22/10/2025
In the brutal world of 16th-century Germany, fate could be as cruel as the law itself. Heinrich Schmidt, a humble craftsman, learned this the hardest way. One day, a nobleman—drunk on power and arrogance—decided three peasants must hang. There was no ex*****oner on hand, so he pointed to Heinrich. “You’ll do it.” Refusal meant death. Obedience meant disgrace. And so, with trembling hands, Heinrich carried out the order—and in that single act, his life was forever rewritten.
Branded as a hangman, Heinrich and his family were cast into social exile. They were forbidden from most trades, shunned in marketplaces, and forced to sit apart in church. His son, Franz Schmidt, was born into this curse—a child fated to inherit not just his father’s name, but his burden.
Following his father from gallows to gallows, Franz grew up in the shadow of death. He watched the precision of the noose, the swing of the blade, the silent prayer before the fall. When his time came, he took up the role with grim dignity, transforming ex*****on into a solemn duty. In Nuremberg, he became both feared and respected—a man of order in a world of crime. He married into a family of ex*****oners, raised seven children, and earned a rare measure of honor in a profession built on horror.
But behind the ex*****oner’s mask beat the heart of a healer. Fascinated by anatomy, Franz spent his nights studying the human body—not to destroy it, but to understand it. After decades at the scaffold, he retired and turned to medicine, using the very knowledge that once served death to serve life.
Over the years, Franz recorded 394 ex*****ons in meticulous detail, his journals now preserved as invaluable windows into medieval justice. Yet his true legacy lies not in those deaths, but in the lives he later saved—nearly 10,000 souls, healed by the hands that once delivered judgment.
