Josef Jakobs Josef Jakobs Josef Jakobs (30 June 1898 – 15 August 1941) was a German spy and the last person to be executed at the Tower of London. He was captured shortly after parachuting into the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Convicted of espionage under the Treachery Act 1940, Jakobs was shot by a military firing squad. He was not hanged because he was captured as an enemy combatant. Jakobs, who was a German citizen, was born in Luxembourg in 1898. During the First World War, he served in the German infantry, rising to the rank of "Leutnant", in
Karel Richard Richter Richter filed an appeal which was, after much discussion in the Security Service, rejected. Faced with his imminent execution, Richter wrote a letter to one of the MI5 officers: "You can rely upon it that I shall not be less brave than Jakobs; I too will know how to die, yet not as a Nazi spy on your gallows, but as a man." On 10 December 1941, Richter was hanged at Wandsworth Prison. A procedure that normally took around 15 seconds, took over 17 minutes. When Albert Pierrepoint, the executioner, entered Richter's cell to bind his wrists, Richter charged at