Josef Jakobs

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Tower of London

Josef Jakobs (born June 30, 1898 in Luxembourg , † August 15, 1941 in London ) was a German spy in World War II and the last person to be executed in the Tower of London .

Life

Jakobs, who was born as a German citizen in Luxembourg, served in the German infantry during World War I and rose to the rank of lieutenant there. In June 1940 he was first drafted as a lieutenant in the Second World War. When it became known that Jakobs had previously committed a criminal offense and had served in prison in Switzerland from 1935 to 1937 , he had to quit his service as an officer. After his demotion to sergeant , he was transferred to the Wehrmacht's meteorological service . He also worked for the Wehrmacht's espionage department .

On the night of January 31st to February 1st, 1941 Josef Jakobs jumped with a parachute from an airplane launched in Amsterdam over British soil. He broke his right ankle and leg. He was found unable to walk in a field near the small town of Ramsey in what was then the county of Huntingdonshire , arrested and taken to prison in Brixton , London . Among other things, he had fake identity papers, British cash and a radio transmitter with him. The counterintelligence of the British Army first checked whether Jakobs could be used as a double agent.

After a decision against such a use had been made, Josef Jakobs was tried on August 4, 1941, before a military tribunal in Chelsea that was held in secret and closed to the public , and on August 5, under the Treachery Act , an anti-espionage law passed in 1940, he was tried for espionage in favor of the enemy Found guilty and sentenced to death by shooting. He himself had pleaded not guilty. After the verdict, Jakobs was taken to the Tower of London for unknown reasons, where Rudolf Hess was also imprisoned at the time. Jakobs unsuccessfully submitted a pardon to King George VI. where he claimed he wanted to defection to the UK to fight the Nazis. He asked for the death sentence to be suspended until the end of the war so that he could then prove his innocence.

On the morning of August 15, 1941, Josef Jakobs was executed in the Tower of London by an eight-man firing squad from the Scots Guards . Because he could not stand because of his broken bones in his right leg, is bound him for his shooting sitting on a chair. This chair was one of the exhibits at a public exhibition in the Tower in 2004. As a Catholic , Jakobs was buried in an unmarked grave in St. Mary's Catholic cemetery in Kensal Green .

literature

  • Michael Powell: Last execution in the Tower of London. In: Michael Powell: Curious Events in History. Sterling Publishing, New York 2008, ISBN 978-1402-763-076 , pp. 122-125. (English)
  • Simon Akstinat : Death in the Tower. In: Simon Akstinat: Test your general education - oh yes !? Fascinating facts. Original edition, Humboldt, Baden-Baden 2004, ISBN 3-89994-018-0 , p. 148.
  • Daniel Diehl, Mark P. Donnelly: The Weatherman: Josef Jakobs. In: Daniel Diehl, Mark P. Donnelly: Tales from the Tower of London. Stroud, Sutton 2004, ISBN 0-7509-3496-4 , pp. 186-192, 198. (English)
  • Leonard Sellers: Shot in the Tower. The story of the spies executed in the Tower of London during the First World War. Cooper, London 1997, ISBN 0-85052-553-5 , p. 179. (Note: While the main part of the book deals with eleven spies who were shot in the Tower of London during World War I, the execution of Josef Jakobs in an appendix.)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,1185883,00.html Deutsche Welle April 30, 2004, accessed September 6, 2009
personal data
SURNAME Jakobs, Josef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German spy; last person executed in the Tower of London
DATE OF BIRTH June 30, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Luxembourg
DATE OF DEATH August 15, 1941
Place of death London