Max Reichpietsch - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Max Reichpietsch was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

sailor executed in 1917 for socialist agitation in the German Navy

German Navy

The German Navy is the navy of Germany and is part of the unified Bundeswehr .The German Navy traces its roots back to the Imperial Fleet of the revolutionary era of 1848 – 52 and more directly to the Prussian Navy, which later evolved into the Northern German Federal Navy...

. He joined the navy as a volunteer in 1912 and served on the battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

Friedrich der Grosse. In the summer of 1917, he became one of the leaders of a movement among the sailors in the Imperial fleet whose complaints about food and other conditions soon developed into agitation against the war. He was arrested and condemned to death by a court martial in Wilhelmshaven

Wilhelmshaven

Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea.-History:...

on 26 August 1917 as the "main ringleader", along with Albin Köbis

Albin Köbis

Albin Köbis was a German sailor executed in 1917 for Marxist agitation in the Imperial German Navy. He enlisted as a volunteer in 1912 and served on the battleship Prinzregent Luitpold...

and three other sailors. The sentences on the other three were commuted to penal servitude, but Reichpietsch and Köbis were executed by firing squad at Wahnerheide in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, on 5 September 1917.

These executions were denounced as "naval judicial murders" by antiwar politicians and newspapers, and helped trigger the antiwar and socialist mutinies in the Navy

Wilhelmshaven mutiny

The Kiel mutiny was a major revolt by sailors of the German High Seas Fleet on 3 November 1918. The revolt triggered the German revolution which was to sweep aside the monarchy within a few days. It ultimately led to the end of the First World War and to the establishment of the Weimar Republic.-...

in 1918, which led to the collapse of the German monarchy

German Revolution

The German Revolution was the politically-driven civil conflict in Germany at the end of World War I, which resulted in the replacement of Germany's imperial government with a republic...

. This has made Reichpietsch and Köbis heroes of the German socialist movement ever since.

After World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the name of the Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

street on which the German Navy headquarters was located was changed from Tirpitzufer (after Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz

Alfred von Tirpitz

Alfred von Tirpitz was a German Admiral, Secretary of State of the German Imperial Naval Office, the powerful administrative branch of the German Imperial Navy from 1897 until 1916. Prussia never had a major navy, nor did the other German states before the German Empire was formed in 1871...

) to Reichpietschufer in honour of Max Reichpietsch, and a nearby street was named Köbisstrasse. There is also a Max-Reichpietsch-Platz in Kiel

Kiel

Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...

, and streets named Reichpietschstrasse in Cologne

Cologne

and Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

.

A television play about the case, Marinemeuterei 1917, was shown on West German

West Germany

West Germany is the common English, but not official, name for the Federal Republic of Germany or FRG in the period between its creation in May 1949 to German reunification on 3 October 1990....

television in 1969, directed by Hermann Kugelstadt and starring Karl-Heinz von Hassel as Reichpietsch and Dieter Wilken as Köbis.

See also