (superlative) größte;  Der große Mercedes thus translates as “the big Mercedes”.  In that sense groß is used in the sense of “physically large” but it can be used also to be “highest” as in the naval rank Großadmiral (a five-star rank translated in English usually as “grand admiral” and equivalent to admiral of the fleet or fleet admiral).  The idea of the "big Mercedes" wasn't unique and to this day collectors still use the phrase "big Healey" (the Austin-Healey sports car, introduced as the 100 BN 1 (1953-55) which evolved into the 3000 (1959-1968), the term coined in 1958 to distinguish those cars from the smaller Austin Healey Sprite (1958-1970), produced also as the Austin Sprite (1971) and MG Midget (1961-1979)). In English, “gross” went on to prove itself a word of great versatility and in the social media age young women in particular found many uses for “grossness” and the marvelous “grossnessness”.

600 Saloon (known colloquially as the SWB (short wheelbase)) (left), 600 Pullman four door (centre) & 600 Pullman Landaulet with the "short" folding roof (right).

The factory built the landaulets to requested configurations, so both the long and short folding roofs could be ordered with either the four or six-door coachwork although it is known all landaulets included a central divider (option on the SWBs and fitted to all but one of the closed Pullmans.  The "long" fabric roof opened to reveal the whole rear compartment while the "short" version exposed only the rearmost seat.  Although the cars with the longer folding roof are sometimes referred to as the "presidential", this was never an official designation.  The English coach-builder Crayford converted a 1973 four-door Pullman to a short-roof Landaulet and while well-executed, easily it is distinguishable from the factory versions by the retention of the standard rear side-window frames (Crayford were pragmatic; for their Mercedes-Benz C123 cabriolets, they used the folding roofs of 1973 Ford Mustangs, salvaged from US wrecking yards!).  In the parlance of the collector car business, the Crayford 600 Landaulet is "number 60 of 59".

With economies expanding on both sides of the Atlantic, Daimler-Benz had great expectations for the 600, predicting sales would soon exceed a thousand a year but, after an encouraging 345 were built in 1965 (the first full-year of production), demand waned and even that high-water mark was never again approached.  The increasingly onerous regulations being imposed in the United States meant that by 1972, the 600 had to be withdrawn from what had always been the most important market, it being simply financially unviable to re-engineer the thing given annual sales were projected barely to reach three figures.  After that, although dictators in Africa and Asia maintained their fondness and with increased attention devoted to UK, European and Middle Eastern markets and there were some encouraging signs but, in something of an own goal, in 1972 Mercedes-Benz released the W116, the first model to be known as the “S Class” which, although in a different market segment to the Grosser, was so advanced and obviously modern instantly it made the anyway rather baroque 600 look antiquated.  The final nail in the coffin was the first oil shock in 1973 and from then until the end of the line in 1981, production dwindled to a handful a year, availability maintained only because of the importance in the brand’s image and the lingering aura of having upon its release been lauded generally as “the best car in the world”, perhaps the last time there would about that be a consensus.

600 Pullman Landaulets: four doors with the short roof (left & centre) and six door with the long roof (right).  The factory built the Pullmans to order and there were many variations (one Pullman even built as a "family car" without the glass partition which normally separated the chauffeur from the passengers), most of the four door cars were fitted with vis-à-vis seating whereas the six door models usually had occasional "jump seats" which folded into the central partition.

The standard (SWB) 600 saloon was built on a wheelbase of 3200 mm (126 inches) while the Pullmans (and all but one of the landaulets) used a lengthened platform, extending this to 3900 mm (153 ½“).  The SWB was 5540 mm (218 inches) in length while the elongated Pullmans (sometimes called the LWB (long wheelbase)) stretch this to 6240 mm (245¾ inches) and the weight varied, depending on configuration between 3000-3300 kg (6600-7275 lb).  Over the eighteen-odd years it was on the books, Mercedes built 2677 600s (including 45 “special protection” versions, a coupé and one SWB Landaulet).  The factory has, off and on, continued to use the Pullman designation for their in-house "stretch limos" (ie sedans with extended wheelbase).

Four door 600 Pullman Landaulet (left), four door 600 Pullman Landaulet used by the FRG government for the 1965 state visit of Elizabeth II (1926-2022; Queen of the UK and other places, 1952-2022) (centre) and four door 600 Pullman (right), most of which were configured with the vis-à-vis seating.

