In German, the guillotine was renamed “Fallbeil”,
literally translated as “Drop-Axe”.
That’s practically a French-style guillotine. Eventually the Germans used a much shorter machine that had a far heavier blade: basically an all-metal frame holding the knife that would come crashing down on the victim’s neck, with the force of the weight doing the cutting more than downward momentum.
I had no idea beheadings were going on in Europe at this time.
We don’t behead persons here in the USA, do we? Any idea why not?