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 Jakobs, who was sent to Britain on 31 January 1941. Unlike Jakobs, who was to report on the weather in Britain, Richter had a very specific mission, to check on Wulf Schmidt, a German spy working out of Britain. The Germans suspected that Schmidt (known as Agent LEONHARD) had been turned into a double-agent by the British, which in fact he had, being known to the British as agent TATE. Richter parachuted into Britain on the early morning of 12 May 1941, landing near London Colney north of London. Richter quickly hid his parachute and equipment and spent the next