Few cars have ever so encapsulated an association with wealth and power (including that exercised by some unsavoury types) which is why Pullmans continue to be sought be film directors looking for a prop which at a glance delivers the desired verisimilitude.  Additionally, being long and low-slung, unlike the traditional, upright Rolls-Royce Phantom limousines, the 600 always managed to convey something slightly sinister, thus the appearance in films of a certain kind although the use in The Exorcist (1973) was to suggest "money".  If the look alone isn’t enough, the ownership list included:

Park Chung Hee (1917–1979; President of RoK (Republic of Korea (South Korea)) 1962-1979)

Comrade Enver Hoxha (1908-1985; dictator of Albanian 1944-1985)

Pol Pot (Saloth Sâr; 1925–1998; dictator the communist (Maoist) state of Democratic Kampuchea (Cambodia) 1975-1979)

François "Papa Doc" Duvalier (1907–1971; president of Haiti 1957-1971)

Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier (1951–2014; president of Haiti 1971-1986)

Jean-Bédel Bokassa (1921–1996; president or emperor of the CAR (Central African Republic) 1966-1979)

Frederik Willem ("F.W.") de Klerk (1936–2021; president of South Africa 1989-1994)

Comrade Leonid Brezhnev (1906–1982; Soviet leader 1964-1982)

Comrade Fidel Castro (1926–2016; prime-minister or president of Cuba 1959-2008)

Robert Mugabe (1924–2019; prime-minister or president of Zimbabwe 1980-2017)

Hirohita (Emperor Shōwa) 1901–1989; emperor of Japan 1926-1989)

Jomo Kenyatta (circa 1897–1978; prime minister (1963-1964) & president of Kenya (1964-1978)

Daniel arap Moi (1924–2020; president of Kenya 1978-2002)

Ferdinand Marcos (1917–1989; president of the Philippines 1965-1986)

Kim Il-Sung (Kim I, 1912–1994; Great Leader of DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)) 1948-1994)

Kim Jong-Il (Kim II, 1941-2011; Dear Leader of DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)) 1994-2011)

Kim Jong-Un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)) since 2011)

Saddam Hussein (1937–2006; president of Iraq 1979-2003)

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919–1980; last Shah of Iran 1941-1979)

Comrade Chairman Mao Zedong (1893–1976; chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) & paramount leader of the PRC (People's Republic of China) 1949-1976)

Comrade Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997; paramount leader of the PRC (People's Republic of China) 1978-1989)

Norodom Sihanouk (1922–2012; variously, off and on, king, chief of state or prime minister of Cambodia 1941-2012)

Comrade Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989; general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party and dictator of Romania 1965-1989)

Comrade Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980; prime-minister or president of Yugoslavia 1944-1980)

His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, CBE, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular, (1928-2003; president of Uganda 1971-1979)

Mobutu Sese Seko (1930–1997; president of the of the DRC (Democratic Republic of the Congo) 1965-1971 and the (renamed) Zaire 1971-1997)

Among that lot, the erstwhile presenter of the BBC's TV show Top Gear (Jeremy Clarkson (b 1960)) seem not wholly out-of-place but there are those who say the 600's reputation never recovered from him owning one.  However, preserving the car's status, Kim Jong-Un is the only individual known to own a brace of the long-roof (presidential) Landaulets, DPRK events (of which there are many and they are among the world's most elaborately choreographed ceremonies) thus the only place where two of the things have been photographed in the same frame.  The Supreme Leader inherited the pair from the Dear Leader (along with the rest of the DPRK and its people) who had been willed them by the Great Leader.  Idi Amin is the only (as far as is known) cannibal in the 600 Pullman's list of owners but his consumption of human flesh may have been minimal; he declared it "too salty" although whether that was a thing of taste or a concern about his blood pressure isn't certain.  The 600 Pullman has the distinction of being a car with an ownership register that may usefully be sorted using categories such as "responsible for <nnn> deaths" or  "accused of <nnn> murders".  On that basis, the list would be topped by comrade Chairman Mao Zedong because the “Great Leap Forward” (1958-1962 and a part of the second “Five Year Plan” (1958-1963)) industrialization campaign (intended to emulate what comrade Stalin in the Soviet Union achieved in the 1920s & 1930s) triggered the “Great Chinese Famine” (1959-1961); the death-toll of that is contested but most estimates suggest between 20-50 million.

SCV 1, the "high roof" 600 Pullman used as the papal car by the Holy See, 1965-1986.

