The first example that I can find of it in print is in the US newspaper The Indiana Herald, January 1858: The expression can't have been very widely used at that time though - several newspaper of the day reported the expression 'heads will roll' to have been coined by Hitler - hardly a mistake they would have made if they had been familiar with it. However, Hitler was far from the first to use the phrase, which had been in use for almost a century in 1930. Then decapitated heads will roll in the sand." "If our movement is victorious there will be a revolutionary tribunal which will punish the crimes of November 1918.
He did indeed make such a threat, which was widely reported in British and American newspaper, as in this citation from the English newspaper The Daily Herald, September 1930: 'Heads will roll' is widely thought to have been first uttered by Adolf Hitler. Sadly, there isn't one and the earliest uses of the phrase come much later. It would be nice to be able to present a use of the expression that dates from the time of the French Revolution or Tudor England. The phrase 'heads will roll' came about, of course, as an allusion to decapitated heads rolling after execution by guillotine or axe. What's the origin of the phrase 'Heads will roll'?
The expression 'heads will roll' is the promise or prediction that people responsible for some failure or disaster will be dismissed or otherwise held to account.
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