Klein Henszlein 'Klaus Hanslein''(died 1573) was a German pirate active from 1560 to 1573 who raided shipping in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

until his defeat and capture by a fleet from

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

. Taken back to Hamburg, Henszlein and his men were paraded through the city streets before being

beheaded Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood, while all other organs are deprived of the ...

on September 10, 1573; their heads were then impaled on stakes. In a later account, the executioner described how he "flicked off" the heads of the thirty-three pirates (not including Henszlein) in only 45 minutes, then proceeding to behead the bodies of those pirates killed during their capture. He later claimed to have been "standing in blood so deep that it well nigh in his shoes did creep".

References

*Bottling, Douglas. ''The Pirates''. Alexandria, Virginia: Time-Life Books Inc., 1978. *Niehaus, Alisha. ''Piratepedia''. New York, New York: Dorling Kindersley Ltd., 2007. German pirates People executed in the Holy Roman Empire by decapitation 1573 deaths Executed German people Year of birth unknown 16th-century executions in the Holy Roman Empire People executed for piracy History of Hamburg {{crime-bio-stub