The 600 Landaulet presented to Paul VI (1897–1978; pope 1963-1978) and used by the Holy See between 1965-1986 was the latest in a line of papal Mercedes-Benz which had included a 1930 Nürburg 460 (W08) and a 1960 300d Cabriolet D (W189), both fitted with the throne-like, single rear seat, the same configuration used in “popemobiles” to this day.  It was one of the 45 “special build” 600s, using the long wheelbase platform but was unique in that the rear doors were 256 mm (10 inches) longer, directly adjacent to the front.  The roof of the was raised by 70 mm (2¾ inches) to provide adequate headroom, something necessitated by the floor being level in the rear, the transmission tunnel concealed beneath.  Since 1986 the 600 has been on display in the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Untertürkheim, complete with the registration SCV 1 (Stato della Città del Vaticano 1 (Vatican City State No 1), the "1" identifying the pope’s official car at any given time, much as the US Air Force call-sign "Air Force 1" is attached not to a specific airframe but to the POTUS, shifting with him).

A most unfortunate conjunction of imagery: Adolf Hitler on Berlin's newly opened East-West Axis in his Mercedes-Benz 770 K Grosser Cabriolet F open tourer (W150) in a parade marking his 50^th birthday, opposite the Technical High School, 20 April 1939 (left) and David Bowie in his Mercedes-Benz 600 (W100) Pullman Landaulet, Victoria Station, London, 2 May 1976 (right).

Sometimes a wave is just an excuse.  The pop star David Bowie (1947-2016) understood he was an influential figure in music but on more than one occasion explained to interviewers: “I am not an original thinker”.  Trawling pop-culture for inspiration nevertheless served him well but he later came to regret dabbling with history slightly less recent.  Not impressed with the state of British society and its economy in the troubled mid-1970s, he was quoted variously as suggesting the country would benefit for “an ultra right-wing government” or “a fascist leader”.  Although he would later claim he was captivated more by the fashions (the long leather coats said to be a favorite) than the policies of the Third Reich, the most celebrated event of this period came in 1976 in what remains known as the "Victoria Station incident".  Mr Bowie staged a media event, arriving standing in an open Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman Landaulet, recalling for many the way in which Hitler so often appeared in his 770 K.  Unfortunately, a photographer captured a shot in what the singer later claimed was “mid wave” and it certainly resembled a Nazi salute.  He later attributed all that happened during this stage of his career to too many hard drugs which had caused his interest in the aesthetics of inter-war Berlin to turn into an obsession with politics of the period.  All was however quickly forgiven and his audience awaited the next album which is an interesting contrast to the cancel culture created by the shark-feeding dynamic of the social media era.

Lindsay Lohan: Sometimes, a wave is just a wave.

Now, were a pop star to tell interviewers: “Britain could benefit from a fascist leader” and “I believe very strongly in fascism … Adolf Hitler was one of the first rock stars”, their future career prospects might be "nasty, solitary, brutish and short".  Despite that orthodoxy however, the multi-media personality Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West (b 1977)) has expressed what seem to be pro-Hitler sentiments and been photographed wearing a "swastika T-shirt", even (briefly) offering them for sale on the (now apparently in abeyance) Yeezy website.  Rather than having him cancelled, Mr Ye's comments and products seem to have had at least a financial upside because in a post on X (formerly known as Twitter) he stated: "...AND I MADE 40 MILLION THE NEXT DAY BETWEEN MY DIFFERENT BUSINESS. THERE'S I LOT OF JEWISH PEOPLE I KNOW AND LOVE AND STILL WORK WITH. THE POINT I MADE AND SHOWED IS THAT I AM NOT UNDER JEWISH CONTROL ANYMORE IN WAR YOU TAKE A COUPLE LOSES..."  That would seem to suggest that in the right circumstances, the Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) and Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945; Nazi propaganda minister 1933-1945) were right: "It doesn't matter what people are saying about you as long as they're saying something."

Guillotine

Guillotine (pronounced gil-uh-teen)

(1) An apparatus designed efficiently to carry out executions by decapitation.

(2) In medicine, an instrument used surgically to remove the tonsils.

(3) Any of various machines in which a vertical blade between two parallel uprights descends to cut or trim metal, stacks of paper etc.

(4) To truncate or cut.

(5) A technical procedure permitted in some parliaments which provides for an early termination of the time usually allocated to debate a bill, forcing an immediate vote.

