In 1906 an ex-convict named Wilhelm Voigt living pulled off one of the most audacious heists in European history. After cobbling together a realistic looking Captain’s uniform, he convinced ten German soldiers to follow his commands and help him rob a townhall in the Berlin suburb of Köpenick. The heist played like a perfect piece of satirical theatre that revealed uncomfortable truths about Imperial German society.  After his arrest Wilhelm Voigt was celebrated as a folk hero all around the country. All the German papers agreed that the caper had been hilarious, but they just couldn’t agree on who had been the butt of the joke. Tune-in and find out how sleepy cops, 4000 marks, and the worlds most embarrassed mayor all play a role in the story. 

Works Cited

Bolt, Roelf. The Encyclopaedia of Liars and Deceivers. Chicago University Press, Chicago, 2014.

Hett, Benjamin Carter. “The ‘Captain of Köpenick’ and the Transformation of German Criminal Justice, 1891-1914.” Central European History, vol. 36, no. 1, 2003, pp. 1–43. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4547270.

Schneider, Jeffrey. “The Captain of Köpenick and the Uniform Fantasies of German Militarism.” Central European History, vol. 55, no. 2, 2022, pp. 187–204.