Josef Jakobs

Josef Jakobs was the final person to be executed in the Tower of London. He was a German spy found guilty of spying on the British in 1941 and was shot by a firing squad in August of that same year.

Jakobs was a German citizen born in Luxembourg on 30th June 1898 to Kasper Jakobs and Emma Lück. He had two sisters called Maria and Therese. In 1905 the Jakobs moved to Berlin. When the First World War began, Jakobs enlisted but, due to health issues, was discharged. However he rejoined in 1916 and was wounded in France in 1918. After the war he studied dentistry in Berlin. In 1924 he opened a practise. Josef Jakobs married a fellow dentist- Margarete Knöffler-  in May, 1924. They had four children; the first was sadly a stillborn, the second was a son called Norbert who passed away in 1963, they had a daughter named Regine who died in 1946 aged just 15 years old and finally a son called Raymond who is currently still alive. Margarete died in 1971. Jakobs and his wife were forced to close their dentistry practise in 1932 because of an economic crisis. Two years later he and a friend went to Switzerland with a plan to sell fake gold. The Swiss authorities arrested them. According to Jakobs, he was imprisoned in Switzerland and was released in 1937. After being released he travelled back to Germany and began dealing in Blackmarket post ports. Again he was arrested by the authorities but this time he was sent to a Cooncerntration Camp. He was released in 1940. We do not know how he came to working as a spy for the Nazis because he gave various stories but in 1941 he parachuted from an aeroplane into a field and was found the next day by two farmers with a broken ankle.

He was hospitalised from early February until April where he was interrogated by the British forces. All the information that is shown in the previous paragraph is information that Jakob gave the interviewers about his personal life. When he was tried by the military court on 4th and 5th August 1941, he was found guilty of spying and sentenced to death.

On 15th August 1941, he was taken to a miniature rifle range in the grounds of the Tower. Jakobs was then blindfolded and a white cotton target was placed over his heart. At 7:12 am, the firing squad shot him in unison. He died instantly. He was buried in an unmarked grave in St Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery in London.