May 27, 1857 - Max Hödel
His failed shots at Kaiser Wilhelm I on May 11, 1878 nonetheless reverberated far beyond what his aim could accomplish — Bismarck exploited the attempt to push through the Anti-Socialist Laws, reshaping German political life for over a decade. Hödel arrived at radicalism through a circuitous path: recruited as a Social Democratic informant against anarchists, he was gradually converted by the very ideas he had been sent to monitor. At twenty-one, he went to the guillotine apparently untroubled, closing his life with a letter signed in solidarity with the Paris Commune.
From Wikipedia
Emil 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 Social Democratic Party, 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.
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