Being offered a gun with a single round

Factual Questions
1

This is something that we have seen many times in literature, film, TV shows and narrative in general: Some disgraced military man (or similar) is given the choice of doing the “honourable thing”; he is presented with a gun that has one round inside, so he can commit suicide and avoid a trial and scandal that might disgrace his family or reveal a lot of problematic/embarrassing stuff.

Off the top of my head I can think of:

-The movie “Enemy at the gates” (Khruschev says to the general who was until then in charge of the defence of Stalingrad something like “I have to report to the Big Boss; perhaps you’d want to avoid the red tape” while giving him a gun)

-The movie “Where Eagles Dare” (a variation with the traitor being offered to jump off a plane without a parachute to avoid a big trial)

-In the Agatha Christie novel “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” (Hercule Poirot leaves this option open to the murderer in order to avoid shame on his family, if I remember correctly).

Well, and many more. Anyway, I thought about whether this has happened in real life – and I can think only of two examples, both from the 20th century. I wonder if there have been more, and how old this “convention” is.

The cases I know of are:

-Colonel Alfred Redl, who was head of the counter-espionage unit of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and happened to be a mole for the Russian Empire (the Russians knew he was a homosexual, information that Redl definitely wanted to keep secret from the Austro-Hungarian government). He sold agents and information to the Russians for many years, and actually retired as head of the counter-espionage unit. He was finally unmasked in 1913, and asked for a revolver to commit suicide with as the only honourable solution.

-Field Marshall Erwin Rommel – when Hitler found out that he might have been involved with the “Valkyrie” plot to assassinate him, he ordered him dead, but he was offered a cyanide capsule to avoid a trial at the “People’s Court” (with the incentive that, if he took the cyanide, his family would be spared and officially he would have “died of his wounds”, sustained when his car was strafed by an Allied plane).

I don’t know if the Japanese institution of seppuku would count as this, or not. As far as I understand it, in the later times basically it was a substitute for execution when a person of rank was convicted of a capital crime… Same with the cup of hemlock in Athens.

Do you know of any other real-life cases?

2

I would say that a more common equivalent would be when disgraced politicians or business executives resign, rather than being fired. Sorry for the hijack.

3

Ancient Rome had numerous cases at various tmes. While suicide wasn’t exactly desirable, prominent Romans frequently preferred death rather than disgrace and inevitable execution - with the added bonus that a respectable suicide often protected family assets from seizure by hostile authorities, whereas they would take everything as well as murdering you if they could. Happened a lot in the dark days of proscription.

4

Hitler apparently expected Friedrich Paulus to shoot himself in disgrace when he surrendered at Stalingrad. Paulus said “I have no intention of shooting myself for this Bohemian corporal” and surrendered along with his surviving troops. He survived Soviet captivity and died in 1957.

5

Pal Teleki, Prime Minister of Hungry from February 1939 to April 1941, tried very, very hard to keep independent from the Nazis, who wanted his help in attacking Yugoslavia.

When it became apparent that he had failed, he committed suicide.

6

There was this guy, Socrates.

7

“Here, Marcus Flavius, is a ballista with a single bolt.”

8

Yeah, but as I mentioned in the OP, I am not convinced that the Athenian cup of hemlock qualifies. I am looking for cases where (1) someone relatively important is disgraced/commits a crime/whatever and (2) is offered suicide as a way out instead of a trial, as an “honourable solution”. Socrates was convicted in a trial and executed using the standard Athenian execution method, so point (2) definitely didn’t happen in his case.

That is why I also had my doubts about seppuku – in later times it was the method of execution for people of rank who had perpetrated a capital crime.

golf clap BRA-VO

9

The major players at Enron should have been given this option.

10

That’s a fantastic soldier who will follow the orders of the executive office despite very profound disrespect for the man in power. Plus the timely attitude probably saved his life. “Bohemian corporal” indeed…very nice: “You’re not the boss of me, you’re not even German!”

11

And there’s this situation:

12

I don’t see any of them as the type of people interested in taking the honorable way out. More like the kicking and screaming and “I’ll rat out all the others if you spare me” type.

13

If I may be allowed to tell a joke (I’ll put it in a spoiler box for those that might want to skip it): [spoiler]An Englishman, a Frenchman, and an American crash their plane on a remote island. They are immediately captured by the natives, known cannibals.

The cannibal chief speaks some English (and so does the French guy), so they are able to communicate. He offers the captives a choice: You may die honorably by your own hand, in which case we will bury your remains with respect, or, if you resist, we will kill you ourselves, feast upon your flesh, and make a canoe from your tanned hide.

The Englishman steps forward and requests a sword. He falls upon it with a stiff upper lip, and the natives are impressed.

The Frenchman says, “Un pistolet, s’il vous plait.” They give him his gun and he shoots himself without complaint. The natives say he was honorable.

The American asks for a fork. Mystified, the chief hands him the requested flatware. The American begins stabbing himself all over, saying, “Here’s your f’ing canoe!”[/spoiler]

14

Google fails me but I recall reading many years ago an important Nazi (maybe as a result of the Valkyrie plot) was taken to a prison and requested a pistol “for personal use” and a moment of privacy. They told him to go ahead but be quick about it.

15

You may be thinking of Ludwig Beck. He attempted to kill himself after he was arrested but he survived his self-shooting. He was then shot and killed by another soldier.

16

This option was offered to captain Dreyfus at the beginning of the famous affair.

17

He was also not a Nazi, incidentally.

18

The captain of the Concordia is apparently in trouble for not doing something similar.
The captain of the Bounty replica went down with his ship during Hurricane Sandy.

So it seems the maritime rules still have a similar idea..
Indeed the the Captain of the Graf Spay shot himself , while onshore in a “neutral” port of Monte Video , when he found out he had been tricked into scuttling his pocket battleship , he was tricked by the news services into believing he was facing a far superior force, Actually there were just the three destroyers or less, and they weren’t 3 British Navy, it was one UK, one NZ and one Australian .

19

R. Budd Dwyerwas a Pennsylvania State Senator. He was convicted of receiving a bribe from an accounting firm trying to get a multimillion-dollar contract with the state. In 1987 he called a press conference the day before sentencing; whereupon he shot himself in the head and killed himself. He maintained his innocence to the very end. In 2010 a film was made about the incident where William Smith (the witness whose testimony was critical to Dwyer’s conviction) said he lied under oath to get a lighter sentence.

***OK, I guess the above story doesn’t quite qualify for the OP since no one actually handed him the revolver, but It’s interesting nonetheless.

20

It seems there are as many who killed themselves to avoid what they saw as a less honorable punishment, as opposed to avoiding a trial altogether.

Herman Goering took poison rather than being hanged.

And there are others who kill themselves after being accused. But generally it’s not accurate to say that someone makes them an offer of suicide as an option – they think of it themselves.