Famous People Who Were Executed By Firing Squad

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Updated November 30, 2023 22.1K views 102 items
List of famous people who were executed by firing squad, including photos, birthdates, professions, and other information. These celebrities who died by firing squad are listed alphabetically and include the famous firing squad execution victims’ hometown and biographical info about them when available. This list includes Roberto Cofresí, Michel Ney and more people. These notable firing squad execution deaths include modern and long-gone famous men and women, from politicians to religious leaders to writers. Everyone on this list has executed by firing squad as a cause of death somewhere in their public records, even if it was just one contributing factor for their death. (97 People)
  • Joseph Plunkett

    Joseph Plunkett

    Joseph Mary Plunkett (Irish: Seosamh Máire Pluincéid, 21 November 1887 – 4 May 1916) was an Irish nationalist, republican, poet, journalist, revolutionary and a leader of the 1916 Easter Rising.
  • Alexander Kolchak

    Alexander Kolchak

    Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak KB (Russian: Алекса́ндр Васи́льевич Колча́к; 16 November [O.S. 4 November] 1874 – 7 February 1920) was an Imperial Russian admiral, military leader and polar explorer who served in the Imperial Russian Navy, who fought in the Russo-Japanese War and the First World War. During the Russian Civil War, he established an anti-communist government in Siberia—later the Provisional All-Russian Government—and was recognised as the "Supreme Leader and Commander-in-Chief of All Russian Land and Sea Forces" by the other leaders of the White movement from 1918 to 1920. His government was based in Omsk, in southwestern Siberia. For nearly two years, Kolchak was Russia's internationally recognized head of state. However, his effort to unite the White Movement failed; Kolchak refused to consider autonomy for ethnic minorities and refused to cooperate with non-Bolshevik leftists, heavily relying on outside aid. This served only to boost the Reds morale, as it allowed them to label Kolchak as a "Western Puppet". As his White forces fell apart, he was betrayed and captured by the Czechoslovak Legion who handed him over to local Socialists-Revolutionaries, and he was soon after executed by the Bolsheviks.

  • Ragnar Skancke

    Ragnar Sigvald Skancke (9 November 1890 – 28 August 1948) was the Norwegian Minister of Labour (appointed, but never accepted the position) and Minister for Church and Educational Affairs in Vidkun Quisling's government of the Nasjonal Samling party during World War II. Before the war, Skancke was a highly respected professor of electrical engineering at the Norwegian Institute of Technology in Trondheim and a member of the Royal Norwegian Society of Sciences and Letters.

  • Vladimir Derevenko

    Vladimir Nikolaevich Derevenko was a Russian physician and surgeon who served at the court of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia.
  • Patrick Pearse
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    Patrick Pearse

    Pádraig Henry Pearse (also known as Pádraic Pearse or Patrick Pearse; Irish: Pádraig Anraí Mac Piarais; 10 November 1879 – 3 May 1916) was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist, republican political activist and revolutionary who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916. Following his execution along with fifteen others, Pearse came to be seen by many as the embodiment of the rebellion.
  • John Byng

    John Byng

    Admiral John Byng (baptised 29 October 1704 – 14 March 1757) was a Royal Navy officer who was notoriously court-martialled and executed by firing squad. After joining the navy at the age of thirteen, he participated at the Battle of Cape Passaro in 1718. Over the next thirty years he built up a reputation as a solid naval officer and received promotion to vice-admiral in 1747. He also served as Commodore-Governor of Newfoundland Colony in 1742, Commander-in-Chief, Leith, 1745 to 1746 and was a member of parliament from 1751 until his death. Byng is best known for failing to relieve a besieged British garrison during the Battle of Minorca at the beginning of the Seven Years' War. Byng had sailed for Minorca at the head of a hastily assembled fleet of vessels, some of which were in poor condition. He fought an inconclusive engagement with a French fleet off the Minorca coast, and then elected to return to Gibraltar to repair his ships. Upon return to Britain, Byng was court-martialled and found guilty of failing to "do his utmost" to prevent Minorca falling to the French. He was sentenced to death and, after pleas for clemency were denied, was shot dead by a firing squad on 14 March 1757.
  • Edith Cavell

