Carl Hans Lody, alias Charles A. Inglis (20 January 1877 – 6 November 1914; name occasionally given as Karl Hans Lody), was a reserve officer of the Imperial German Navy who spied in the United Kingdom in the first few months of the First World War.

In May 1914, two months before the start of World War I, Lody was approached by German naval intelligence officials. He agreed to be a peacetime spy in southern France, but after war broke out, in late August he was sent to the United Kingdom with orders to spy on the Royal Navy. Lody had been given no training in espionage, and within only a few days of arriving he was detected by the British authorities. The British counter-espionage agency MI5, then known as MO5(g), allowed him to continue his activities in the hope of learning more about the German spy network. His first two messages were allowed to reach the Germans, but later messages were stopped, as they contained sensitive military information. At the start of October 1914, concern over the increasingly sensitive nature of his messages prompted MO5(g) to order his arrest.

Lody was put on public trial – the only one held for a German spy captured in the UK in either world war – before a military court in London. He was convicted and sentenced to death after a three-day hearing. Four days later, on 6 November 1914, Lody was shot at dawn by a firing squad at the Tower of London in the first execution there in 167 years.

When the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933, it declared him a national hero. Lody became the subject of memorials, eulogies and commemorations in Germany before and during the Second World War. A destroyer bore his name.

Carl Hans Lody was born in Berlin on 20 January 1877. His father was a lawyer in government service who served as mayor of Oderberg in 1881. The Lody family subsequently moved to Nordhausen, where they lived at 8 Sedanstrasse (today Rudolf-Breitscheid-Strasse). Lody's father served as deputy mayor there in 1882 but died in June 1883 after a short illness and his mother died in 1885. He was fostered for a time by a couple in Leipzig before entering the orphanage of the Francke Foundations in nearby Halle.

Lody began an apprenticeship at a grocery store in Halle in 1891, before moving to Hamburg two years later to join the crew of the sailing ship Sirius as a cabin boy. He studied at the maritime academy in Geestemünde, qualifying as a helmsman, and immediately afterwards served with the Imperial German Navy for a year between 1900 and 1901. Subsequently joining the First Naval Reserve, he enlisted as an officer on German merchant ships. In 1904 he returned to Geestemünde, where he successfully obtained a captain's licence. He fell seriously ill with what he later said was a stomach abscess, "caused from a very badly cured typhoid attack of fever from which I suffered in Italy on account of the bad water at Genoa." An operation was required, which weakened his left arm and his eyesight. As Lody put it, "Consequently, my career as a seaman was closed as soon as I discovered that, and my doctor told me that I could not go any further."

Lody found alternative employment with the Hamburg America Line, which had inaugurated a personally guided tour service for wealthy travellers going from Europe to America. Lody became a tour guide responsible for looking after these clients, and in this capacity visited European countries, including Britain. During one such tour he met a German-American woman named Louise Storz, the 23-year-old adoptive daughter of a wealthy beer brewer, Gottlieb Storz of Omaha, Nebraska. Louise's tour included several European countries, including Germany; by its conclusion she and Lody were engaged. After visiting Lody's family in Berlin, the couple travelled to the United States. They were married on 29 October 1912 in what the Omaha Daily Bee described as "a 'society' wedding":

The home was beautifully decorated with chrysanthemums, palms and ferns. The ceremony and the details that preceded it were elaborate. About seventy-five guests attended. After an extended western honeymoon tour Mr. and Mrs. Lody established a residence at the Clarinda.