(6) In philosophy, as “Hume's guillotine” (a synonym of “Hume's law”), the idea that what ought to be the case cannot be deduced from what is already the case; named after the Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711–1776).  One advantage Scottish philosophers have over Germans is clarity.

(7) In law, as “guillotine clause”, a contractual stipulation that the adoption of the overall contractual package requires adoption of all of the individual treaties or contracts within it; the clause often appears in international treaties or agreements between sub-national entities.

(8) In historic French slang, as “dry guillotine”, the deportation to a penal colony.

Circa 1791: The guillotine was named after Joseph Guillotin (1738-1814), the French physician who advocated its adoption.  The surname Guillotin was of French origin and was from the Old French personal name Guillot, a diminutive of "Guillaume" (the French form of William, meaning “will” or “desire” + “helmet” or “protection” which, macabrely, is amusing given the later association with the guillotine). The “-in” suffix is a common diminutive in French surnames, meaning “little” (in the sense of “younger”) or “son of”.  Still today, the surname Guillotin is found primarily in western France, particularly in regions like Brittany (Bretagne), Normandy, and the Loire Valley and probably began as a patronymic, identifying the bearer as “the son of Guillot”.  Guillotine & guillotining are nouns & verbs and guillotined is a verb; the noun plural is guillotines.  Although use of the verb is attested only from 1794, etymologists seem to agree it would have come into oral use simultaneously with the noun.

The classic guillotine consists of a tall, upright frame in which a weighted and angled blade is raised to the top and suspended.  The condemned person is secured with stocks at the bottom of the frame, positioning the neck directly below the blade. The blade is then released, swiftly to fall, forcefully decapitating the victim in a single pass, the head falling into a basket below.  In 1789, having witnessed the sometimes prolonged suffering caused by other methods of execution, Dr Joseph Guillotin (1738-1814), then a deputy in the National Assembly, had commended the guillotine to the authorities, his notes at the time indicating he was concerned with (1) efficiency of process, (2) a humanitarian concern for the victim and (3), the effect less expeditious methods had on executioners (and of the three, it was only the first and third which would later induce the Nazis to abandon mass-shootings of the Jews and instead create an industrialized process).  The French administration agreed and several guillotines were built in 1791, the first execution the following year.  Approvingly reporting the efficiency of the machine, the Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure in January 1793 noted "The name of the machine in which the axe descends in grooves from a considerable height so that the stroke is certain and the head instantly severed from the body."  The device also affected Scottish historian Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) who, in his seminal French Revolution (1837), was moved to observe "This is the product of Guillotin's endeavors, ... which product popular gratitude or levity christens by a feminine derivative name, as if it were his daughter: La Guillotine! ... Unfortunate Doctor! For two-and-twenty years he, unguillotined, shall hear nothing but guillotine, see nothing but guillotine; then dying, shall through long centuries wander, as it were, a disconsolate ghost, on the wrong side of Styx and Lethe; his name like to outlive Cæsar's."  For better or worse, historians no longer write like that.

Sterling silver cigar cutter (1994) by Theo Fennell (b 1951).

A finely crafted piece, the upright frame contained a sprung, angled blade with retaining chain, the cigar tip tumbling into a gilded silver basket after the blade descends to the stocks.  The base was of honed, black slate with a sterling silver cartouche ready for engraving, the unit supplied in a bespoke, two-door presentation case.  At auction, it sold for Stg£2,000 (cigar not included).

Born in Saintes, Dr Guillotin emerged as a prominent member of the Constituent Assembly in Paris and although philosophically opposed to capital punishment, he was a realist and wished executions done in a more humane manner and, very much in the spirit of the times, for the one method to be used for all social classes.  He recommended a machine known at the time as the “Louison” or “Louisette”, the nickname derived from the French surgeon and physiologist Dr Antoine Louis (1723-1792) who designed the prototype although it was built by German engineer and harpsichord maker Tobias Schmidt, the process typical of the division of labor in Europe at the time.  It was Herr Schmidt who suggested using a diagonal blade rather than the round shape borrowed from the executioner’s axe and, with his knowledge of anatomy, Dr Louis calculated what came to be known as the “angle of Louis”, an alternative term for the "sternal angle" (the point of junction between the manubrium and the body of the sternum).  The advocacy of Dr Guillotin however received more publicity and, much to his regret, “Guillotine” captured the public imagination, his family so embarrassed by the connection they later changed the family name.  A confessed Freemason, Dr Guillotin died of natural causes in his Paris home, aged 75 and was buried in the city’s Père-Lachaise Cemetery.

