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
Josef Balabán that had been organized by former army officers. Beginning in the summer of 1939 he was one of the leaders of the organization. Together with Josef Mašín and Václav Morávek, Balabán was part of the group known as the Three Kings ("Tři králové"), which carried out intelligence gathering and sabotage. The group continued in communication with Paul Thümmel (agent A-54), a Nazi intelligence officer also working as a spy for Czechoslovakia. The most visible acts of sabotage were two bomb attacks carried out in Berlin: one in January 1941 against the Ministry of Air Travel ("Reichsluftfahrtministerium") and police headquarters, and