the strategies behind the reactions and the counterstrategies or an anthropology and a soteriology in which no hope existed for those convicted of grave crimes. According to this view, the judgements made by the court of this world and those made by God harmonise and the condemned have no chance of attaining the ethical standards required for salvation. Furthest on such an extreme route were Prussia with its military legislation and the reasoning of Steinbart and his supporters. • Ib Pursuing the dehumanisation of the condemned, leading to the execution depicting the condemned only as a symbol of crime and not as an individual. Any prohibition of speeches fits well into this strategy. • Ic Let as much as possible of the execution and its ceremonies fade out, leaving only death. Such a development might be described through successive actions, or stages, all of which has been realised somewhere in the history of executions during the latest centuries. Among them we can find: Removal of specific ceremonies such as Halsgericht, a general shortening of the course of event, executions without public notification and at an inconvenient time, intramural executions, and executions with shortest possible premonition to the condemned or none at all.809 • II If the first strategy was aimed to make the ordinary citizen less inclined to commit any crimes, other strategies were directly aimed at those inclined to commit these murders. One method of deterrence was to make the execution more severe, often through torturous additions prior to the final killing. Through her pain and agony, the condemned thereby served as an warning example to others. Sweden was quick to choose this strategy and used it for some fifty years. Except an early restriction concerning clothing, the only substantial liturgical limitation was the rather late prohibition of the speeches by the priests. With time, and not a particularly long such, this method became almost impossible. Although some qualified executions were accepted even for a few decades after the French revolution, the time for prolonged, torturous executions was running out in most of Europe. 809 Executions early in the morning was however not a new idea. It had been used in London in the early seventeenth century in order to prevent large numbers to attend, Lake and Questier 2002 p 269. 226
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