Rejali shows that the Gestapo was content to beat or maim; it was in France that Vichy interrogators mastered stealth electro-torture. Similarly, the Soviet Union practiced classic scarring techniques, but for one notable exception: the Stalinist show trials.
Even electro-torture first surfaced in American jails in the 1920s.
In these years, the gegene--a hand-cranked generator, once the symbol of French electro-torture in Algeria--becomes the most celebrated torture device.