Max Hödel (27 May 1857 – 16 August 1878) was a German tinsmith and anarchist from Leipzig. He is best known for committing the Hödel assassination attempt on Kaiser Wilhelm I, one of the first instances of propaganda by the deed in history. Fatherless and raised in an environment of extreme poverty, Hödel began working as a tinsmith at the age of fifteen after running away multiple times and being publicly whipped for theft. He scraped by in this position before joining the newly founded Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (SAP), where he became a young cadre. Originally seeking to infiltrate anarchist groups to gather intelligence for his party, he found himself seduced by their ideas and gradually became increasingly aligned with anarchist positions. On 11 May 1878, Hödel carried out a plan to assassinate Kaiser Wilhelm I. Catching the Emperor during a public appearance, he stepped forward and fired three shots, missing every time. Arrested and violently beaten, Hödel was sentenced to death shortly after his capture, a fate that did not seem to trouble him excessively. After writing a final letter signed 'Long live the Commune!', he was executed.
Biography
Birth and youth Hödel, born in 1857 in Leipzig was fatherless. The illegitimate son of a mother who was a very young adult when he was born, he grew up in poverty. Hödel was raised for a time by his grandmother, then an uncle, before being taken back by his mother. At the age of 12, he was imprisoned for a day for fleeing his home; the following year, he ran away again and was placed in the Zeitz reformatory. He was also publicly whipped as a thief at age 13 and subsequently received a school certificate from his former school labeling him a 'confirmed thief'. Hödel became a tinsmith around the age of 15 and learned the trade quickly. He was dismissed from his apprenticeship after fighting with another tinsmith, sent back to the reformatory, then eventually certified and began practicing as a tinsmith in Leipzig, scraping by while moving between various homes belonging to different family friends. The young man then began to join the labour movement in his city. He joined the SAP, founded in 1875, and progressively climbed the ranks of the party's internal hierarchy. Bit by bit, he was entrusted with travel missions for the party, participated in numerous internal meetings, and no longer needed to work to support himself. He also sought to serve as a spy for the party, and it may be for this reason that he briefly joined the anarchist group organized by Reinsdorf in Leipzig.
While he began as a socialist, Hödel quickly moved toward anarchist positions following this encounter. During his fourth journey undertaken to conduct propaganda for his party in March 1878, he declared:We do not need a Kaiser, a King or any laws. Down with all of them, all must go, we want to be free. The state must be abolished and everyone should perform the same amount of labor.He reportedly also declared that the only way to carry out the revolution in Germany was to 'strike down all sovereigns'. At the same time, he attended anarchist meetings in the company of Emil Werner. These developments in Hödel's life, along with accusations of embezzling funds, led the SAP to expel him from its ranks upon his return to Leipzig. The anarchist briefly aligned himself with the National Liberals, who paid him to publish a smear piece against his former party, but his affiliation with them ended there.
Premises of his attack He set out for Berlin on 24 April 1878. Arriving in the city two days later after unexplained detours to Dresden and Magdeburg, which may have been for the purpose of raising money, he moved into 13 Stallschreiberstraße, renting a room from the widow Breiten. On 29 April, Hödel joined the conservative Christian Social Workers' Party (CSPA). He began attending party meetings in the following days, distributed their leaflets, and behaved like a devoted CSPA activist, according to his landlady. On 4 May, he went to a merchant named Weblis and bought a revolver for eight marks. Two days later, he went to a photographer and asked to have his picture taken and for as many copies as possible to be made, because within a week, 'his name would be known all over the world and his likeness would be in request wherever men took an interest in current affairs'. This indicates that the plan he was setting in motion was premeditated and that it is conceivable Hödel expected to die during the attack.
The Hödel assassination attempt
On Saturday, 11 May 1878, as was often the case, Kaiser Wilhelm I, who had been ruling Germany for seventeen years, was returning from the Tiergarten, where he had just spent part of his afternoon. The Kaiser was traveling up the Unter den Linden avenue in his carriage. Near number 7, opposite the Russian embassy, Hödel was waiting, his revolver loaded and ready to fire. When the Emperor passed by him, the anarchist tried to throw himself forward, as he was not in the front row. He took aim at his target and began to fire, extending his arm over the shoulder of Mrs. Julius Hauch, a shopkeeper who was at the front of the crowd. Hödel tried to push her, but she did not move, so he extended his arm to fire over her. However, she jostled him at the same moment, annoyed by his attempts to push her, which she attributed to a desire to see the Emperor more closely. This movement, which jolted Hödel as he fired, deflected his arm as he opened fire, and the first bullet was lost in the air. Dissatisfied with having missed, the anarchist acted quickly: he knocked Mrs. Julius Hauch unconscious with the pommel of his weapon and moved past her, approaching even closer to the Emperor. He then fired a second shot, which he missed, before jumping directly into the street. He fired once at one of his pursuers, then half-crouched to adjust a third and final shot at the Emperor. He missed this third shot as well. The assailant fled on foot after missing, while Wilhelm I ordered his chasseur to catch and arrest him. Hödel fired twice at his pursuers and fought some of them off but was ultimately apprehended by the crowd and the chasseurs. He was nearly beaten to death but was saved by Carl Reinhold Gustav Kroger, a worker who intervened and rescued him, an act that led to Kroger's arrest for complicity in the attack before he was later cleared during the judicial proceedings.
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