Educational purpose only. This post documents historical events related to capital punishment in Spain (including periods overlapping World War II and the Franco regime) and condemns all totalitarian regimes, war crimes, and extremist ideologies. We do not glorify violence or hate.
For nearly a century and a half, Spain relied on a distinctive form of capital punishment known as the garrote vil (or simply the garrote). This iron-collar device served as the country’s primary method of execution for ordinary criminal cases, replacing the gallows and remaining in official use until the late 20th century. Its history reflects shifting attitudes toward “humane” punishment, state authority, and eventually the rejection of the death penalty itself.
Origins and Early Development
Forms of strangulation as punishment date back to ancient times, including Roman practices and medieval Europe. In Spain the garrote evolved from simpler rope-and-stick methods into a more mechanical apparatus. By the early 19th century it was already in limited use. During the Napoleonic occupation, Joseph Bonaparte and the Cortes of Cádiz promoted it as preferable to hanging. After Ferdinand VII restored absolute rule, a royal decree of 24 April 1832 formally abolished hanging and established the garrote as the standard method for civilian executions across Spanish territories. Different grades—ordinary, vil, and noble—originally reflected the social status of the condemned, though these distinctions later faded.
The device typically consisted of a metal collar fixed to a post or chair. A screw or lever mechanism tightened the collar, intended to cause rapid unconsciousness and death. Authorities presented it as more “decent” and efficient than the gallows, aligning with contemporary European debates about minimizing visible suffering while still enforcing the ultimate penalty.
Nearly 150 Years as Spain’s Official Tool
From 1832 onward the garrote became the exclusive civilian method of execution in Spain and its overseas territories (including Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines). Public executions continued into the late 19th century; the last public garroting occurred in Barcelona in 1897. Thereafter, sentences were carried out inside prisons. Records indicate hundreds of executions in the 19th century and dozens more in the first half of the 20th.
The method remained in force through political upheavals: the Restoration, the Second Republic (which briefly suspended the death penalty), the Spanish Civil War, and the long Franco dictatorship. Under Franco it was applied both to common criminals and to political opponents. Military authorities sometimes preferred firing squads, yet the garrote continued for civilian cases.
Final Uses and Abolition
The last executions by garrote took place on 2 March 1974: Salvador Puig Antich, a Catalan anarchist, in Barcelona’s Model Prison, and Georg Michael Welzel (known as Heinz Chez), a German national, in Tarragona. These occurred in the final years of the Franco regime. Although the 1978 Spanish Constitution abolished the death penalty in peacetime, the garrote remained technically listed in the penal code until a 1983 reform fully removed it.
Historical Reflection
The long survival of the garrote vil illustrates how states can institutionalize particular forms of lethal force for generations, often justifying them as more orderly or less degrading than alternatives. Yet its persistence also highlights the darker side of authoritarian continuity—especially during the Franco era, when political repression and ordinary criminal justice shared the same tools of state power.
Spain’s eventual abolition of capital punishment marked a decisive break with this tradition. The story of the garrote serves as a reminder of the human cost of institutionalized violence and the importance of rejecting systems that treat death as an instrument of governance. By examining such history we better understand the dangers of totalitarian and authoritarian practices that place state power above individual dignity and the rule of law.