One of the kitten-heel shoes worn by Marie Antoinette (1755–1793; Queen Consort of France 1774-1792) on the day of her execution, 16 October 1793.  

While ascending the stairs to the guillotine, she tripped, stepped on the executioner's foot and lost her shoe, something of a harbinger to what she’d lose a few moments later.  The shoe was later recovered and is now on display at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen.

Although Dr Guillotin regretted his name being associated with the contraption, the true origin wasn't even French.  While the date such a thing was first used is unknown it seems almost certainly a medieval creation, an early English record indicating a mechanical beheading device was in use in Halifax in West Yorkshire; then called the Halifax Gibbet, the decapitation of an unfortunate Mr John Dalton recorded in 1286.  A sixteenth century engraving named The Execution of Murcod Ballagh Near to Merton in Ireland 1307 shows a similar machine suggesting use also in medieval Ireland and Scotland, from the mid-sixteenth century until the abolition of use circa 1710; it was called the Maiden which seems to have been functionally identical to the Halifax Gibbet.  In Italy, most un-euphemistically, it was called the Mannaia (cleaver).  Over the years, it attracted many nicknames, some sardonically deployed as the equivalent of gallows humour including La Monte-à-regret (The Regretful Climb), Le Rasoir National (The National Razor), La Veuve (The Widow), Le Moulin à Silence (The Silence Mill), La Bécane (The Machine), Le Massicot (The Cutter), La Cravate à Capet (Capet's Necktie (Capet being Louis XVI (1754–1793; King of France 1774-1792)) & La Raccourcisseuse Patriotique (The Patriotic Shortener).

Marie Antoinette's execution on October 16, 1793 (Unknown artist).

The carts famously used to take victims to the guillotine during the Reign of Terror (the period in the mid-1790s after the declaration of the First Republic, marked by massacres, public executions, anti-clericalism and internecine political struggle) were called tumbrels although many illustrations depict the use of four-wheeled carts rather than tumbrels.  Presumably both types were used but historians generally believe it was usually the tumbrel because the revolutionaries preferred the symbolism of something used usually for moving dung or rubbish and suggest artists preferred the four-wheelers simply for compositional reasons.  The noun tumbrel (two-wheeled cart for hauling dung, stones etc) was from mid-fifteenth century French, a name, curiously perhaps, used in the early thirteenth century to describe what some eighteenth century dictionaries described as a mysterious “instrument of punishment of uncertain type” but which turned out to be (1) a name for the cucking stool used, inter alia, to conduct the dunking in water of women suspected of this and that and (2) was a type of medieval balancing scale used to weigh coins.  It was from the Old French tomberel (dump cart) (which exists in Modern French as tombereau), from tomber ((let) fall or tumble), possibly from a Germanic source, perhaps the Old Norse tumba (to tumble), the Old High German tumon (to turn, reel).

Public guillotining of Eugen Weidmann, Versailles, 1939.

The records from the early days of the revolution are understandably sketchy but the first guillotine was likely that crafted by German harpsichord maker Tobias Schmidt which first was used on 25 April 1792, the term “guillotine” appearing first in print in a report by the journalist Louis René Quentin de Richebourg de Champcenetz (1759-1794) who, in another journalistic scoop, was later guillotined.  Although synonymous with the French Revolution, during which some seventeen thousand were beheaded, the guillotine remained the nation's official method of capital punishment until the death penalty was abolished in 1981.  The highwayman Nicolas Jacques Pelletier (circa 1756–1792) was the first victim while the last public guillotining was of Eugen Weidmann (1908-1939) who, convicted of six murders, was beheaded in Versailles on 17 June 1939.  The final drop of the blade came when murderer Hamida Djandoubi’s (1949-1977) sentence was carried out in Marseille on 10 September 1977.  The last words of the most recently guillotined seem not to have been recorded but in revolutionary times there were some who displayed a commendable sangfroid (from the French sang-froid, the construct being sang (blood) + froid (cold) so literally “cold blooded” but used to suggest composure, or imperturbability in the face of danger) when standing before the blade, Georges Jacques Danton (1759–1794, briefly in 1792 France's Minister of Justice) saying to his executioner: “Don’t forget to show my head to the people, it’s worth seeing.” 

Boucles d'oreilles pendantes guillotine en laiton (guillotine drop earrings in brass), cut and engraved, Paris, circa 1880.

