THE TERRIBLE EXECUTION OF FRANCIS IS JOHANNES WINTER FOR HIS CRIME COMMITTED AS A NAZI SPY 1942..
Franciscus Johannes Winter - a Nazi spy.
He arrived in Britain aboard a British registered ship on the 31st of July, 1942, claiming refugee status and was thus interviewed by security staff.
Winter told them that he had escaped from occupied Belgium and made his way across France and on into Spain where he was arrested and imprisoned in a concentration camp. He was released after several weeks and made contact with the British Embassy who assisted him in getting a passage to the UK. When he arrived in Britain he was immediately detained and questioned by immigration authorities.
He was searched and found to have £100 worth of British, American, French, Belgian and Spanish currencies on him. He told his interviewers that he wanted to join the Free Belgian Force. He would later admit that his story was “a pack of lies” and that his real motive was to report on the movements of military convoys, using invisible ink on letters to be sent to his German spy masters.
He was convicted of espionage at the Old Bailey on the 4th of December, 1942 under the terms of the Treachery Act of 1940, before Mr. Justice Humphreys sitting with a jury. His appeal was heard before the Lord Chief Justice, sitting with Justices Cassells and Tucker on the 11th of January, 1943 and was dismissed.
At about 8 o’clock on on Tuesday the 26thof January a military staff car arrived at Wandsworth and a senior officer and civilian went into the prison. They left again soon after 9.00 a.m. Winter was hanged at Wandsworth by Albert Pierrepoint and Henry Critchell.
Winter was a small man, standing 5’ 1” tall and weighing 145 lbs. so Albert gave him a drop of 7’ 8”. The notice of execution was signed by the Under Sheriff for London and the Roman Catholic Chaplain of Wandsworth. Winter was the only spy executed during 1943.
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