But every country does think of doing it. In fact, pretty much every country does engage in espionage, especially in wartime. So capital punishment for spies isn’t exactly a deterrent, neither for the spies nor for the countries that employ them.
From what I remember of the Geneva Convention, donning the uniform of the enemy is acceptable.
Ah, here I go. Half right:
Use of Enemy Property
Combatants may wear enemy uniforms (for example, to infiltrate) but cannot fight in them.
Military personnel not wearing their uniform lose their PW status if captured and risk being treated as spies.
Well, the Battle of the Bulge was a case of immediate emotionalism during a time of high stress, and probably a response to the Malmedy Massacre as opposed to general policy. Note that the Malmedy Massacre occurred on Dec. 17th and the men executed in your link were killed on Dec. 23rd. It’s questionable whether those men were true “spies” or assassins (if the rumor they were sent after Eisenhower is true) or just part of the false flag/ sabotage efforts of Operation Greif.
However, nations have had a long-standing policy of executing spies, even supposedly enlightened nations. The case of Major Andre, for example.
I’ve never been comfortable with the idea, personally. But I recognize that it’s been common practice.
But it is a deterrent. Not everyone is doing it. Only a few trained pro’s are sent over and they know the ramifications of being caught are dire.
If the worst possible punishment was prison camp then an enemy might send numerous teams of spies in the theory that just a few would need to be unseen and provide useful information. A spy would not even be putting their life in danger at that point since they typically would be unarmed and just surrender if caught. Scores of people would volunteer to spy as it would be a pretty risk free job compared to open combat.
Similarily, if a allied person worked in any position where they could sell sensitive secrets to an enemy for lots of $$$, and the worst they would get is prison, they are more likely to do it then if they know that being caught means death.
Actually, that makes a lot of sense and just may point to the answer of my OP (especially when taken in conjunction with some of the earlier replies, e.g. those from psychonaut and Chronos.
They were accused of spying for Taiwan, which China regards as a “renegade province”, so the option of sending them back to Taiwan was there.
And Andre was shot, at least in part, in response to the British execution of Nathan Hale, whose statue still stands outside CIA HQ in Langley: Nathan Hale - Wikipedia
The U.S. executed German saboteurs and spies captured during WWII, as well: Operation Pastorius - Wikipedia
Is that really the case now? It certainly wasn’t the case in World War II, where it was the norm for spies to be incompetent, poorly trained, and disloyal. For example, with the single exception of one who committed suicide, every single German spy in Britain, both those sent from Germany and those recruited by German agents in Britain, was either quickly captured after committing elementary mistakes or voluntarily surrendered himself to the authorities; many of these ended up freely working for the British government as double agents without coercion.
I think the same can be said of most or all of the spies Germany sent to America during the war: in Operation Pastorius and Operation Elster, a third of the spies, realizing how out of their league they were, abandoned their mission and defected immediately upon arriving.
Scores of people did volunteer to spy. In America alone there were at least 43 German spies—10 sent from Germany and 33 recruited locally among immigrants and naturalized citizens. All were captured, and only a small minority were executed.
Did they come from Taiwan in the first place? The article doesn’t mention this.