In France, until the onset of modernity with the coming of the twentieth century, artistic and decorative representations of the guillotine proliferated because the bloody events of the 1790s had made the instrument a symbol of republican patriotism.  Methods of execution now appear less as fashion items although there was a revival associated when the punk movement went mainstream in the mid-1970s (anarchists, revolutionaries and such less inclined to trivialize what they intended soon to be a serious business). In recent years, models in nooses have however strutted the catwalks generating outrage which, measured in column inches, photographs and clicks, was of course the point of them donning the macabre accessory.  For those nostalgic for the days of la révolution, made with a variety of materials, guillotine drop earrings are available on-line.

Paper trimming guillotine.

The device was used in many European countries until well after the Second World War but, perhaps predictability, none were as enthusiastic as the Nazis.  Having been used in various German states since the seventeenth century and being the preferred method of execution in Napoleonic times (circa 1799-1815), guillotine and firing squad were the legal methods of execution during both the Second Reich (1871–1918) and the Weimar Republic (1919–1933).  For the Nazis however, it was just another way to industrialize mass-murder and under the Third Reich (1933-1945), 16,500 were guillotined including 10,000 in 1944–1945 alone although, after the attempt on his life in July 1944, Hitler wasn’t at all attracted to an efficient or humanitarian dispatch of the surviving plotters and for them specified a more gruesome method.  The guillotine was used for the last time in the FRG (Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany; the old West Germany) 1949-1990) in 1949 though use in the GDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic; the old East Germany) 1949-1990) persisted until 1966, mostly by the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Ministry for State Security, better known as the Stasi) for secret executions.

Brandenburg prison fallbeil now on display at the Deutsche Historisches Museum.  Unlike most of the Tegel machines, it's un-painted and not fitted with a blade shield although the rather crude construction (using unfinished wood planks and four hefty, unadorned wooden legs) is characteristic of the Tegel design.  Some other Tegel fallbeils have had some of the timber members replaced with square metal tubing.

The German for guillotine is Fallbeil (literally "axe-method" which is pleasingly informative).  The Nazis increased the number of capital offences in the criminal code and consequently, there was a drastic increase in the number of executions in the Reich.  To meet the demand, many prisons were designated as execution sites, sixteen gazetted by 1942, all equipped with metal (Mannhardt) fallbeils, the standardized procedure for execution as typically exact and bureaucratic as anything in the German civil service.  The first Fallbeils were made from wood and built by the inmates of the Tegel prison in Berlin (hence the name) while the later Mannhardt design (fabricated from steel) was more sophisticated, including an external pulley frame and, thoughtfully, a hinged sheet-metal cover to protect the executioner from "blood spray" an inevitable occupational risk in the profession.

The German Fallbeil (guillotine) used a much heavier blade assembly than the French device so did not demand the same falling distance to deliver sufficient energy at the point of impact to ensure a clean decapitation.  While a Fallbeil’s heavier assembly typically had a drop around 1.0–1.3 metres (40-50 inches), the French blades travelled twice the distance (2.2-2.6 metres (85-100 inches).  It’s two different paths to the same solution, the mechanics explained by the object being the force delivered, not the speed of the delivery, the equation for the energy acquired during the fall being E=mgh where:

E = gravitational potential energy
m = mass
g = acceleration due to gravity (9.81 m/s²)
h = height of the fall

All that means is that energy is proportional to both mass and height and if the variables are plugged-in, the kinetic energy immediately before impact is similar.

French:

Mass = 40 kg
Drop = 2.3 m
E=40×9.81×2.3≈903 J

German:

Mass = 75 kg
Drop = 1.2 m
E=75×9.81×1.2≈883 J

Although, depending on the construction, the drop speed might slightly vary (due to frictional losses in the frame), as a general principl,e a 2.3 m drop would produce a speed around 6.7 m/s while a 1.2 m drop would achieve around 4.9 m/s so the French blade strikes noticeably faster but the greater mass of the German blade carries significantly greater momentum is (the differential at least 40%).  For the guillotine’s grim purpose, the importance of momentum is that it’s a form of energy that provides resistance to being slowed by the material it encounters (in this case the flesh & blood of the victim’s neck).  In simple terms, a heavier blade tends more readily to continue moving through resistance.  The physics and engineering were important to get right because, gruesome though might be the business of a guillotine working to perfection, it was much worse if there was an incomplete severing, an event executioners called “stalling”.  In the worst cases, the victim was left alive (sometimes obviously so) while the apparatus was re-set for a “second drop”.

