Max Reichpietsch
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Max Reichpietsch (German pronunciation: [ˈmaks ˈʁaɪ̯çpiːtʃ]; 24 October 1894 – 5 September 1917) was a German sailor executed in 1917 for socialist agitation in the Imperial German Navy.[1]
Born in the town of Charlottenburg into a family of New Apostolic Christians, he joined the navy as a volunteer in 1912 and served on the battleship SMS Friedrich der Grosse during World War I. He took part in the bloody Battle of Jutland and, like his comrades, suffered from poor catering and harassments on the part of the naval officers.
In the summer of 1917, Reichpietsch became one of the leaders of a revolutionary 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 on 26 August 1917 as the "main ringleader", along with Albin Köbis 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 the Wahner Heide proving ground near Cologne, on 5 September 1917.
