 As to the National Socialists, the leading Nazi jurist Hans Frank boasted at the 1934 Reichsparteitag of “reckless implementation of the death penalty” as a special acquisition of the Nazi regime.Under Hitler nearly 40,000 death sentences were handed down, mainly by the Volksgerichtshof and also by the Reich Military Tribunal.Executions were carried out most often by beheading using the guillotine, which in 1936 was ordained the official means of civil execution of capital punishment.