I recently watched the TV-show "The Americans" where an execution scene was shown in a way that I have never seen before. The show is about spies during the cold war. In the scene the Russians deliver a death sentence and then immediately shoot the prisoner in the back of her head without her even realizing what was coming.
Today I read an article that said that the German Democratic Republic secretly performed "Unexpected Pot-Shots", similar to what can be seen on the show. It was considered to be more humane. However, I could not find any sources that say that other nations, for example Russia, did that too.
So my question is: Did the Germans invent that or did they steal it from somewhere? Maybe Russia? Are there reports about this execution method being performed before? Maybe by someone else?
In German that method is called "Unerwarteter Nahschuss" which literally would be something like "unexpected near shot".