This photo presents good view of the entire fallbeil with the all-metal frame and mechanism. Only the bascule and support "table" of the machine are made of wood. The metal "sledge", a sort of gliding frame to which the blade is attached, is shaped like and upside down "U" and comes to rest at the base of the tracks in two boxes stuffed with felt and leather, thus dampening the impact of the 68 kg "drop axe". A winch with a hand crank (Laying on the floor under the machine) and a rope are used to raise the blade assembly. The condemned stepped on the footrest before being strapped, with two leather belts, to the cradle-shaped bascule. The upper lunette board was held open by a simple pin on a chain and the release was a vertical lever arm tilting the big curved "hook" which can be seen going through the hole in the top of the blade.

This machine type was designed by clockmaker Johann Mannhardt in 1854 and this particular one operated through 1945. It was used in Munich by both Franz Xaver and Johann Reichhart and probably two executioners before them. The photo was most likely taken in 1924 in the courtyard of the Regensberg Prison. The man on the right, holding the lunette pin, has been identified as Johann Reichhart but is in fact his assistant, Huber. The man in the top hat, at the execution lever, is actually Johann. The picture is almost certainly staged and may have been taken to commemorate Johann's nomination as chief-executioner. The third man would be Donderer, the assistant who got Reichhart into trouble by getting a side job demonstrating a mock fallbeil at a wax museum in Munich.