    Edith Cavell

    Edith Louisa Cavell (; 4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse. She is celebrated for saving the lives of soldiers from both sides without discrimination and in helping some 200 Triple Entente soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during the First World War, for which she was arrested. She was accused of treason, found guilty by a court-martial and sentenced to death. Despite international pressure for mercy, she was shot by a German firing squad. Her execution received worldwide condemnation and extensive press coverage. The night before her execution, she said, "Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone." These words were later inscribed on a memorial to her near Trafalgar Square. Her strong Anglican beliefs propelled her to help all those who needed it, both German and Allied soldiers. She was quoted as saying, "I can’t stop while there are lives to be saved." The Church of England commemorates her in its Calendar of Saints on 12 October. Cavell, who was 49 at the time of her execution, was already notable as a pioneer of modern nursing in Belgium.

  • Albert Viljam Hagelin

    Albert Viljam Hagelin (24 April 1881 – 25 May 1946) was a Norwegian businessman and opera singer who became the Minister of Domestic Affairs in the Quisling regime, the puppet government headed by Vidkun Quisling during Germany's World War II occupation of Norway.A native of Bergen, Hagelin was sentenced to death during the Norwegian post-war trials. He was executed by firing squad at Oslo's Akershus Fortress, where many of the 37 individuals condemned for treason and war crimes were executed.

  • Fernand de Brinon

    Fernand de Brinon, Marquis de Brinon (French pronunciation: ​[feʁnɑ̃ də bʁinɔ̃]; 26 August 1885 – 15 April 1947) was a French lawyer and journalist who was one of the architects of French collaboration with the Nazis during World War II. He claimed to have had five private talks with Adolf Hitler between 1933 and 1937.
  • Roman von Ungern-Sternberg

    Roman von Ungern-Sternberg

    Baron Roman Fyodorovich Ungern-Sternberg (Born Nikolai Robert Maximilian Freiherr von Ungern-Sternberg; Russian: Рома́н Фёдорович У́нгерн-Ште́рнберг, tr. Román Fyodorovich Úngern-Shtérnberg; 10 January [O.S. 29 December] 1886 – 15 September 1921), better known as Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, was an Austrian-born, Russian Empire's Baltic German anti-Bolshevik lieutenant general in the Russian Civil War and then an independent warlord whose Asiatic Cavalry Division wrested control of Mongolia from the Republic of China in 1921 after its occupation. He was often referred to as Baron Ungern, or simply Ungern. Ungern was an arch-conservative monarchist who aspired to restore the Russian monarchy under Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia and to revive the Mongol Empire under the rule of the Bogd Khan. During the Russian Civil War, Ungern's attraction to Vajrayana Buddhism and his eccentric, often violent treatment of enemies and his own men earned him the sobriquet "the Mad Baron". In February 1921 he expelled Chinese troops from Mongolia and restored the monarchic power of the Bogd Khan. During his five-month occupation of Outer Mongolia, Ungern imposed order on the capital city, Ikh Khüree (now Ulaanbaatar), through fear, intimidation, and brutal violence against his opponents, particularly Bolshevik supporters. In June 1921 he went on to invade east Siberia in support of supposed anti-Bolshevik rebellions and to head off a Red Army-Mongolian partisan invasion; this action led to his defeat and capture two months later. He was taken prisoner by the Red Army and a month later put on trial for counterrevolution in Novonikolaevsk. After a six-hour trial he was found guilty, and on 15 September 1921 he was executed.
  • Michael O'Hanrahan

    Michael O'Hanrahan

    Michael O'Hanrahan (Irish: Micheál Ó hAnnrachain; 16 January 1877 – 4 May 1916) was an Irish rebel who was executed for his active role in the 1916 Easter Rising.
  • Policarpa Salavarrieta

