The last person to face the axe—well, actually, a military firing squad—was a German spy named Josef Jakobs. He parachuted into England in 1941 during World War II, landing smack in the middle of a field. He was captured almost immediately, partly because he’d broken his ankle on the way down. Ouch.
Jakobs wasn’t a flashy James Bond villain; he was a bit of a clumsy spy, carrying a radio, fake cash, and some secret codes. He was taken to the Tower of London, put on trial for espionage, and sentenced to death. And on August 15, 1941, he was shot by a firing squad on the Tower’s rifle range.
Picture this: a cold morning, eight soldiers, and a man tied to a chair because of his broken ankle. It’s both grim and strangely undramatic compared to the axe-wielding tales of Henry VIII’s wives. But that’s what makes it fascinating—it’s the quiet, forgotten end of a very loud tradition.
