Albin Köbis

Albin Köbis (18 December 1892 - 5 September 1917) was a German sailor executed in 1917 for socialist agitation in the German Navy. He joined the Navy as a volunteer in 1912 and served 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 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 antiwar politicians and newspapers, and helped trigger the antiwar and socialist mutinies in the Navy in 1918, which led to the collapse of the German monarchy. This has made Köbis and Reichpietsch heroes of the German socialist movement ever since. After World War II the name of a Berlin street near the German Navy headquarters was changed to Köbisstrasse in honour of Köbis.

A television play about the case, "Marinemeuterei 1917", was shown on West German television in 1969, directed by Hermann Kugelstadt and starring Dieter Wilken as Köbis and Karl-Heinz von Hassel as Reichpietsch. [ [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430338/ Marinemeuterei 1917] ]

References

ee also

*The German November Revolution
* fr Soldat fusillé pour l'exemple

Persondata
NAME=Köbis, Albin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=
SHORT DESCRIPTION=German sailor executed in 1917 for anti-war agitation
DATE OF BIRTH=December 18 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH=
DATE OF DEATH=September 5 1917
PLACE OF DEATH=Wahnerheide, Cologne