The Diary of Caspar Kruse III, Executioner: Goslar, June 15, 1629 – The First Head

 It did not rain. That surprised me. I had expected mud, slippery stones, a sword sliding from my grip because of the wet. But the morning was clear. Pale in light, almost silent. The air carried the scent of chamomile, of dung, of the ordinary things that knew nothing of what was about to happen.

My father had not said much that morning. He had checked my clothing: the linen shirt, the leather belt, the black of the coat. He had laid the sword ready, but not yet handed it over. “You carry it only when you have earned it,” he said. I nodded. I understood that.

Hans, my father’s servant, already stood at the scaffold, his hands blackened with the grease he had rubbed into the axe. He was nervous—or pretended to be. His voice rang too loud when he said the wood was firm, it would not slip. The knife rested, as always, under his belt, in case… yes, in case of what? Failure? Escape? A second blow?

The victim was a highway robber, still young, from the forests near Vienenburg. He had attacked a miller, struck him with a stone, raped his maid, and then lain for days in the bushes with the church silver from Immenrode in his pocket. No doubt of his guilt. He had confessed, even without torture. He had not screamed, not begged. Only asked: “Quickly, if you can.”

And I was to do it.
My trial of mastery.

The council had kept it quiet. No audience, no gallows fair. Only the members of the small court, my father, Hans, and the servant who accompanied the condemned. An old man with crooked shoulders who barely looked.

I remember how my fingers trembled as I received the sword. It felt heavier than ever before. Heavier than the steel, heavier than the moment. My father stood behind me, his hands on my shoulders. “Feel the line,” he whispered. “Not the neck, but the line. That is where you must pass through.” He pointed to the man’s shoulder line. “Once you are there, he is already gone.”

The condemned knelt. His head was not fixed; that was the rule for a master’s trial. No band, no nail. He had to hold still of his own will. He did. Still. His eyes forward. I saw that he prayed. Not aloud, only with his lips. I closed my eyes.

When I opened them again, time stood still.
The sword moved.

I did not feel it, I did not hear it. Only the moment after: the faint sound of flesh tearing, the slight trembling in my arms, the dull thud of the head on the straw. And then: silence.

Hans whispered something. My father knelt by the body, examining the cut, the neck. “One stroke,” he said. And then, louder: “Masterly.”

I do not know what I felt. No triumph. No joy. Only… calm. As if I could finally breathe. As if I had earned a right to exist in the craft to which I had looked up for years, like a beggar at a window.

The council members nodded. One wrote something down. Another looked at my father, as if silently congratulating him. No one spoke of the dead man.

We buried him that very afternoon, outside the walls. Hans and I dug, my father read a psalm, the servant offered no hand in farewell. I had taken my first life. And I had not broken.

At home – That same evening

Mother had heard from Hans. Of course he had not kept it to himself. “He fell like an apple from the tree,” he had said. She had not prepared much—lentil soup, some blood sausage, barley bread with salt. But on the table stood a jug of wine, and that happened seldom without reason.

When I entered, she looked at me for a long time. Not worried. Not cold. But… searching. As if to see whether I was still the same.

“Did it go well?” she asked.
I nodded.
“And do you feel different?”
I shook my head.

She smiled. “That is good. And that is bad.” She said no more.

We ate in silence. My father cut his bread slowly, like a ritual. Hans slurped and belched. I heard the spoon against the bowl, the pouring of wine. And then, after the second round, Mother rose and fetched something from the bench by the hearth: a small, leather-covered box.

“I have kept it for this day,” she said.

It was a ring. Silver, old, engraved with the family seal: the armored hand clasping the executioner’s sword.

“It belonged to your grandfather,” Father said. “Now it belongs to you.”

I stretched out my hand. He slid it over my finger.
It fit.

And I knew: this was the beginning of something that would never end. That is why I resolved to keep records—to one day look back and learn from all that lies along my path.




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