Theodore Schurch

Theodore William John Schurch (born May 5, 1918 in London , † January 4, 1946 in London) was a British soldier of Swiss origin who was executed as a spy in 1946 . He was the last person executed in Britain not as a murderer but for some other crime.

Life

Theodore Schurch was born to a Swiss man living in London in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London. In the mid-1930s he became a member of Oswald Mosley's fascist party, the British Union of Fascists . On July 8, 1936, he was accepted as a driver in the Royal Army Service Corps of the British armed forces . In June 1942 he was captured by the Germans at the Battle of Tobruk (see also Company Theseus ) and then began to work for the German and Italian secret services . In order to gain the trust of Allied prisoners of war , he posed as a fellow prisoner, among others to Colonel David Stirling , the founder of the Special Air Service .

Schurch was captured by British troops in Rome in March 1945 and convicted in September 1945 by a court martial at the Duke of York's Headquarters in Chelsea . He was found guilty of 9 high treason and desertion and sentenced to death . As one of three British soldiers, he was convicted for Treachery under the Treachery Act of 1940 (the conviction for Treason under the Treason Act of 1695 was common until World War II ).

Theodore Schurch was hanged in Pentonville Prison in Islington , London on January 4, 1946 . The death sentence was carried out by the executioner Albert Pierrepoint .

Web links

• Trial of Theodore Schurch (English)