    Policarpa Salavarrieta

    Policarpa Salavarrieta (c. 26 January 1795 – 14 November 1817), also known as "La Pola," was a Neogranadine seamstress who spied for the Revolutionary Forces during the Spanish Reconquista of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. She was captured by Spanish Royalists and ultimately executed for high treason. The Day of the Colombian Woman is on "her" day. She is now considered a heroine of the independence of Colombia. Because her birth certificate was never found, her legal given name is unknown. The name Salavarrieta is known only by the names her family and friends used. Her father referred to her as Apolonia in his will, which Salvador Contreras, the priest who formalized the testament on 13 December 1802, confirmed. She was closest to her brother, Viviano, as she became his de facto guardian when her parents died. When the armed forces in Guaduas started looking for her, she began calling herself Policarpa. In her 1817 forged passport, used to get in and out of Bogotá during the Reconquista, she appeared as "Gregoria Apolinaria." Andrea Ricaurte de Lozano, whom Policarpa lived with, and officially worked for in Bogotá, as well as Ambrosio Almeyda, a guerrilla leader to whom she supplied information, also called her by that name. Her contemporaries referred to her simply as "La Pola," but Policarpa Salavarrieta is the name by which she is remembered and commemorated.
  • Breaker Morant

    Breaker Morant

    Harry "Breaker" Harbord Morant, probably born Edwin Henry Murrant (9 December 1864 – 27 February 1902), was an Anglo-Australian drover, horseman, bush poet and military officer, who was convicted and executed for murder during the Second Anglo-Boer War. While serving with the Bushveldt Carbineers during the Second Anglo-Boer War, Lieutenant Morant was arrested and court-martialed for war crimes—one of the first such prosecutions in British military history. According to military prosecutors, Morant retaliated for the death in combat of his commanding officer with a series of revenge killings against both Boer POWs and many civilian residents of the Northern Transvaal. He was accused of the summary execution of Floris Visser, a wounded prisoner of war, and the slaying of four Afrikaners and four Dutch schoolteachers who had been taken prisoner at the Elim Hospital. Morant was found guilty and sentenced to death. Lieutenants Morant and Peter Handcock were then court-martialed for the murder of the Rev. Carl August Daniel Heese, a South African-born Minister of the Berlin Missionary Society. Rev. Heese had spiritually counseled the Dutch and Afrikaner victims at Elim Hospital, indignantly vowed to inform Morant's commanding officer, and had been shot to death the same afternoon. Morant and Handcock were acquitted of the Heese murder, but their sentences for murdering Floris Visser and the eight victims at Elim Hospital were implemented by a firing squad from the Cameron Highlanders on 27 February 1902. Morant and Handcock have become folk heroes in modern Australia, representing a turning point for Australians’ self-determination and independence from British rule. Their court-martial and death have been the subject of books, a stage play, and an award-winning Australian New Wave movie by director Bruce Beresford. Upon its release during 1980, Beresford's movie both brought Morant's life story to a worldwide audience and "hoisted the images of the accused officers to the level of Australian icons and martyrs." Many Australians now regard Morant and Handcock as scapegoats or even as the victims of judicial murder. Attempts continue, with wide public support, to obtain a posthumous pardon or even a new trial. According to South African historian Charles Leach, "In the opinion of many South Africans, particularly descendants of victims as well as other involved persons in the far Northern Transvaal, justice was only partially achieved by the trial and the resultant sentences. The feeling still prevails that not all the guilty parties were dealt with – the notorious Captain Taylor being the most obvious one of all."

  • Joseph Epstein

    Joseph Epstein (October 16, 1911 – April 11, 1944 in Fort Mont-Valérien, France), also known as Colonel Gilles and as Joseph Andrej, was a Polish-born Jewish communist activist and a French Resistance leader during World War II. He was executed by the Germans.

  • Harry Farr

    Private Harry Farr (1891– 18 October 1916) was a British soldier who was executed during World War I for cowardice at the age of 25. He came from Kensington in London and was serving in the 1st Battalion, the West Yorkshire Regiment. He was formally pardoned by the British Government in 2006.