The help admiring a SWB 600.

It’s at least arguable the Mercedes-Benz 600 (M100, 1963-1981) was the last car which, upon its introduction, could be called “the best car in the world”.  Some publications used exactly that phrase when their road-test reports appeared and about all the review in US magazine Road & Track found to complain about was (1) the choice of where to place the driver’s ashtray was obviously the decision of a non-smoker and (2) the air-conditioning (AC) was primitive compare with what was installed in Cadillacs, Lincolns and Imperials (or for that matter, Chevrolets, Fords and Plymouths).  The factory did improve ashtray placement (before social change drove them extinct) but it took decades for it to produce AC systems as good as those from Detroit although, impressionistically, probably nothing has ever matched the icy blasts possible in 1960s Cadillacs and such.  As a consolation, the German machine offered four-wheel disc brakes, an OHC (overhead camshaft) engine and all independent suspension (albeit with swing axles to the rear), features guaranteeing a 600 would lap most race circuits a deal quicker.  While t's doubtful many owners ever put that capability to the test, it was a better road car at higher speeds.

A 600 Pullman on location, 2011.

Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) & Grant Bowler (b 1968) during the filming of Liz & Dick (2012), a “biopic” of the famously tempestuous relationship between the actors Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) & Richard Burton (1925–1984).  The car is a Mercedes-Benz 600  four-door Pullman with the vis-a-vis seating.  The flagstaffs (installed in this instance above the front wheel arches) were usually fitted to cars used by governments or the corps diplomatique.  The factory over the years offered a variety of designs of flagstaffs that fitted to mounting points in different locations and although not exactly duplicating the design of the Mercedes-Benz part numbers, similar devices are available in the after-market and a number of 600s never used government or diplomat service have them fitted prior to be offered for sale.

An extraordinary technical achievement, despite its run of 18-odd years, the 600 was a commercial failure with only 2677 built, the 408 (345 sedans & 63 Pullmans) which left the line in the first year of full production (1965) an encouraging start but that proved the high point, the decline precipitous after 1972 when the 600 was withdrawn from the US market, the costs of complying with the new regulations (as well as uncertainty about what was to come) just too onerous to be justified for such a low-volume model.  Although there were examples of special coachwork (armour plating, higher roof versions and even a couple of coupés)  the 600 appeared in three basic forms, the SWB ("short" wheelbase) four-door sedan, the LWB (long wheelbase) Pullmans (in four & six door form) and the Pullman Landaulets (with two lengths of retractable roof); the breakdown was 2,190 sedans, 428 Pullmans and 59 Landaulets.

The car of kings, dictators and real estate developers.

The 1970 Pullman Landaulet (one of twelve known informally as the "presidential" because the folding portion of the roof extended to the driver's compartment, the other 58 Landaulets having a convertible top only over the rear seat) was purchased by the Romanian government and used by comrade president Nicolae Ceaușescu (1918–1989; general secretary of the Romanian Communist Party 1965-1989) until he and his wife were executed (by Kalashnikov assault rifle) after a “people's tribunal” held a brief "trial", the swiftness of which was aided by the court-appointed defense counsel who declared them both guilty of the genocide of which, inter alia, they were charged.  Considering the fate of other fallen dictators, their end was less gruesome than might have been expected.  Comrade Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980; prime-minister or president of Yugoslavia 1944-1980) had a similar car (among other 600s) but he died undisturbed in his bed.  The blue SWB (short wheelbase) car to the rear is one of the relative few SWB models fitted with a divider between the front & rear compartments; the structure included hand-crafted timber writing tables and a refrigerated bar in the centre console.  It was delivered in 1977 to the Iranian diplomatic service and maintained for the Shah’s use.  The 1969 sedan to the right (identified as a US market car by the disfiguring headlight treatment) had a less eventful past, purchased by a California real estate developer, who took advantage of the Mercedes-Benz European Delivery Program (discontinued in 2020 after some 60 years), collecting the car from the Stuttgart plant.

KCNA (Korean Central News Agency) footage of the DPRK Youth Parade, Pyongyang, DPRK, 2012.  The KCNA (its headquarters at 1 Potonggang-dong in Pyongyang's Potonggang District) may be the world's most productive state news agency and is the best source for new Kim Jong-Un content. 

