Paul Irniger was executed at the cantonal penitentiary in Zug in the early morning of August 25, 1939. The Museum Burg Zug describes him as the last person executed in the canton of Zug, and Swiss Radio and Television (SRF) and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) both call him the second-to-last person executed in Switzerland. The last civilian execution in the country followed in Obwalden in October 1940. A federal criminal code without the death penalty had been approved by voters in 1938, but it came into force only on January 1, 1942, too late for Irniger.
He had killed a taxi driver near Baar, in the canton of Zug, in December 1933, and for almost four years nothing connected him to it. In those years he lived by fraud and, for a time, as a false priest. In August 1937 he was arrested at Rapperswil, in the canton of St. Gallen, after burglaries, and people died in the events that followed. At St. Gallen he confessed to everything, including the killing near Baar. A St. Gallen court sentenced him to death in 1938, and the cantonal parliament, the Grosser Rat, commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Zug then sentenced him to death for the earlier killing, and this sentence was carried out.
Paul Irniger was born in November 1913 in Goldau, in the canton of Schwyz. The Beobachter, a Swiss consumer and legal magazine, reports that his father died when he was six and that his mother had several convictions for fraud and minor offenses. He grew up with foster families and in children's homes, where, according to the same account, he was mistreated. He was made to train as a carpenter, although he had wanted to become a priest.
Little more of his early years is on record. The wish to enter the priesthood bears on what came later, since both the Beobachter and the NZZ describe a period in which he presented himself as a clergyman.
In early December 1933, when he was 20 years old, Irniger traveled by train to Zug and took a taxi. According to the Beobachter, he killed the driver near Baar and took 60 francs. The exact day and the driver's age are not on record.
For almost four years the killing was attributed to no one, and no suspect was identified.
The dates and order of events between 1933 and 1937 are not on record. The Beobachter says that after the killing Irniger passed himself off as a Trappist father, read Latin Mass and heard confessions in several churches, and that the Bishop of Chur praised him. When the deception was exposed, it says, he was imprisoned for a few months. The NZZ gives a related sequence: he was arrested for fraud and placed in a penal institution, escaped, and posed as a priest in Einsiedeln, in the canton of Schwyz, until he was found out and jailed for the impersonation. After his release, the NZZ adds, he worked as a vacuum cleaner salesman and also committed burglaries.
On August 9, 1937, after a series of burglaries, Irniger was arrested at Rapperswil, on Lake Zurich in the canton of St. Gallen. The Beobachter states that he feared the arrest would expose him as the person responsible for the killing near Baar. People died in the events that followed, and the Beobachter and the NZZ differ on who they were.
The NZZ writes that a police officer was killed and a second man hurt. The Beobachter writes that a police officer was wounded and a 30-year-old man was killed. He was taken into custody the same day. The Beobachter, SRF and zentralplus all describe him as a triple murderer, counting the taxi driver and two deaths at Rapperswil. The victims' names are not on record.
In custody at St. Gallen, Irniger confessed to the Rapperswil events and to the killing near Baar; the Beobachter says he confessed to all of it, the murder near Baar included. The St. Gallen court sentenced him to death in 1938. The date of the verdict, the counts on which he was convicted and anything he said at trial are not on record.
The Grosser Rat of St. Gallen, which then held the power to pardon, converted the death sentence into life imprisonment in a penitentiary. The date of the vote is not given. The Beobachter says that seven weeks later Swiss voters approved a unified criminal code that no longer provided for the death penalty. According to zentralplus the vote was on July 3, 1938, and the code was approved with 53 percent in favor. It took effect in 1942.
Zentralplus also reports on the search for someone to carry out a sentence. Once the execution had been set in St. Gallen, it says, 123 men applied for the post within a few days, and many offered to do it without pay. After the Grosser Rat's pardon, 74 men applied at Zug, 61 of them for the first time.
The killing near Baar had still not been tried. Zentralplus dates the trial at Zug to July 1939. The Beobachter writes that Irniger was sentenced to death at Zug on August 25, 1939, for the taxi driver's killing, and that he was executed; August 25 is the date of the execution, and the exact date of the Zug verdict is not on record. The NZZ adds that he waived an appeal.
Zentralplus writes that the authorities of Zug carried out the sentence after St. Gallen had pardoned him, a sequence that, in its words, tied Zug and Obwalden to capital punishment in the last years before the new code took effect. The Zug authorities' reasons for allowing the sentence to stand are not on record.
Irniger was executed at the Zug penitentiary in the early morning of August 25, 1939. The Beobachter and zentralplus both put the time at 4:45 a.m. The man who carried out the sentence was chosen from the volunteers.
The Museum Burg Zug holds a wooden chair that it lists as probably used by Irniger in his cell at the penitentiary, and the museum states that he was the last person executed in the canton of Zug and the second-to-last in Switzerland. The last, Hans Vollenweider, was executed at Sarnen, in Obwalden, on October 18, 1940, according to the museum and swissinfo.ch.
Swiss accounts remember the case chiefly for the way two cantons handled the same man. A reprieve at St. Gallen did not bind Zug, which had its own, earlier killing to answer for, and the sentence there was carried out after the national code had been approved by voters. The NZZ lists Irniger in a survey of Swiss serial offenders, alongside men convicted in later decades. A memoir or autobiography by him is not on record.
Who died at Rapperswil. The Beobachter says a police officer was wounded and a 30-year-old man killed; the NZZ says a police officer was killed and a second man hurt. Several outlets nevertheless call him a triple murderer.
The date of the Zug verdict. The Beobachter gives August 25, 1939, the day of the execution; zentralplus dates the Zug trial to July 1939.
The date of the first killing. The exact day in early December 1933 is not on record.
The St. Gallen counts. Which killings the St. Gallen court treated as the basis of its death sentence is not on record, though the Rapperswil events are the likely subject.
The victims. The names of the taxi driver and of the people who died at Rapperswil are not on record.
November 1913: Paul Irniger is born in Goldau, canton Schwyz.
Early December 1933: a taxi driver is killed near Baar, canton Zug; no suspect is identified.
1933 to 1937: Irniger is jailed for fraud and for impersonating a priest, and later commits burglaries (dates not given).
August 9, 1937: arrested at Rapperswil; people die in the events that follow.
1938: death sentence at St. Gallen after a confession; the Grosser Rat commutes it to life imprisonment.
July 3, 1938: Swiss voters approve the unified criminal code ending the death penalty (in force 1942).
July 1939: trial at Zug for the killing near Baar; sentenced to death.
August 25, 1939: executed at the Zug penitentiary at 4:45 a.m.
October 18, 1940: Hans Vollenweider is executed at Sarnen, the last civilian execution in Switzerland.
January 1, 1942: federal abolition of the death penalty takes effect.