  • Fabianus Tibo

    Fabianus Tibo was an Indonesian Catholic citizen executed by firing squad on 22 September 2006 at 1:20 a.m. local time together with Dominggus da Silva and Marinus Riwu for leading riots in Poso, Sulawesi in 2000 that led to the murders of about 200 people.Human rights activists have expressed doubts that Tibo, and the other men, were the masterminds of the riots. The different treatment of Christians and Muslims in court was also criticised, as few Muslims were ever punished for their roles in the riots and none were sentenced to more than 15 years jail. Religious leaders of Christianity and Islam, including Pope Benedict XVI and Abdurrahman Wahid, former President of Indonesia and former leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, protested the execution of Tibo.

  • Mohammad Ahman al-Naziri

  • Lajos Batthyány

    Lajos Batthyány

    Count Lajos Batthyány de Németújvár (pronunciation: ['lɒjɔʃ 'bɒc:a:ɲi dɛ ne:mɛtu:jva:r]; 10 February 1807 – 6 October 1849) was the first Prime Minister of Hungary. He was born in Pozsony (modern-day Bratislava) on 10 February 1807, and was executed by firing squad in Pest on 6 October 1849, the same day as the 13 Martyrs of Arad.

  • Joseph Darnand

    Joseph Darnand (19 March 1897 – 10 October 1945) was a soldier in the French and later German militaries, a leader of the Vichy French collaborators with Nazi Germany and a Waffen-SS officer.
  • Leon Rupnik

    Leon Rupnik

    Leon Rupnik, also known as Lav Rupnik or Lev Rupnik (10 August 1880 – 4 September 1946) was a Slovene general in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia who collaborated with the Fascist Italian and Nazi German occupation forces during World War II. Rupnik served as the President of the Provincial Government of the Nazi-occupied Province of Ljubljana from November 1943 to early May 1945. Between September 1944 and early May 1945, he also served as chief inspector of the Domobranci (Slovene Home Guard), a collaborationist militia, although he did not have any military competences until the last month of the war.
  • John Albert Taylor

    John Albert Taylor

    John Albert Taylor (June 6, 1959 – January 26, 1996) was an American who was convicted of burglary and carrying a concealed weapon in the state of Florida, and sexual assault and murder in the state of Utah. Taylor's own sister tipped off police in June 1989 after 11-year-old Charla King was found raped and strangled to death in Washington Terrace, Utah. His fingerprints were found at the crime scene, which was located in an apartment complex where he had been staying. In December 1989, Taylor was sentenced to death and placed on death row at Utah State Prison.Taylor gave up appealing his sentence after his request for retrial was rejected by the Utah Supreme Court. He became the second person to be executed by firing squad in the United States (after Gary Gilmore) since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Taylor said he chose this method of execution to embarrass the state of Utah. On January 26, 1996, the day of Taylor's execution, legislation was introduced in the Utah House of Representatives to eliminate the firing squad.
  • José María Morelos

    José María Morelos

    José María Teclo Morelos Pérez y Pavón (Spanish: [xoˈse maˈɾi.a ˈteklo moˈɾelos ˈpeɾeθ i paˈβon] (listen)) (September 30, 1765, City of Valladolid, now Morelia, Michoacán – December 22, 1815, San Cristóbal Ecatepec, State of México) was a Mexican Roman Catholic priest and revolutionary rebel leader who led the Mexican War of Independence movement, assuming its leadership after the execution of Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla in 1811. Morelos and Ignacio López Rayón are credited with organizing the war of independence. Under Morelos the Congress of Anáhuac was installed on September 13, 1813 and in November 6 of the same year congress declared the country's independence. On October 22, 1814 a constitution, Decreto Constitucional para la Libertad de la América Mexicana, was drafted by the Congress which declared that Mexico would be a Republic. After a series of defeats he was captured by the Spanish royalist military, tried by the Inquisition, defrocked as a cleric, and executed by civil authorities for treason in 1815. Morelos is a national hero in Mexico and is considered a very successful military leader despite the fact that he never took a military career and was instead a priest.
  • Masaharu Homma