At the 2012 Youth Parade, all in the full stadium were happy and enthusiastic, delighted no doubt to be the only audience on the planet able to see two long-roof Mercedes-Benz 600 Landaulets together.  The DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) should not be confused with the "puppet state" RoK (Republic of Korea (South Korea)).  Kim Il-Sung (Kim I, 1912–1994; Great Leader of DPRK 1948-1994) purchased a brace of presidential Landaulets which he passed down the line (along with the rest of North Korea) to his descendants Kim Jong-Il (Kim II, 1941-2011; Dear Leader of DPRK1994-2011) & Kim Jong-Un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK since 2011).    Evil dictators and real estate developers are one thing but the television personality Jeremy Clarkson (b 1960) also owned a (SWB) 600 and from that the car's reputation may never have recovered.  

Staged publicity shot of 1966 Mercedes-Benz 600s.

A four-door Pullman (left) and SWB (right) parked outside the Hotel Vierjahreszeiten, Munich, Bavaria, FRG.  This shot illustrates the difference between the two platforms, the Pullman's additional length all in the wheelbase (the Pullman's was 3,900 mm (153½ inches) against the sedan's 3,200 mm (126 inch).  The factory initially called the sedans “limousines” because that was the traditional German term for a four door sedan (or saloon) but they’re commonly referred to also as the SWB (short wheelbase), the Pullmans very definitely a LWB (long wheelbase).

1966 Mercedes-Benz 600 SWB, Place de la Concorde, Paris, France.

The 600’s famously smooth ride and remarkably capable handling was achieved with a suspension system using air-bellows but more intricate still was the engine-drive hydraulic system with which could be controlled the raising and lowering of the windows and central divider (installed on all but one of the Pullmans and optional on the SWBs), the setting of the shock absorbers (dampers), the opening and closing of the sun-roofs (it was possible on Pullmans to order two!) and the positions of the seats.  Additionally, the closing of the trunk (boot) lid and doors were hydraulically controlled although the hood (bonnet) needed to be raised manually; the factory was clearly more concerned for the comfort of passengers than mechanics.  To achieve all this, the plumbing’s fittings included 30 hydraulic switches, 12 double-acting hydraulic cylinders, 10 single-acting cylinders, six self-resetting single-acting units, a pump, a reservoir, and an accumulator, all connected by 3.5 mm (⅛ inch) internal-diameter lines coursing with hydraulic oil at a pressure of 2,176 psi (150-bar).  As might be imagined, to even experienced automotive engineers & mechanics, the schematic appeared of Byzantine complexity but to those accustomed to the hydraulics of heavy machinery it seemed simple, the only novelty being components unusually small.  The pressure of the system was high enough (twice that of a typical fire hose), if ruptured, to pierce human flesh although, reassuringly, below what’s needed to cut through bone.  Just to prove safety warnings are not something recent, the high pressure warranted a passage in a notably thick publication: Workshop Manual, Type 600, The Grand Mercedes: “It cannot be too highly stressed that it is mortally dangerous to open the oil-pressure container!”  Although the silently operating hydraulic system did offer the advantage of eliminating the noise which would have been generated had electric motors been used, the real attraction was the elimination of an estimated 800 metres (2600 feet) of wiring and more than a dozen motors (and it would have been a challenge to fit them all in the existing structure).

The Guillotine.

A Mercedes-Benz 600 sedan in the now closed Kemp Auto Museum in Saint Louis, Missouri, is used to demonstrate why the hydraulically activated trunk (boot) lid was known to wary technicians as “the guillotine”.  This is the lid closing with the hydraulics on the most hungry setting.

1966 Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman Landaulet with the shorter of the two folding roofs.

The trunk-lid’s single hydraulic cylinder can bring the steel panel down with alarming force so service personnel decided it deserved to be nicknamed “the guillotine”.  It was however adjustable to reduce the potential to damage fingers (at least there was an attempt to minimize risk; from certain manufacturers, some of the early electric windows didn’t include a clutching mechanism and were capable of crushing the match boxes often used to demonstrate the danger to dawdling digits).  The 600’s hydraulic system was well-built and used high quality components but the factory knew nothing is indestructible and every car included in the trunk a box containing (1) four wedges to force between the glass and the jambs to keep the windows up and (2) a set of pins which could be inserted to keep the squabs of the front seats upright.  Indeed, the door closing apparatus proved troublesome (tales of expensive dresses ruined by a squirt of hydraulic fluid part of the 600 legend) and wasn’t fitted after 1967 but the guillotine remained standard equipment until the end.