different realities and reactions jugated to even harsher injunctions such as the use of chains. The motive for at least the first attack was his longing for revenge on the prison authorities, but for at least the second and third attack the motive was a combination of this and a wish to leave the prison even by an execution. Maybe one could call it being weary of life, at least of prison life. He hoped that no pardon would be given the second or third time. Before the second pardon he wrote to his mother that he could but did not want to commit suicide. The state that had put him in the misery of his life was also responsible to end it. To be noted is that Nielsen during the period between the second,1886, and third sentence of death, 1892, for aperiod of three and ahalf years from 1886 to 1889, had changed his atheistic view of life into a Christian. During those years he did not plan any attacks.539 Denmark was early, but not as early as Austria, both in combining the execution with other punishment, making it as painful and deterrent as possible, and, later, to extract the execution itself from the legislation seeking to discourage those seeking to be executed. The often unsolvable problem, confronting the courts even up to the last execution, except for those in 1946–50, was which law was to be applied for this specific murder. 539 Udsholt og Udsholt 1987 p 105, Duedahl 2016 p 255 sqq, 269 sqq, 274, 280 sqq. 154
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