    Masaharu Homma

    Masaharu Homma (本間 雅晴, Honma Masaharu, November 27, 1887 – April 3, 1946) was a lieutenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Homma commanded the Japanese 14th Army, which invaded the Philippines and perpetrated the Bataan Death March. After the war, Homma was convicted of war crimes relating to the actions of troops under his direct command and executed by firing squad on April 3, 1946.
  • Friedrich Fromm

    Friedrich Fromm

    Friedrich Fromm (8 October 1888 – 12 March 1945) was a German army officer. In World War II, Fromm was Commander in Chief of the Reserve Army (Ersatzheer), in charge of training and personnel replacement for combat divisions of the German Army, a position he occupied for most of the war. A recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, he was executed for failing to act against the plot of 20 July 1944 to assassinate Hitler.

  • Thomas Highgate

    Private Thomas James Highgate (13 May 1895 – 8 September 1914) was a British soldier during the early days of World War I, and the first British soldier to be convicted of desertion and executed during that war. Posthumous pardons for over 300 such soldiers were announced in August 2006, including Highgate.

  • Hisakazu Tanaka

    Hisakazu Tanaka (田中 久一, Tanaka Hisakazu, 16 March 1889 – 27 March 1947) was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, and head of the Japanese occupation force in Hong Kong in World War II. His name is occasionally transliterated "Tanaka Hisaichi".
  • James W. Rodgers

    James W. Rodgers

    James W. Rodgers (August 3, 1910 – March 30, 1960) was an American who was sentenced to death by the state of Utah for the murder of miner Charles Merrifield in 1957. In his final statement before his execution by firing squad in 1960, Rodgers requested a bulletproof vest. His execution by firing squad would be the last to be carried out in the United States before capital punishment was halted by the U.S. Supreme Court. The death penalty was reinstated in 1976 and the first person executed in Utah subsequent to that date was Gary Gilmore in 1977.
  • Siyyid `Alí Muḥammad Shírází

    Siyyid `Alí Muḥammad Shírází

    The Báb, born Siyyid `Alí Muhammad Shírází (; Persian: سيد علی ‌محمد شیرازی‎; October 20, 1819 – July 9, 1850) was the founder of Bábism, and one of the central figures of the Bahá'í Faith. The Báb was a merchant from Shiraz in Qajar Iran who in 1844, at the age of twenty-four, claimed to be a messenger of God. He took on the title of the Báb (; Arabic: باب‎), meaning "Gate" or "Door", a reference associated with the promised Twelver Mahdi or al-Qá'im. He faced opposition from the Persian government, which eventually executed him and thousands of his followers, who were known as Bábís. The Báb composed numerous letters and books in which he stated his claims and defined his teachings with some roots to Shaykhism and therefore Hurufism using many numerical calculations. He introduced the idea of He whom God shall make manifest, a messianic figure who would bring a greater message than his own.To Bahá'ís, the Báb fills a similar role as Elijah or John the Baptist; a predecessor or forerunner who paved the way for their own religion. Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith, was a follower of the Báb and claimed in 1863 to be the fulfillment of the Báb's prophecy, 13 years after the former's death.
  • Siegfried Fehmer

    Siegfried Fehmer

    Siegfried Wolfgang Fehmer (10 January 1911 in Munich – 16 March 1948) was a German Gestapo officer during World War II. He was stationed in Norway during the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany, and at the end of the war he was a Kriminalrat, the police investigator heading the infamous Abteilung IV from its headquarters in Victoria Terrasse, Oslo. He had also reached the rank of Hauptsturmführer in the SS. Along with Josef Terboven, Fehmer was considered one of the most despised members of the German occupation forces in Norway.
  • Pyotr Schmidt

    Pyotr Schmidt

    Pyotr Petrovich Schmidt (Russian: Пётр Петрович Шмидт; February 17 [O.S. February 5] 1867 – March 19 [O.S. March 6] 1906) was one of the leaders of the Sevastopol Uprising during the Russian Revolution of 1905.