The Last Guillotine of Paris: True Crime, a Serial Killer, and the Final Public Execution in France

In the late 1930s, as Europe drifted toward war, Paris became the stage for one of the most unsettling criminal cases in modern French history. A series of calculated murders, committed by a German con man operating across borders, culminated in a public execution that would mark the end of an era.
This true crime account examines the life and crimes of Eugen Weidmann, the last person executed by guillotine before a public crowd in France. His arrest and trial drew intense international attention, not only for the brutality of the crimes but for what they revealed about a continent on the brink of collapse.
The case was closely followed by American journalist Janet Flanner, then serving as The New Yorker’s Paris correspondent. Through her reporting, the story of a single killer became inseparable from the wider political and moral crisis overtaking Europe. Weidmann’s violence, spectacle, and execution reflected a society increasingly desensitized to cruelty and authoritarian control.
The Last Guillotine of Paris places a notorious murder case within its full historical context, tracing how crime, media, and rising extremism intersected in the final months before World War II. The result is a restrained, factual examination of violence, accountability, and the end of public execution in modern France.