 During the German empire, the legal methods were the hand-held axe, in some states also the guillotine for civilian crimes, and the firing squad for military crimes.According to Manfred Messerschmidt, "from 1907 to 1932," i. e. including World War I, "Germany had issued 1547 death warrants, of which 393 were executed.The Weimar Republic retained the death penalty for murder, and several murderers were guillotined.