Albin Köbis (18 December 1892 – 5 September 1917) was a German sailor executed in 1917 for incitement to rebellion in the

Imperial German Navy The Imperial German Navy or the Imperial Navy () was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy (from 1867 the North German Federal Navy), which was mainly for coast defence. Kaise ...

Life

Köbis was born in

Reinickendorf Reinickendorf () is the twelfth borough of Berlin. It encompasses the northwest of the city area, including the Berlin Tegel Airport, Lake Tegel, spacious settlements of detached houses as well as housing estates like Märkisches Viertel. Subdi ...

which was incorporated into Berlin in 1920. He worked as a mechanic and as a sailor on merchant ships until he enlisted as a volunteer in 1912. In the

he served as a stoker on the battleship '' Prinzregent Luitpold''. In the summer of 1917, he became one of the leaders of a movement among 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 for incitement to rebellion on 26 August 1917 as a main ringleader along with Max Reichpietsch and three other sailors. The sentences on the other three were commuted to penal servitude, but Köbis and Reichpietsch were executed by firing squad on 5 September 1917. These executions were denounced as naval judicial murders by Marxist politicians and newspapers, and helped trigger the Naval Mutinies of 1918, which led to the German Revolution of 1918–1919. This has made Köbis and Reichpietsch heroes of the German socialist movement.

Commemoration

After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

the name of a street in Berlin-Tiergarten was renamed Köbisstrasse. File:Grabmal Köbis Reichpietsch 2012 092.JPG, Monument for Albin Köbis and Max Reichpietsch, military cemetery Wahner Heide near Cologne File:Stamps of Germany (DDR) 1967, MiNr 1309.jpg, GDR stamp File:Albin Köbis ship, 1952 (5).JPG, MY Albin Köbis served as the presidential yacht of the German Democratic Republic File:Impressionen von der 22. Hansesail 2012 (7764217534).jpg, Gaff-ketch Albin Köbis A television play about the case, ''Marinemeuterei 1917'', was shown on West German television in 1969, directed by

Hermann Kugelstadt Hermann Kugelstadt (1912–2001) was a German screenwriter and film director.Von Dassanowsky p.171 In the 1950s he directed a number of productions in the popular heimatfilm tradition. During the 1960s he switched to television work. Selected f ...

and starring Dieter Wilken as Köbis and

Karl-Heinz von Hassel Karl-Heinz von Hassel (8 February 1939 – 19 April 2016) was a German actor. He appeared in more than 100 films and television shows between 1960 and 2012. Born in Hamburg, he trained for a business career and also took acting lessons. Fro ...

as Reichpietsch.Marinemeuterei 1917
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References

* Herwig, Holger H. (1977). Das Elitecorps des Kaisers, Hamburg: Hans Christians Verlag * Horn, D. ed. (1967), War, Mutiny and Revolution in the German Navy – The World War I Diary of Seaman Richard Stumpf, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press *Merkl, Tanja (2018)
Köbis und Reichpietsch, renitente, enttäuschte Seeleute oder Rebellen für das Streben nach Frieden und Gerechtigkeit?
58. Historisch -Taktische Tagung der Marine 2018 * Offenstadt, Nicolas (2022). Die „Roten Matrosen“ von 1917. In: Emmanuel Droit und Nicolas Offenstadt (eds.), Das rote Erbe der Front. Der Erste Weltkrieg in der DDR. De Gruyter Oldenbourg 2022, pp. 117-164 * Regulski, Christoph (2014). Lieber für die Ideale erschossen werden als für die sogenannte Ehre fallen – Albin Köbis und Max Reichpietsch und die deutsche Matrosenbewegung 1917, Wiesbaden: Marix-Verlag *Sewell, Sara Ann (2009)
Mourning Comrades: Communist Funerary Rituals in Cologne during the Weimar Republic
German Studies Review 32 (3), 527–548 *Wissenschaftliche Dienste des Deutschen Bundestags (2017)
Rechtskraft von Urteilen der kaiserlichen Militärjustiz. Die Todesurteile gegen Reichpietsch und Köbis im Sommer 1917
Ausarbeitung WD 7-3000 -116/17 {{DEFAULTSORT:Kobis, Albin German sailors Imperial German Navy personnel of World War I 1892 births 1917 deaths Executed people from Berlin People from the Province of Brandenburg 20th-century executions by Germany People executed by Germany by firing squad Executed military personnel People executed by the German Empire People executed for mutiny German military personnel killed in World War I

Life

Commemoration

See also

References

Further reading